Refreshing the Tree of Liberty in America

W.J. Astore

How much blood will it take?

Why are progressives so powerless in America? Is there any hope for radical reforms here that favor the 99%? Stimulated by a question from Jeff Moebus, here’s some thoughts on this crucial issue, lightly edited from the comments section of a previous article:

As a kid, I loved to collect stamps, and I still have a small collection

jg moebus

I’m curious, Bill: What do you think the RNC’s Main Goal is?

In any event, given that that is the DNC’s Main Goal [suppressing progressive voices and power within the Democratic Party], why haven’t the Principled Progressives of America formed their own political party so as to give Americans that choice for Systemic Reform come election time?

Is at least part of the problem that a significant number of Americans disagree with and, in some cases, categorically reject the principles, policy proposals, and promises of Progressivism? Which may explain why there are no “Progressives” in Washington, eh?

Bill Astore

Jeff, the RNC seems content to ride the Trump wave, knowing that Trump can be controlled and perhaps coopted as well.

Trump lacks core principles, so I think the RNC’s main goal is to shove Trump in directions that are consistent with RNC imperatives, such as lower taxes on corporations, financial deregulation, and the dismantling of the welfare state and anything that smacks of socialism.

What do you think?

jg moebus

I agree completely with your assessment of the RNC, Bill. Especially the part about Trump being controllable and cooptable. If he wasn’t, he would have never become a President who completed a full term in office.

In any event: Do you have any thoughts as to why the Principled Progressives of America have not formed their own political party so as to give Americans that choice for “Systemic Reform” come election time?

Bill Astore

Damn good question.

My guess: lack of money. Corporate cash isn’t flowing to progressives. Plus some progressives have been coerced, manipulated, or otherwise propagandized to believe they can “push” Biden (or Harris etc.) in progressive ways. Of course, it’s total BS.

Recognize as well that progressives were burned by both Obama and Bernie. Finally, progressive energy is sapped by “woke” cultural issues rather than focusing on class issues and an antiwar agenda that would also prove attractive to some on the Right as well.

That’s my quick take. Of course, the other part is the corporate media that smears progressives as “far left,” Putin puppets, and therefore untrustworthy and unelectable.

jg moebus

That’s a pretty good quick take.

So the problem, basically, is that there are not enough Americans ~ especially those with money to spend on politics ~ who agree enough with the proposals of Progressivism to actively support it and actually work to make it happen.

Can you think of any way to change that?

Bill Astore

Strangely, Jeff, I wrote a reply and it disappeared on my own site!

Here’s what I think I wrote: What we need, as Bernie said, is a political revolution, but then Bernie decided not to lead it.

How do you effect this “progressive” revolution? It’s extremely hard because so many powerful forces are arrayed against it:

1. Both major political parties in America are against progressive reforms.

2. Corporate elites are against them.

3. Corporate media is against them.

4. Coercive forces such as police forces of all stripes are against them.

What is required is a mass movement willing to be disobedient organized along class interests. A movement of left, right, and center. A movement of the 99% against the 1% (and the .1 -.01%).

Rich and powerful “citizens” (and recall that corporations are citizens now) will not simply hand over power. They will have to be persuaded, convinced, and possibly coerced.

Also, the rich and powerful know how to divide, distract, and demobilize the masses, while keeping the many as downtrodden and debilitated as possible. Hence all the “unhoused” people we see, all the immigrants, all the poor people suffering. Those poor unfortunate souls are partly there to scare the rest of us.

Thomas Jefferson famously opined that “The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” (That’s from memory.) Who is willing to bleed, and how much blood must flow, and even then, will it get any better?

It’s easy to be cynical and pessimistic here, but those are paralyzing forces. Instead, we have to be optimistic or at least determined, else the USS America will continue to slip under the waves of mass corruption and bottomless bankruptcy. And by “bankruptcy” I mean spiritual and moral as much as financial.

What say you? Is there any hope for meaningful change in the USA, and how can that be implemented without violence?

