It is cowardice, not blindness, when you are afraid to look.
You don’t look, because if you looked, you’d see. And if you see, you’ll know.
And you don’t want to know. Because then you can deny that you knew.
And claim there is no way you could have known.
But it is your job to know. To do otherwise is dereliction, or worse.
The tide of political correctness that has absolutely pervaded our senior military leadership in this nation is a (THE) direct cause of the tragedy at Fort Hood. The recent news of the dishonorable and shameful actions by senior officers at the US Naval Academy regarding the Color Guard detail at the World Series (http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com. ) is merely a symptom of that disease. The USNA incident was not simply the condoning of discrimination based on skin color, but discrimination against two white midshipmen being COMMAND DIRECTED. Similar “diversity” efforts mandating equally unfair measures, have been done not just with the tacit concurrence of senior officers, but at the direction of those senior officers.
To those who do not believe that this rampant political correctness and lack of moral courage on the part of field-grade, general, and flag officers contributed to the Terrorist attack at Fort Hood this past Thursday, I offer an excerpt from a Ralph Peters column in yesterday’s New York Post:
“Given the myriad warning signs, it’s appalling that no action was taken against a man apparently known to praise suicide bombers and openly damn US policy. But no officer in his chain of command, either at Walter Reed Army Medical Center or at Ft. Hood, had the guts to take meaningful action against a dysfunctional soldier and an incompetent doctor.
Had Hasan been a Lutheran or a Methodist, he would’ve been gone with the simoon. But officers fear charges of discrimination when faced with misconduct among protected minorities.”
I have left out Mr. Peters’ comments regarding the somewhat disturbing non-reaction of our Commander in Chief. Such will be debated elsewhere in forums more appropriate than this. Suffice to say a certain Cambridge Police Officer might be glad to hear that our President has of late become a fan of “finding out all the facts” before making public comment.
However, I would go much farther than Ralph Peters regarding the Army’s cowardice.
Article 94 of the UCMJ is the punitive article covering Mutiny and Sedition.
Article 94 states, in part:
(a) “Any person subject to this chapter who–
…fails to do his utmost to prevent and suppress a mutiny or sedition being committed in his presence, or fails to take all reasonable means to inform his superior commissioned officer or commanding officer of a mutiny or sedition which he knows or has reason to believe is taking place, is guilty of a failure to suppress or report a mutiny or sedition.
Among the elements of the offense one finds this:
(5) Failure to report a mutiny or sedition.
- (a) That an offense of mutiny or sedition occurred;(b) That the accused knew or had reason to believe that the offense was taking place; and
(c) That the accused failed to take all reasonable means to inform the accused’s superior commissioned officer or commander of the offense.
Major Hasan’s chain of command should be charged under Article 94. Not only did they certainly know of Major Hasan’s pronouncements and internet postings and hadn’t the courage to discipline him, but they allowed this man who had sworn himself an enemy of this nation and its Constitution to be promoted to his current rank.
I took the opportunity to re-read LtCol Heinl’s classic essay on Special Trust and Confidence, and noted the part about no tolerance for an officer lacking integrity. Those in Major Hasan’s chain of command at Walter Reed Hospital, and perhaps at Fort Hood, should face a General Court Martial. The Chief of Staff of the US Army should feel the heat good and hot. The command climate that creates such cowardice and political correctness needs to be dissolved immediately.
But the problem is endemic to much of our senior leadership, who have time and again sold their souls to comply with what they must have known to be wrong and unjust. The current climate of social experimentation and sacrifice of all on the altar of “diversity” have made matters far worse.
There are those who claim that such bald-faced bigotry in our Armed Forces, such feel-good politicising and social engineering, such style over substance have made us stronger.
They’re lying. And they know they’re lying.
As Mr. Peters states, “The chain of command protected a budding terrorist who was waving one red flag after another. Because it was safer for careers than doing something about him.”
What is the logical conclusion of allowing those careers to continue?
Such shameful bankruptcy of moral courage could be found on the faces of those in the gray uniforms sitting in the dock at Nuremberg. They sat as examples for all the world to see, examples of how otherwise honorable men became criminal accomplices because they did not have the courage to stand up to what they knew to be wrong. They are examples still, should one have the courage to look.
It is cowardice, not blindness, when you are afraid to look.
You don’t look, because if you looked, you’d see. And if you see, you’ll know.
And you don’t want to know. Because then you can deny that you knew.
And claim there is no way you could have known.
But it is your job to know. To do otherwise is dereliction, or worse.
