First of all…
The standard argument, apparently, is that this is against the law, the UCMJ etc. I’ve heard all these arguments and dismiss them utterly.
Scheller recognizes that the law is not the final arbiter of right and wrong. That the morality of following immoral leaders is a larger question than the law can address. And I give him serious credit for it.
At this stage of the game, we have a pentagon full of people handpicked by Obama, Biden, and company.. people who are far more worried about advancing their military careers than they are about upholding the Constitution, and representing the United States of America.
The colonel here is having nothing of it and apparently recognizes that in his oath he swore to protect the Constitution and the United States against enemies both foreign and domestic. Whereas the Obama appointees seem to have no ability whatsoever to identify domestic enemies, the colonel doesn’t seem afflicted by that illness.
You see, to my mind the morality of the thing is the larger issue. Is following this arguably treasonous leadership, a moral act? The colonel came to his conclusion and I respect him for it.
The response I get from some is that he could have simply resigned. But if he had done that, the revelation of the misdeeds would have been buried by a press and a government that has proven itself untrustworthy.
The colonel is no dummy. He understood what the consequences were and took the position anyway. That’s called courage.
The kind of courage that Obama, Biden, and company weeded out of the Pentagon. People like these.
Retired Maj. Gen. Joe Arbuckle organized one public expression of this discontent. He told the Washington Examiner in a phone interview he wanted“accountability” because it is “one of the bedrock foundations of our military.” That’s why he believes Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley should resign.
“It’s to express our dissatisfaction with the way this has been handled and the catastrophic results that are coming from it,” he added, before noting the United States’s top priority should be making sure the Americans who were left behind can evacuate the country safely.
Arbuckle helped organize 88 retired generals and admirals to sign an open letter published by Flag Officers 4 America on Monday, coinciding with the U.S. final withdrawal from Afghanistan after the U.S. spent 20 years, billions of dollars, and thousands of lives.
Funny thing, Arbuckle here is saying precisely what I’ve been saying all along.
With our current situation there’s a hard question before those in uniform:
Is your loyalty to the country and to the people or to the leadership which brought this all about?
Respect for the uniform you see, is a two-way street. If you want those in uniform to respect it and keep a non-political position, maybe we ought to have politicians that respect the uniform.
Demonstrably, that’s something we lack at the moment, and I tell you that we will reap the rewards of it for decades to come.
And it isn’t like we weren’t warned about it.
As a parting shot, I wonder about the possibility of a court-martial. I doubt it. The leadership doesn’t want that kind of negative exposure. Facts would come out that they just as soon not have in the public eye. Which was always the point of this action in the first place.
(A tip of Bit’s ball cap to Glenn, from which I got the graphics). He has his own commentary, which is worth a read.)