******

Rather than putting the onus on Jeff Moebus, what about you, loyal readers? Can meaningful change be effected in America that actually helps the 99%? That moves the country into less militaristic waters? That restores liberty and power to the people? If so, how, and at what price?

One essential step: campaign finance reform. A country where money=speech is by definition a plutocracy. Another essential step: a radical downsizing of empire and a Pentagon budget reduced by 50%. But with a corrupt Congress that loves money and the military, how are these changes to be made?

Does it matter who’s president?

W.J. Astore

George Clooney for POTUS!

All my life, the punditocracy has told me that being President of the United States (POTUS) is the world’s toughest job, making enormous demands on physical fitness and mental stamina. And now the Democrats are telling me that Joe Biden is and remains the fittest candidate to serve as POTUS for another four years.

Since Donald Trump emerged as a candidate in 2015, the punditocracy has told me he’s a menace to democracy. That he must be stopped at all costs, else America faces authoritarian fascism. And now the Democrats are telling me that Joe Biden is and remains the fittest candidate to stop Trump and the Republican march of fascism.

Well, I have some faith in my lying eyes, and based on them, I know Biden isn’t up to the challenge of being POTUS for another four years, nor is he the fittest man to stop Trump and “fascism.”

The Democrats’ decision to stick with Joe Biden suggests the person who serves as POTUS really doesn’t matter: a cardboard cutout would suffice. It also suggests Democratic powerbrokers really aren’t that worried about Trump being a fascistic dictator, nor will Rachel Maddow end up in a gulag for dissidents.

But let’s assume for the moment that Trump really represents fascism on the march in America. Who’s the best person to defeat him?

He’s ready! Clooney, I mean, shown on the left with then-VP Joe Biden

In what passes for politics in America today, why not a celebrity with name recognition and charisma? George Clooney, anyone? He’s handsome, a relatively young 63, and smarter than your average bear. He can act too, not a disqualification for the position of POTUS.

Alternatively, why not Dolly Parton? Or someone like her? Sadly, Dolly’s husband is suffering from Alzheimer’s and she’s curtailing her schedule to be with him, but she’s got the looks, the business savvy, and the sass to take on Trump.

Assuming Democrats smarten up and stop believing their own BS, they should seek unconventional candidates with the mettle to challenge Trump. Heck, why not Susan Sarandon? The Democrats blame her activism whenever they lose, as in 2016, so why not run her as a candidate? At least there’d be some validity to blaming her for Trump’s victory if he should win again in 2024.

What say you, readers? Who’s the unconventional Democratic candidate who might, just might, hand Trump his lunch while protecting what’s left of U.S. democracy?

(A mason’s assistant who was working on my chimney a few weeks ago suggested Keanu Reeves. If he saved humanity from Agent Smith and the machines in “The Matrix” trilogy, surely he can save America from Trump. Keanu seems like a good dude, but he’s Canadian, so he can’t run. Sigh.)

P.S. Just kidding. We all know Bibi Netanyahu is the best candidate. Talk about bipartisan Red and Blue love. No wonder Bibi wears the imperial purple!

“The Lord Almighty’s Not Coming Down”

W.J. Astore

So we’re stuck with Biden

President Biden had his big post-debate interview with ABC News during which he vowed to stay in the race unless he was sent a message from God.

“If the Lord Almighty came down and said, ‘Joe, get out of the race,’ I’d get out of the race, but the Lord Almighty’s not coming down.”

The Lord Almighty is apparently not coming down to speak to Joe Biden

Well, that settles that, America.

Like me, Biden is a Roman Catholic, though I must admit my faith in the church has lapsed. Still, I know something of theology, having studied the history of science and religion, and having done my share of research on Christianity. It’s strange indeed for a believer like Biden to suggest the Lord Almighty is not coming down to speak to him. Does Biden now know the will of God? Or perhaps he thinks the Lord Almighty isn’t “coming down” because he doesn’t truly believe in Him?

