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June 17, 2005
The Fruits of Defeat
Here is the reason I read Kevin Drum, despite disagreeing with him on basic principles: he can reason himself through to a correct conclusion. I don't care about the consequences of war outcomes on electoral outcomes in the US, but I care deeply about the consequences of war outcomes on the country's safety and freedom. And in this case, withdrawal would be a disaster. Drum sees that, and while his focus is on what that would do to elections here (rather than, say, the destruction of military and civilian morale and the then-inevitable rise of nuclear terrorism), he at least has the clarity to acknowledge it.
One more nudge towards the edge, and Kevin will be able to see that deliberately undermining the war effort, as so many on the left and a few on the right do, brings many kinds of disaster in its wake, and should therefore as a matter of national interest not be done.
UPDATE: Chris asks in the comments:
Ok... so what, in your view, constitutes "deliberately undermining the war effort?" Is any kind of critique of the way the war has been carried out allowed? Who decides what those boundaries are?
Those are excellent questions. First, who decides? For the obvious cases (treason, sedition, espionage, etc.), the legislatures must make those decisions, and the courts must enforce them. For other cases I mention below, it should be up to each individual's conscience, both as to whether to undermine the war effort, and how to deal with those who do. Here's a list of some things that I consider to be "deliberately undermining the war effort", and what to do about them.
Treason
This is defined by the Constitution: "Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court." This is a very limited definition in comparison to most countries prior to the US (and for that matter, in the more rabid fever swamps of the right wing - I'm looking at you, Ann Coulter). Note the requirement for an "overt Act". With that, there is no possibility of criticism, incitement or other verbal or printed words being treason. This does not mean that the United States has not faced treason in this war: we have, more than once.
What to do about treason? Make charges and put them in court. Any American citizen arrested anywhere in the world, and any non-citizen arrested in the United States while not committing an overt act of war, needs to be put before a judge. For traitors, the guidelines are pretty clear on what should happen. For non-citizens, the court should determine if the defendant could or could not be reasonably construed as an enemy combatant, and after that only executive authority (keeping in mind laws and treaties) has any bearing on such a person's treatment.
Sedition
Sedition is "Conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of a state." Sedition is a step down from treason, and involves not conducting war against the government, but attempting to undermine the government (in particular, in the US, the Constitution and the institutions it creates). I don't believe that there is currently a sedition act in US law. There needs to be. Specifically, incitement to war against the United States, interference with military officers or troops in the lawful performance of their duties, invasion and occupation of military facilities, incitement to desertion and similar acts should be punishable by law. Short of that, though, they certainly fall under the category of "bad ideas", below.
Espionage
Espionage is the unlawful giving of national security secrets to the enemy. In actual fact, we generally consider espionage to be the giving of any national security secrets to any foreign person or organization. This includes, but is not limited to, detailing the methods by which enemy prisoners are interrogated, which allows the enemy to come up with methods to resist such techniques; detailing the way in which captured enemy fighters are transported around the world, which helps the enemy to target those flights; and so forth. Even when it is journalists doing this, they should most assuredly be prosecuted (as should the leakers). Note that I did not include revealing the Abu Ghraib abuses in that list in any form; distasteful though the media frenzy over that was, that is not espionage but a bad idea (not the reporting; the frenzy).
Bad Ideas
In addition to the above, there are a number of things that are not crimes, but which help the enemy in major or minor ways. These are all matters of conscience, but people who want the US to actually, you know, win the war on terror, should refrain from these behaviors, and punish those who do not refrain (with professional censure, criticism, shunning, firing in certain cases, and so on).
These activities include trying to weaken border security, distributing enemy propaganda, execrable comparisons of US facilities to the worst labor and death camps; advocating cutting the pay of the troops (bad for morale); and so forth.
Bill Roggio has some more things to be avoided or embraced. While Bill's post focuses on the Democrats, I want to be clear that I don't give a damn about political identity, and there are people on the Right who are undermining the war effort as well.
And I should add that playing gotcha games on particular words, in an effort to embarrass political or military leaders, is maybe a bit unhelpful as well.
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Comments
Ok... so what, in your view, constitutes "deliberately undermining the war effort?" Is any kind of critique of the way the war has been carried out allowed? Who decides what those boundaries are?
Posted by: Chris at June 17, 2005 4:44 PM
Chris, these are good questions - too good to answer in the comments. So instead, I've decided to put my answer in the post itself.
