This week political silliness hit a new high, or low, depending on your point of view, and it wouldn’t be worth commenting on here except it involves the armed forces of the United States of America. A couple days ago an Army lieutenant colonel refused overseas deployment because he does not believe that President Obama is a natural-born citizen of the United States.
I’m not going to even get into how profoundly stupid the “birther” argument is, or suggest that the actions of Lieutenant Colonel Terry Larkin in any way constitute the tip of some sort of iceberg of seething political illiteracy in the military which constitutes a serious threat to discipline. What I will suggest is that it does raise the issue of politics in a military which is subordinate to civilian control. It’s not an easy issue. Citizen soldiers are citizens as well as soldiers, and citizenship in a democracy is political in the best sense of the word. Human beings cannot simply compartmentalize their lives into the soldier part and the citizen part, and yet on a certain level they have to try.
Here’s a link to a thoughtful column on the subject by Robert Bateman, a serving U.S. Army infantry officer, military historian, and West Point instructor, which addresses this very issue.
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In A Democracy, Politics and the Army Don't Mix : Great History · World News at PaperBoyo.com said:
[...] Politics and the Nation wrote an interesting post today. Here’s a quick excerptThis week political silliness hit a new high, or low, depending on your point of view, and it wouldn’t be worth commenting on here except it involves the armed forces of the United States of America. A couple days ago an Army lieutenant … [...]
April 15th, 2010 at 5:49 am
Gary Steele said:
What an awesome post and the article by Mr. Bateman hits the nail on the head. It doesn’t matter what your politics are, they have to be set aside if you choose military service. I think a good way to put it is that military service serves all citizens of all political stripes and must rely on the duly elected civilian leaders, regardless of whether or not you “believe” they should be leaders.
April 15th, 2010 at 11:44 am
In A Democracy, Politics and the Army Don't Mix : Great History said:
[...] rest is here: In A Democracy, Politics and the Army Don't Mix : Great History Related PostsObama to Announce High-Speed Rail Funding — Politics DailyJustice Stevens to [...]
April 15th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Mike said:
OUTSTANDING!!! Thank YOU, Sir. You have (partially) restored one old Ex-Grunt’s faith in the Officer Corps of the US Armed Forces. Please accept my old, infirm salute!
April 15th, 2010 at 11:49 pm
Frank Chadwick said:
Gary, thanks for joining the conversation and thanks for the kind words. This business of politics in the military is nothing new but ir merits periodic revisits. Not surprisingly, most folks on both sides of the political spectrum agree that LTCOL Larkin was way over the line and deserves the court martial currently in train. Sometimes just talking about this in public is a good way to make sure most of us are still on the same page.
April 17th, 2010 at 9:46 am
Sensemaker said:
It was an interesting article, and I certainly agree with the need for separation between army and politics. I am also under the impression that this separation seems to be eroded in the current climate -but I do not know enough about American politics to have a real opinion.
However, once again it seems like Americans imagine they are much more unique than they are.
“We who do the fighting for the nation swear our oath, unique among the armed forces of the nations, not to a king or to a political body or to a political leader. We swear an oath to a document and to the ideas contained therein. My oath is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, against all enemies, foreign and domestic. This demands consideration.”
The Finnish soldiers oath of allegiance also promises to protect the legal constitution of Finland. I suspect there are many other countries that do that.
Sensemaker
April 19th, 2010 at 4:05 am
Frank Chadwick said:
Sensemaker, thanks for joining the conversation. While I don’t doubt that a few armies swear an oath to their constitution instead of the nation itslef or its soveriegn — which makes Bateman’s claim not exactly correct today — I would be very surprised if that pre-dated the practice in the United States, and origin counts. The music of the Beatles was rooted in American R&B. The Beatles were a British band with a sound which reached people in almost every nation in the world, but that does not make R&B less essentially or uniquely American.
April 20th, 2010 at 10:45 am