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Jewish World Review May 13, 2005 / 4 Iyar, 5765 Warfare, Legalfare or PRfare — Military Discipline as Public Relations By Drs. Michael A. Glueck & Robert J. Cihak
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The legaleers, the practicing lawyers and their brethren in the
legislative, executive and judicial branches, have screwed up our personal
lives every day and every way in language deliberately incomprehensible to
the average intelligent citizen. They have even invaded the military, but
the recent attempts to enforce military discipline as if it were a matter
of public relations are not entirely their fault.
These years, senior military commanders, liberal opponents of the war and
conservative defenders of it all appeal to legal inanities, such as how
many itemized details are on the Geneva Convention's checklist for the
treatment of prisoners of war. Lacking either a sound strategy or the
ability to criticize an unsound one, they attempt to manipulate the
citizenry's perceptions of the troops' actions.
Thus the following recent travesties of military discipline.
Lt. Gen. James Helmly, commanding the U.S. Army Reserve Command, personally
administered non-judicial punishment to six soldiers of the 160th Military
Police Battalion who participated in the Camp Bucca Mud Wrestling
Invitational. Very junior officers should have chastised them sharply, then
patted them on the back and told them, "Never do this again".
On March 31 2005, Captain Rogelio Maynulet was convicted of assault with
intent to commit voluntary manslaughter; although he will serve no prison
time, he has been discharged from the Army. On May 21, 2004, he had shot to
death at close range Karim Hassan, an insurgent. Part of Hassan's skull had
already been blown away and he was beyond medical help. Call what Maynulet
did consistent with his character: He had already risked his life under
fire to rescue a wounded Iraqi woman from a car. We all hope our GIs kill
their enemies quickly and mercifully, but most of us don't want to know
that this may mean ending someone's mortal agony with two rounds.
On Nov. 13, 2004, during yet another round of fighting in Fallujah, an
unnamed Marine shot and killed with a single round one wounded insurgent
inside a mosque full of wounded insurgents. Given his extreme discretion,
it may be harsh to even wonder if that was a mistake made by a Marine who
had been previously wounded, for this incident occurred in a battle with
insurgents who had adopted the charming tactics of fighting from mosques
and feigning surrender, which makes the enemy extremely wary of accepting
any further surrenders. How do they know those surrenders are in good
faith?
Yet it required Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, commander of the First Marine
Division, to decide on May 4, 2005, that the shooting was an act of
self-defense.
Why is this happening? Very simple. The U.S. Army and Marine Corps are
mired in an insurgency in Iraq, and they know from previous insurgencies
just how ugly this war can become. But in an age where war has been reduced
to public relations, they are loath to tell us the terrible truths.
In combat, the only barrier between honorable conduct and atrocities is
discipline. And the more confused the combat, the more stringent the
discipline must be. Nothing is more confusing than trying to fight an enemy
who hides among civilians in an alien culture.
Frustrated troops, who cannot hide their uniforms, have been known to
resort to the burning of villages, the slaughter of livestock, murder,
torture and rape in an attempt to break insurgencies, while widespread and
indiscriminate use of firepower is another customary response.
But in the military, discipline is not a matter of not violating this or
that regulation. Regulations, never sufficient to cover every contingency,
can be undermined, loopholes found and exploited. Rather, in the military,
good discipline is a matter of shame and honor.
It is an ethos of troops doing or allowing nothing to make their family and
friends, their comrades, their service, and their nation ashamed of them
and their troops. It is an ethos of behaving courageously in the face of
the enemy, showing mercy to conquered civilians and enemy prisoners, and
treating each other with respect and dignity.
It is also an ethos immune to the excuses of military necessity, superior
orders, and "My buddies were doing it."
We want our troops to kill the enemy who that enemy is a matter for us
as citizens to decide after deliberating with each other to behave
aggressively in combat. But we should never forget that most of them have
volunteered to spare us the burden of combat. It is our responsibility, in
turn, to demand that the military leadership impose upon them a discipline
capable of protecting their virtue as men and women and their honor as
troops, not something that makes us feel good about our troops.
In sum, the military faces a very difficult balancing act and we must be
careful not to jump to rapid and simplistic judgments.
Editor's Note: Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D., and Erin Solaro, a Seattle-based writer and military critic, wrote this week's commentary.
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Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D., is a multiple award winning writer who comments on medical-legal issues. Robert J. Cihak, M.D., is a Discovery Institute Senior Fellow and a past president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Both JWR contributors are Harvard trained diagnostic radiologists. Comment by clicking here. © 2005, |
Mitch Albom | |||||||||||
