None Dare Call It Murder

The ridiculously light sentences received by the Haditha Marines, especially the three months of house arrest and the reduction in rank and pay received by the sergeant in charge, have outraged many in this country and in Iraq. One of the things I found peculiar was that, as far as I could determine, no one was prepared to call it murder. Most frequently it was called the killings, occasionally a massacre. For this type of event the word "killing" is almost a neutral term. We kill everything from insects to humans. We even kill time. The term "massacre" suggests killing indiscriminately. Some of these innocent people were killed at such close range they had powder burns from the gun that killed them. Some publications did say this represented "execution style" killing. Yet none were willing to call it murder. Why?

Aside from such legal niceties that "murder" might have a specific meaning, e.g. that murder consists of one person premeditatively killing another, I suggest that these light sentences are a consequence of the rampant militarism that has found a home in America. While the military has always been permitted to conduct its own trials of its members, the sentences of these soldiers have shown the ludicrousness of this exceptionalism. It may be said that military combat is so chaotic and the threat to life so high that civilians could not render an informed judgment. Hence these men would not face a jury of their peers. However, the same can be said of a police officer on a gang hit list or undercover DEA agents accused of wrongful killing, yet we try them in civilian courts. All of these light, to the point of absurdity, sentences reflect, in my view, the privileged position the military has come to occupy in current American culture.

To the above comparative observations there is the questionable process of sentencing. The military judge is an officer. Like other officers his situation and future are dependent upon the esteem he has in the eyes of his superiors. This fact puts significant pressure on the judge to conform to the wishes of these superiors. Can this explain the light sentences? It certainly would not hurt recruitment in a volunteer military. There is, in my judgment, a conflict of interest at work here. In other areas officers have been known to cover up, delay, or obfuscate crimes committed by others. Colin Powell and the My Lai massacre and the flat out lying in the Pat Tillman case come to mind. Should we expect less of these judge-officers?

Should the military be permitted to conduct its own trials? The practice appears to have arisen from the belief that military combat is so unique that only military personnel can be expected to render a fair verdict. Even more important, can a military judge, who is just another officer, be expected to impose a penalty that is not in concert with the views of superiors who have the power to influence his future? As I have indicated above, I think this is false. The fact that the military tends to deal lightly with the killing of innocent people so long as they are not American should give us great pause when we consider letting the military conduct its own trials. Further, we have used this separate legal system to try our enemies or presumed enemies, including, again, innocent people, e.g. Guantanamo and to permit torture.

That the military justice system has so obviously failed to serve the demands of justice and that it appears fraught with impediments to securing justice is bad enough. Given recent federal legislation, I suggest it now poses a direct threat to the American citizenry.

The 2012 Defense Authorization Act permits the military to indefinitely detain any U.S citizen at its own initiative. Presumably any further legal action would be conducted by a military tribunal as has been the case with Guantanamo detainees. In taking over a previously civil function the military continues to expand its role in the affairs of this country. There is a pathetic commentary to be found in the decline of American democracy when one notes that Egypt, new to democracy, has massive protests to get rid of military rule while the United States welcomes it. Fear, that highly emotional response to threat, real or fabricated, is the deadliest enemy of democracy. Democracy requires participative courage from its citizens or it perishes. In the end, a democracy must put its trust in the citizenry, not the military.

Bob Newhard

The Janus of Empire

January 24^th 2012 saw two hugely contrasting events that portray the sick, delusional militarism of this country.

One was President Obama's State of the Union speech in which his repeated effulgent praise of the military was strikingly noticeable. One line of that praise was "We gather tonight knowing that this generation of heroes has made the United States safer and more respected around the world." Respected?

The other was the final phase of the Hidatha massacre trials for the sergeant who ordered his men to shoot first and ask questions later as they burst into a dwelling and proceeded to kill children, one of whom was a toddler, women and men one of whom was a septuagenarian. Neither the sergeant nor his men, who pled that they were obeying their superior will serve any time in prison for their horrendous crime. The "superior order" defense did not work for the Nazi criminals in the Nuremberg Trials, but it does for American criminals. So much for the arrogance of empire. This was an act of vengeance pure and simple for an earlier roadside bomb that killed a member of the squad and wounded several others.

The glaring contrast between Obama's praise and the murders in Haditha reflects the profound rise of an uncritical militarism in this country.

After every war prior to World War II this country had disarmed. After World War II the military was not only kept intact, but began a life of increasing budgets. This nation was kept on a semi-wartime footing called the Cold War for forty-five years. Over two generations of Americans were raised under this continuing threat, including home bomb shelters and classroom drills in "duck and cover." When the Cold War finally ended there was no peace dividend. The military budget remained high while we went looking for other enemies that might justify this huge distorting expenditure for armaments. We attacked Panama because, it was said, its president was dealing in drugs. With the attack on the Twin Towers we finally had an enemy which, even though it was few in numbers, had no borders and was not a country. Nonetheless, we declared war on it. Even this was not enough to satisfy the lust for war. We attacked Iraq on the trumped up charge that it was preparing nuclear weapons to attack us. In all this long sad sequence Americans learned perpetual fear and their leaders learned to govern through that fear.

We are now in the process of militarizing our domestic law enforcement in flat contradiction to our Constitution. The passage of military technology through the Homeland Security Department to local police is now customary and the military has recently begun direct training exercises with local police in Los Angeles. We have again, in contradiction of our Constitution, given the military, per the National Defense Authorization Act, the right to detain any American citizen indefinitely without warrant or trial.

As all of this is in such sharp contrast to this nation's previous disposition toward the military, I sometimes wonder whether the American people were traumatized by the Cold War and the continuing threat it represented for so long a period that they became inured to the loss of freedom that threat imposes as people seek protection. Both Obama and G. W. Bush justified our presence in Afghanistan and Iraq as protecting us from terrorism. I submit that by our actions we have increased that threat by enhancing the recruitment power of the Taliban and other terrorist groups enormously and that we have spread a virulent anti-Americanism world wide. Contrary to Obama, we have not won respect. We have inculcated a widespread fear that has generated protests demanding that we leave Iraq and Afghanistan. I also suggest that fear and dislike of American influence was one element used by the Islamic Brotherhood to capture controlling power in Egypt and that we shall see increasing resistance to American influence in the Muslim world. Drone attacks generate fear, not respect and any respect paid to fear is always accompanied by hate. Democratically disposed groups in Egypt and Israel who could use our help can no longer seek it because we have so sullied our reputation by wanton aggression that these groups would experience backlash. The neocons laid out the plan for world domination. G. W. Bush and Barack Obama have carried it out. Now we reap the whirlwind.

If and until we get over this imperialism that identifies world domination with our national interest, things will only get worse and someone else will have to carry the banner of democracy, that is, if democracy is to survive. Recalling Dennis Kucinich's 2008 campaign plea "Wake up America," I strongly recommend Chalmers Johnson's book "The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic" to understand the connections between American imperialism, American militarism, and a failing American democracy. Chalmers notes that that as the Roman Empire grew larger and more complex the deliberative body, the Roman Senate, found that it could no long administer it. Eventually it passed its powers on to Octavian who became the first Emperor of Rome. In short, size matters if democracy is to function. There are significant similarities to this country's current state of affairs, as presidents engage in wars without consulting Congress and there has been a call for a "unitary" presidency. We are on the brink of losing our democracy. Does it really matter to this country's citizenry? Looking backward we see the consequences of empire for Rome. Looking at the present we are staring at the prospects for the future. Dennis Kucinich's call to America to "Wake up!" should be the loudest rallying cry of this election, especially for progressives.

Bob Newhard