Posted by: Jeff Medcalf ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.caerdroia.org/blog/nav-commenters.gif)
at June 17, 2005 6:08 PM
Not only is there nothing wrong with analyzing how we are fighting this war, but we need to do it so we can improve our performance. But this kind of critique is not what liberals are offering. The news media reporting only the negative while ignoring the positive; Democratic politicians likening our troops to Nazis; the endless screeching about "LIES"; harrassment of military recruiters on campus; the professoriate: "a million Mogadishus" "little Eichmans" etc; Michael Moore; Sean Penn saying America is a dictatorship; Robbin's "Embedded"; the inflation of civilian casualty figures; America is "fascist"; "it's another Vietnam" "it's a quagmire" "we're bogged down"; and so on and on and on. Endlessly proliferating.
None of that is a "critique of the way the war has been carried out." And it all undermines our effort to to defeat Islamic fundamentalist terrorism and emboldens the enemy by giving them the hope that America might give up.
Posted by: phil at June 18, 2005 8:13 AM
Please reinstate the italics tags and the bit about Durbin from my last post, or provide some reason why these should be removed. Thanks.
Posted by: Chris at June 18, 2005 2:37 PM
The italic tags were not rendered by MT - not sure why. I will have to check the config when I have time and see if there's a config problem. They're still in the raw comment, so once I figure that out they'll show up properly.
I have no idea what you mean about Durbin, since that's not in the raw post. Must have gotten cut on your end. Feel free to repost.
I don't have time to respond to your comment at the moment, but hopefully will get around to that some time tomorrow.
Posted by: Jeff Medcalf at June 18, 2005 9:43 PM
Yep, it was a problem with the GlobalSanitizeSpec. Should be fixed now.
Posted by: Jeff Medcalf at June 18, 2005 9:47 PM
I'll put up a more substantive response to this later today, but two things in the meantime:
1. However my bit about Durbin got cut, I believe Drum's post on the matter sums up my feelings nicely.
2. ...he said that the insurgency is in its last throes (not "throws")... - you were talking about "childish gotcha games?"
Posted by: Chris at June 19, 2005 12:20 PM
On the second, I wasn't trying to be cheap. It's just an occupational hazard of homeschooling boys who are learning to spell.
On Drum's point: there isn't really a historical analogy. We certainly haven't been this soft on enemy prisoners in the past, and I can't think of another country that has ever been this soft on enemy prisoners. So, the blank in Kevin's post doesn't really have a past analogy that's particularly accurate. Perhaps US treatment of Korean and Chinese regulars in the Korean war, but I don't think they got quite the level of forebearance we're extending to the jihadis, either. I know the Vietnamese captives did not, because we left them with the S. Vietnamese troops, who were less, um, delicate than we were.
Posted by: Jeff Medcalf at June 19, 2005 3:05 PM
Wait - I thought of a historical analogy. The treatment of officers (not ordinary men) during the Napoleonic wars was pretty decent - no torture, no policy of abuse. Though that treatment could get rather bad in a hurry if, say, the officer was caught attempting escape.
Ordinary men, on the other hand, ended up in about the same straits as the prisoners at Andersonville in the Civil War.
Posted by: Jeff Medcalf at June 19, 2005 3:07 PM
Here is a take on interrogation methods over time. I should note that the article reviews material since WWII. I have found, in earlier research, materials detailing summary executions, beatings, utter humiliation and worse used against the Germans in WWII. (The Japanese weren't trained to surrender, so they were not trained to resist, and we quickly found that the few Japanese we took prisoner would happily turn traitor if we treated them decently.)
You are correct: there is probably not much grounds for discussion. When people do something as simple as letting out information on the service history of POWs, it gets soldiers killed. This war may not be important to you - though I suspect from your writings that comes largely down to the fact that it is a Republican administration in office. So be it; but do not make the mistake of thinking that the jihadis agree with your conception of the war; they will as happily kill you as me, if they get the chance.
Posted by: Jeff Medcalf at June 19, 2005 10:37 PM
I think everyone would agree that it's the coach's job to win a football game. But when the announcers are telegraphing every third play, and the tight end is trying to surreptitiously break the quarterback's leg, I think it's fair to say that the coach's ability to win is somewhat compromised.
Posted by: Jeff Medcalf at June 20, 2005 9:25 AM