The Lord works in mysterious ways, and (assuming you’re a believer) no one truly knows His will. Biden, however, seems to think he does know His will, which is apparently to stand by His man, Joe Biden.

Of course, Biden was perhaps just being hyperbolic here with his claim about the Lord Almighty. Still, it’s such a strange thing for him to have said.

My wife put it best this AM: The real Lord Almighty, meaning Democratic mega-donors, may indeed come down from high places to tell Joe to get out of the race, and then Almighty Mammon will have spoken to Biden in a voice he can’t ignore.

Declaring Our Independence from War

W.J. Astore

“War is a madhouse”

It’s Independence Day in America, so it seems like a good day to declare our independence from the insanity of war.

Sadly, since the presidency of George W. Bush if not before, it’s become routine for U.S. commanders-in-chief to boast of having the world’s finest military in all of history. Obama did it routinely, and Biden recently said the same during his disastrous debate with Trump. Few Americans stop to think about the implications of boasting about having the world’s greatest military—is such a boast truly consistent with democracy, liberty, and freedom?

Certainly, empires rely on strong militaries. Think of the Roman Empire or the Mongol Empire, or the Third Reich (Empire) of Nazi Germany. Do we want to be like them?

Those empires lived by the sword (quite literally so with the Roman Empire) and died by it as well. Their militaries, I would argue, were also more effective than the U.S. one, which hasn’t won a major war since 1945, the latter with a lot of help from our “friends” like the Soviet Union. The Roman, Mongol, and German empires are no more, worn down in part through the constant costs and demands of war. We need to learn more from history than the “fact” that America’s military is supposedly the world’s best since forever and a day ago.

I’ve been reading Oriana Fallaci’s “Nothing, and So Be It,” in which she recounted her time reporting on the Vietnam War. Two conversations with U.S. troops in Vietnam caught my attention. On pages 22-23, she recounts a conversation with Army Captain Scher, during which Scher confesses his disgust with war: 

God, how disgusting war is. Let me say it—I’m a soldier. People who enjoy making war, who find it glorious and exciting, must have twisted minds. There’s nothing glorious, nothing exciting; it’s just a filthy tragedy you can only cry over. You cry for the man you refused a cigarette to and who didn’t come back with the patrol. You cry for the man you bawled out and who is blown to pieces in front of you. You cry for the man who killed your friends …

Later in the book, she interviews a Marine Lieutenant whose surname is Teanek (pages 174-75). Here’s what he had to say:

Teanek: “Men have been saying that [we should abolish war] for thousands of years, and with the justification that they’re abolishing war, they’ve soaked the greatest periods of their civilization in blood.”

Fallaci: “That’s no good reason to keep on doing it.”

Teanek: “Theoretically, you’re right, but in practice what you’re saying is very silly. It’s like convincing yourself—as I bet you do—that when you describe people dying in war you’re helping to abolish war. On the contrary. The more you see people who’ve been killed in war, the more you want to go on fighting wars: it’s a mystery of the human soul.”

It is indeed “a mystery of the human soul” why we humans persist in killing each other in such vast numbers through war. Of course, it’s partly because we glorify it, when we should recognize, as Fallaci does on page 187, that “War is a madhouse.”

I am sane!

One of my favorite scenes in any war film came in “The Big Red One,” a World War II movie by Samuel Fuller starring Lee Marvin as a grizzled Army sergeant of the 1st Infantry Division. It’s a scene in which U.S. troops liberate an insane asylum.

The unforgettable part of this scene for me is when one of the madhouse residents picks up a submachine gun and starts blasting away, crying “I am one of you. I am sane!”

We need to declare our independence from that.

Fumbling the Nuclear Football

W.J. Astore

Being President Is Not a Part-Time Job

Being President of the United States (POTUS) is not a part-time job.

Apologists for Joe Biden suggest that he’s capable of doing the job during normal office hours. Say roughly 10AM to 4PM. But sadly last week’s debate started at 9PM and Biden was tired, he had a cold, and he just couldn’t think and speak clearly and coherently.

