One Old Soldier's Perspective [Diogenes]

So I take a bit of vacation for the Holiday and some congressional idiots shoot their mouths off in a video thinking they could replicate the BS that came from the “51 Intelligence Officers” memo. Bad move. I have listened to the video a couple of times and in typical political obfuscation, they tried to hide their message by stating what is obvious: “You members of the military do not have to obey illegal orders.” Well Duh! Every person who enlists in the military gets a class on the legality of orders in the first week, usually right after getting an arm full of shots. This is common knowledge among those who are serving and among those who have served. I am a veteran of three wars, two hot and one cold and in EVERY instance where I was taking my troops into harm's way, I made a point of verifying with my chain of command that this was a legitimate operation, and I passed that information to my soldiers. There was never any doubt in my chain of command.

But the Hill-dwellers video misses the mark in a horrible and vicious way. What it apparently seeks to do is create doubt and distrust among the members of the military towards both their Commander-in-Chief and against the officers appointed over them. Their comments were disloyal to America, the military, and dishonorable to the oaths they have supposedly taken to sit in the jobs they hold now.They have deliberately undermined the good order and discipline in the armed forces, all for political expediency.

But is what they said illegal?

I am no lawyer and already social and mainstream media are flooded with accusations and counter-accusations. There will be no surprise to the Horde what each side is thinking. I’ll leave it to the experts to decide just how serious this is, but where this crossed the line for me was including a direct reference to the current Administration. That, in my opinion, might not reach the level of sedition, but it certainly comes close to incitement of mutiny. MUTINY: As written in the UCMJ, “ Acting in concert with others, a service member refuses to obey orders…” But these congress-criters are not necessarily subject to UCMJ, but possibly can be prosecuted under “seditious libel” which targets anti-government speech. But the courts, probably rightly so vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment, are tough on this one. But the harm it has done now is to set up any Soldier, Sailor, Marine or Airman with a high speed trip to prison thinking they can do what their Senator or Representative has told them to do.

As mentioned, it will be up to others to decide what is going to happen…probably not much…but I’d give a lot to be on the jury for even one of these assho…errr…distinguished members of the Congress. 20 years in a SuperMax would be the minimum.

[Diogenes is a twenty year Army veteran and Military Intelligence Officer with an additional 20 years working in the Intelligence Community as a contractor and consultant. And he yells at kids to keep off his yard.]

posted by Open Blogger at 11:00 AM

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