So, let’s remind America’s rivals that if they are to launch any attack that might, just might, activate nuclear contingency plans in the Biden administration, they had best do it when the president is capable of clear thinking, which apparently means a six-hour window, Monday through Friday, 10AM-4PM EST.

Seriously, as an American, all my life I’ve been told that being POTUS is the toughest, most demanding, job in the world. That POTUS has in his charge the nuclear “football,” the codes that would unleash America’s awesome, possibly world-destroying, nuclear arsenal, and that therefore the president had to be a person of sound body and of soundest mind. And now I’m being told that Joe Biden, a man in obvious decline, is exactly that person of sound body and of soundest mind to serve another four years as president and commander-in-chief.

The nuclear “football” is actually a briefcase containing the codes needed to authorize and authenticate a nuclear attack

The nuclear football is not something to fumble. Once those missiles are unleashed, there will be no redo.

Joe Biden’s recent debate performance featured sustained moments where he stared blankly into space, where he was obviously confused, where he spoke nonsense. Put bluntly, there were times when he quite literally didn’t know what he was saying.

Sure, Biden isn’t always confused, muddled, or whatever term you care to use to describe obvious mental compromise. But no POTUS can afford to be mentally muddled or compromised because you never know when he or she may be needed to make a decision (under the severest pressure and in a matter of minutes) involving nuclear weapons. It’s an awesome, almost unimaginable responsibility that requires the most stringent vetting of America’s candidates for POTUS.

Today’s Joe Biden is not up to that responsibility. Anyone who says otherwise is denying the evidence of their own eyes and ears.

Standard Disclaimer: This is not in any way an argument for Trump. It’s an argument for a fitter president, right now, and for the Democrats to nominate someone other than Biden to run against Trump this November.

“War Is Making Us Poor”

W.J. Astore

Peace Activist John Rachel Challenges Us to Imagine a Better World

War is the health of the (anti-democratic) state. On those terms, America is very healthy indeed. America dominates the global trade in weaponry, accounting for 40% of that trade over the last five years (“We’re #1 in bombs, bullets, and blowing things up!”). America spends more on its military than the next ten nations combined (most of them being U.S. allies). Roughly 60% of federal discretionary spending is devoted to the Pentagon, sold to the American people as an “investment” in national security, even as it’s truly all about imperial dominance and resource extraction and exploitation.

John Rachel knows this. He asked me to write a foreword to his new book. “War Is Making Us Poor,” and what follows is that foreword. Check out his website and consider buying his book. Its succinct title sums up much about what’s wrong in America.

FOREWORD

Recently, I was reading the letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, who made a wise assertion in 1888: “Battles, like hypotheses, are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.”

My country, the United States of America, has been needlessly multiplying its battles around the world without necessity.  The result has been a series of devastating wars in places like Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, wars that killed millions for little purpose other than the enrichment of what President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1961 termed the military-industrial complex.  Thus, Martin Luther King Jr. was right to conclude in 1967 that the United States had become the greatest purveyor of violence on the planet, its unbridled pursuit of militarism producing a form of spiritual death.

As James Madison, one of America’s founders, wrote near the close of the eighteenth century, no nation can preserve its freedom and maintain a healthy democracy when it embraces and pursues endless warfare.  John Rachel knows this, feels this, and embraces the challenge of fighting against it.  He knows America is dedicating more than half of its federal discretionary spending to wars, as the Pentagon budget soars toward $900 billion in 2024.  He knows America is suffering from a form of spiritual death.  He knows militarism will be the death, not only of democracy in America, but possibly of our planet itself, whether in quick time due to global nuclear war or in slow motion due to war-driven calamities aggravated by climate change.

America needs to change course.  It needs to learn the word “peace” again.  It needs to embrace diplomacy and reject militarism.  It needs to stop being the world’s greatest purveyor of violence.  It needs to dismantle its global network of 800 military bases, it needs to reject its vision of “full-spectrum dominance,” it needs to end its glorification of warriors and warfighters as heroes, it needs to stop exporting weapons to the world’s worst hotspots.  But how?

As I write this, the U.S. government is sending massive arms shipments to Israel to enable ethnic cleansing in Gaza.  Palestinian innocents, including thousands of women and children, are being pummeled and eviscerated by bombs and missiles carrying the label, “Made in USA.”  America, which fancies itself a beacon of freedom, has become an abattoir of death through endless war.

I served in the U.S. military for twenty years.  I taught thousands of military cadets the lessons of history.  Yet I failed to question and challenge the system in meaningful ways until after I retired from the military.  Somehow, collectively, Americans need to find the courage to change our violent ways.  We need to act—now.

John Rachel’s book, by provoking us to think and to examine our often-unquestioned biases and assumptions, is just what we need to execute an “about-face” in America’s constant march to war.

In Last Night’s Biden-Trump Debate, America Lost

W.J. Astore

Two Angry Old Men Tell Us Much About America

Last night’s political debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump was a sad spectacle. Clearly, Biden performed poorly. Trump, I suppose, was Trump. The CNN post-debate commentators were universal in saying the Democratic Party is panicking after Biden’s appearance and performance, almost as if they were reading from the same script. It’s finally OK in the mainstream media to state what’s been obvious for years: that Biden is simply too old and infirm to serve as president for another four years. Look for Biden to be replaced as the Democratic candidate, though how gracefully remains to be seen.

Neither candidate did well in last night’s debate

Biden started poorly and never fully recovered. He walked out haltingly. His voice was raspy. He was arguably over-prepared, talking too fast, spouting too much detail, looking confused. A low point came when he lost his train of thought and then concluded by saying “We finally beat Medicare.” Trump pounced. If this had been a fight, the referee would have stopped it then and there.

There’s a catchphrase from a Clint Eastwood movie that “A man’s got to know his limitations.” Biden doesn’t know them, not anymore, and the people around him are doing him a grave disservice in continuing to push him forwards, in continuing to prop him up. It’s time for Biden to retire, to be a one-term president, which was initially the plan when he ran and won in 2020.

After the debate, Trump walked grumpily off the stage. Biden stood there, seemingly at a loss, until Jill Biden came and guided him carefully down a few steps to greet the moderators.

The debate itself was a charisma-free zone. Both men spent most of their time bashing the other. It was a house of frowns. As I watched and took notes, I wrote this: Biden and Trump trade insults while America burns.

In a rare burst of pseudo-agreement, Trump and Biden both said their opponent was the worst president in U.S. history. Both also had surprisingly weak and inept closing statements.

That being said, Biden and Trump did offer a sharp contrast. Biden continues to assert America is the envy of the world, the best country bar none, with the finest military in all of human history. For Trump, America is a failing state, a “sick” country, akin to a “rat’s nest,” overrun with illegal immigrants.

Turning to foreign affairs, both men eagerly supported Israel, with Trump going the extra mile in saying he wants Israel to finish the job in Gaza, the job being genocide of the Palestinians there. Interestingly, Dana Bash, the CNN moderator, said only that Israel’s massive offensive in Gaza had killed “thousands” of Palestinians. She, of course, said nothing of ethnic cleansing or genocide, and neither did the candidates. Pro-Palestinian protests went unmentioned.

“We’re a seriously failing nation,” Trump said, and he’s right about that. The problem is that Biden is too old to run again and Trump remains temperamentally unfit to serve as a public servant at any level. Both men toward the end got into an argument about their respective golf handicaps. It was really that bad—and that out of touch with the needs and concerns of workers and families across America.

“Nobody should profit from the slaughter of innocents”

W.J. Astore

Jack Gilroy has his day in court against the Merchants of Death

This afternoon at 2:00PM, 89-year-old Jack Gilroy has his day in court in Endicott Village, New York. His crime: trespassing. His real “crime”: protesting against genocide in Gaza and a murderous war in Ukraine and U.S. support of and profiteering from the same.

Believe me, this video is available, but YouTube prefers to dissuade you from watching it

Jack reached out to me a week ago. He’s a “Bracing Views” reader and asked if I might share his ideas and plight with all of you. Hell yes, I said, so here are some words from Jack Gilroy as he prepares for his day in court later this afternoon:

My reward [for peace activism] at St Francis Xavier Parish (Jesuit) in NYC was just last week when I was given a nice plaque for my peace and justice actions over the decades. It was the first recognition since I received Soldier of the Month in my Infantry Battalion in the Austrian Alps in June of 1955. I had just come back from Vienna and some face-to-face confrontation with Godless Communists. I saw just young people like me, and I was just turning 20 at the time. The good Catholic sisters (IHM) who taught me in Carbondale, Pa a little coal town, were the same ones that taught Joe Biden just a few miles away in Scranton and seven years younger than me. I woke up to the lie of militarism in 1955 but Joe is still trapped in the lies of the Cold War.

Today I will go on trial in a village court in Endicott NY for trespass on the property that I pay for with tax dollars, nearby BAE Systems. I was attempting to deliver a letter to warn management and workers that they are part of a series of criminal law-breaking as outlined in our Veterans For Peace Six Broken Laws Letter. I was arrested when BAE Security called the cops. 

In my attempt to get folks to come to my trial, I note the trial is not about me, but the Merchants of Death, and BAE Systems is one of the largest.

We (VFP, Pax Christi and Peace Action members) started Tax Day 2024, April 15 at the 155mm shell factory of General Dynamics in Scranton (like BAE, General Dynamics makes a lot of dough from nuclear weapons but 155mm shells are the most desired ammo of both Israel and Ukraine). They would not take my letter so we left it for an armed soldier to maybe deliver it. He said he could not take letters. Our little cortege of vehicles drove north to nearby Archbald, PA, where Lockheed Martin makes Paveway I and Paveway II bombs to blow apart children and other living beings anywhere in the world, e.g. Gaza. A security guard took the letter and likely got his ass reamed out when he took it to a superior–the Chief of Police of Archbald was there (I called his office the day before) and he seemed surprised to learn we were opposing the company that has done so much for the depressed anthracite coal valley.

Then, back in our cars and on to Endicott NY where others met us and where I used the envelope in my attempt to deliver the letter. 

We have videos of all that [see above video], and I will defend myself in court (my last time out was very expensive for attorney fees in Syracuse, where I refused to take a plea bargain like the other 31 who did outside the gate of the 174th Attack Wing of the NYS National Guard. My sentence was three months in the Jamesville Penitentiary and the biggest Community Service anyone had ever seen at 1500 hours.

This offense will not be like my other trespass times like the SOA and my trips to four federal prisons shortly after retiring as a high school Participation in Government Teacher. One U.S. Marshall said as he scanned my file, “Schoolteacher, eh. Well, we’re going to give you a lesson.” The lesson was called Diesel Therapy and I won’t get into it. 

So, maybe you can squeeze in a column on this only trial that we know going on that challenges the Merchants of Death. I’ve been in contact with Josh Paul, who resigned his position as Director of the Department of State because he said laws were being broken and he didn’t want to be part of it.

Well, we put members of the Krupp family in prison following the Nuremberg Trials in 1945-47, so let’s start looking at CEOs and others from Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and my nearby BAE Systems, who most people around here think electric buses are their only product. (96 % of BAE contracts are military.)

Jack Gilroy then added a few more details about Congress and the military-industrial complex:

Dems and Repubs are always at the war factories when a new contract is announced. What nice smiles Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand have when the big bucks are announced. Schumer takes more money from the war merchants than any other U.S. politician.

And Senator Gillibrand married into a British family who are major stockholders in BAE Systems. Her in-laws sold their stock when she became a Senator (but funded her campaign with a half million bucks).

Readers, please keep Jack in your thoughts as he faces the judge today. And especially keep his words here in mind: “Nobody should profit from the slaughter of innocents. We must protest loudly and persistently, lest we ourselves become complicit in war crimes and genocide.”

You have to work so hard to be poor in America

W.J. Astore

Before my father became a firefighter, he was for many years a factory worker. He knew hard work, and he once told me that the harder he’d worked in his life, the more physical the labor, the less pay he’d received. He also reminded me near the end of his life that the rich had neither sympathy nor use for the poor.

Perhaps you’ve already seen the above video in which a working-class American, a painter who has his own small business, breaks down as he laments his inability to provide for his wife and daughter in these increasingly bleak economic times. His naked vulnerability, and his call for real change, will break your heart.

Have a heart if you’ve got a heart, my Polish mother-in-law would say, and she too knew the reality of factory work. Speaking of heart, she had a large and generous one. Why is it that those who have the least money while slogging the hardest for it often are the most generous?

Truly, you have to work so hard to be poor in America. Being poor comes at an enormous price in so many ways. Yet Americans are encouraged by our “betters” to focus on “lifestyles of the rich and famous” while disparaging and looking down on the working poor.

This country is seriously fucked, to use a technical term, and nothing is going to change until we listen to those who are calling for us to come together and make fundamental changes to a thoroughly corrupt and corrupting system of government/business that worships nothing but money as a measure of goodness and greatness.

Is Joe Biden Issuing Legal Orders to the U.S. Military?

W.J. Astore

Enabling a Genocide in Gaza Is Surely Unconstitutional as well as Morally Wrong

Is it legal for a U.S. president to order American troops to take action that enables a genocide? I should think not. The president takes essentially the same oath of office as military members do. Its essential thrust is supporting and defending the U.S. Constitution. As the civilian commander-in-chief, the President issues orders to the military that are of course authoritative, that must be obeyed, except when those orders are illegal. So, for example, U.S. presidents shouldn’t be able to order torture, nor should they be able to issue orders that contribute to genocide, and, if they do, service members are within their rights to refuse to obey such orders. Indeed, if they put “integrity first” (the leading Air Force core value) as well as the U.S. Constitution, one might argue that should feel compelled by conscience to disobey.

It’s not an easy issue for sure, because the Biden administration claims that Israel is not prosecuting a genocide in Gaza. In fact, the Biden administration sees Israel as a vital ally to America, fully deserving of near-total U.S. support, therefore any service member who objects to orders on legal or moral grounds runs up against the full authority and weight of the chain of command.

Honestly, I’m glad I was never put in this position when I was in the U.S. military. Yet I still think about it. How would I feel as an Air Force officer loading or flying 2000-pound bombs to Israel to be dropped on Palestinians in Gaza? How would I feel as a Navy officer covering the flanks of Israel so that the IDF can concentrate its forces in murderous assaults on Gaza? How would these and similar actions be in the cause of defending America and supporting the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic?

(In the video clip above, Matthew Hoh further discusses this issue. I highly recommend it.)

Judging by this article by Mike Prysner, more than a few service members within the U.S. military have their own doubts, with some seeking conscientious objector status and others going AWOL or simply refusing to consider reenlisting. I have to assume that a lot of Soldiers, Marines, sailors, and airmen are thinking, “This is not what I volunteered for. This is not serving the best interests of my country, most especially the rights enumerated in the U.S. Constitution, to which I swore an oath.”

So, it’s quite possible Joe Biden is issuing illegal or at the very least morally questionable orders to American troops. Shouldn’t this matter? Shouldn’t Americans be talking about this more?

I’m not picking on Biden here. I strongly condemned Donald Trump back in 2016 when he claimed U.S. troops would follow his orders no matter what, even if he ordered torture, assassinations, and other acts forbidden by law.

Either we follow the law or we don’t. Either we respect the Constitution or we don’t. Either we use our military wisely or we don’t.

Beware the military that has been used poorly by its leaders. Beware the military that feels betrayed. For that military will soon be hollow, or, even worse, estranged from the people and the nation, and perhaps angry enough to seek vengeance.