Not a photo-essay

 

Because no one’s having any demonstrations anytime soon, can’t add photos of one.

This TPM piece documents a lot of what Trump is doing today and most of it follows a theme of the new Trump team is using wildly improper criteria to attack political opponents. As I was in the Navy for around a decade (PN3, USN, 1991-2001), I’ll comment on the attempt to prosecute military people for the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

After World War II, the Allies held the Nuremberg Tribunals for members of the Nazi Wehrmacht. They established an international law that certain orders were illegal. For the military person to say “I was just following orders” simply isn’t a legitimate excuse. Even if our Commander-in-Chief or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs tells a Seaman Recruit or a Private to commit a war crime and the war crime is then committed, the Sailor or Soldier can be prosecuted for having followed an illegal order.

Were any illegal orders given from either President Trump or from President Biden concerning the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan? Right now, Trump’s people are deciding whether or not to create

a commission to investigate the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, including gathering information about who was directly involved in the decision-making for the military, how it was carried out and whether the military leaders could be eligible for charges as serious as treason,

But if no one in the military was given an illegal order, it’s difficult to see how anyone could be prosecuted. If the military simply did as either president instructed them to and none of the orders given were abusive towards civilians or prisoners and if no illegal armaments, such as poison gas, were ordered to be used, it’s difficult to see how any prosecution could proceed.

If the withdrawal from Afghanistan was presidential policy, which I believe it was, then that was not something that military people of any rank had any say over.

Let’s say a Major General (two stars) ordered his division (three brigades) to attack and one of the Colonels (in charge of one of the brigades) decided “Nah, it isn’t the right time to attack, the Major General is wrong,” then the Colonel would quite properly be court-martialed for insubordination. The Colonel can’t claim that “I was given an illegal order” because the action ordered falls under standard, everyday, expected actions.

What Trump’s people are trying to do is to prosecute military people for following the instructions of their Commander-in-Chief, for following legitimate, legal orders.

It’s difficult for me to see any legitimate reason to do this. Unfortunately, this is not the only example of overreach cited in the TPM piece.

Jared Kushner: Progress Report on Dealing with COVID-19

Jared Kushner is the fellow who came up with an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan that was so awesome, Palestinians want nothing to do with it. So naturally, Kushner's father-in-law, President Trump, asked Kushner to help him with the coronavirus. The President later

...said Google had developed a coronavirus testing website that did not exist. Mr. Kushner was deeply involved in both efforts, and had sold his father-in-law on the website as a smart concept.By Sunday evening, Mr. Trump was raging to aides that the press coverage was terrible after the promised national website failed to materialize.

So Kushner succeeded in coming below even my very low expectations for him and failed to contact Google about the website?!?!?! Now, that's not just Kusher's fault. The President also failed by not asking any questions about the website and thereby making false assurances.

Arguments to move quickly on impeachment

People have been suggesting that Congress is moving too quickly to impeach the President and that we need to slow down and allow the courts to force the Trump Administration to expose still more information. The piece at Reader Supported News makes a strong, but I think flawed, case for waiting.
This piece is behind a paywall, but the summary of the points is
1. "The evidence is already overwhelming."
2. Democrats are trying to "maintain the initiative with the President." That means moving quickly so he can't catch up.
3. The House can keep on gathering evidence right up until the Senate trial begins. That's likely to be well into January, perhaps even into February.
4. Acting as though the evidence is overwhelming is the best way to convince the public that the evidence is overwhelming. The best way to demonstrate that is to move forward quickly.

Expanding on a Faceboook post

The post describes a new proposed law, that rules separating your employer from you social media accounts should be relaxed. I very strongly oppose doing that.

Back in the Navy, my shipmate was having trouble at work. Our supervisors talked to him about it. He let slip something about his family causing him problems (Personally, I didn't like his wife and thought she was part of his problems at work), so our supervisors followed up and asked him lots of questions, questions that he complained to me about.

I felt bad for him, but also felt that he opened himself up by mentioning his family in the first place. That gave our supervisors a legitimate reason to pursue the matter further.

The WaPo piece quoted here says: "...if say an employee is making slanderous statements about their employer in social media, that the employer has the right to know that.” But why do employers need to know about statements you make on private parts of your social media account? I agree with the statement, but only up to a point. Employers are properly concerned with the public, openly accessible part of your social media account. Yes, having privacy on social media is a two-way thing. If you're not publicly slagging your employer, they have no reason to go into your Facebook or other social media accounts.

But if they feel you're slagging them, then they should have to prove that. They shouldn't simply be given the benefit of the doubt. And no, I don't feel that just because you work with children or for a church or religious group, that the rules on social media should be relaxed and that employers should be able to snoop into your accounts.

Citizens who wish to keep their social media accounts private from their employer should be given the benefit of the doubt and should be shielded from snooping employers. But yes, if an employer has evidence that you're bad-mouthing them or are engaged in immoral activities, then yes, the employee opens themselves up to investigation.  

Update: Just to expand on the privacy issue, I completely agree with this piece in the Inky, that when one posts test questions and/or answers on social media in a manner that's accessible to anyone, no, it's really not a question of privacy. It's not even a question of whether we rely too much on test scores (I think we do), but whether charter schools can legitimately monitor social media and take action on cheating. Yes, I think it's entirely legitimate for them to do so.

If people were truly keeping this information private, if students could only access it via a secure password, that is, that they were members of a defined group, then there might be some privacy argument. But no, if test questions are being posted publicly, then those posting them have no reasonable expectation of privacy and should expect to be found out and pursued.

Bush's veto speech 2May07

"Twelve weeks ago, I asked the Congress to pass an emergency war spending bill that would provide our brave men and women in uniform with the funds and flexibility they need. Instead, members of the House and the Senate passed a bill that substitutes the opinions of politicians for the judgment of our military commanders. So a few minutes ago, I vetoed the bill." [emphasis added]

Gee, I guess it's a really terrible and awful thing for a civilian to override the judgement of a military commander on the ground, eh? But what's with this statement from December?

"Asked if he would overrule his own military commanders if they opposed a plan to increase troop levels [i.e. the "surge"] in Iraq, Bush called the question a 'dangerous hypothetical.' "

"Let me wait and gather all the recommendations from Bob Gates, from our military, from diplomats on the ground interested in the Iraqis' point of view and then I'll report back to you as to whether or not I support a surge or not."

Well, as it turned out, Bush DID substitute his opinion as a politician for the professional opinions of the military commanders who felt that the "surge" (Really an "escalation" as there is no obvious end date for the "surge" to draw to a close) was a bad idea. In fact, he doesn't even say here that the opinions of the military commanders are his primary consideration, they're just one among many groups that all have an input into what was a military decision, but which was also a highly political one. After all, the "surge" impacted the citizens of Iraq, had an impact on Arab opinions across the Middle East and put an extra strain on US supply lines.

Not that there's anything wrong with the Commander in Chief overriding commanders in the field. The C-in-C is entitled to be "The Decider" for the military and to have the final say. In fact, a decision concerning withdrawal is one that a military commander would describe as "above my paygrade." Deciding whether to call off the Iraq War and to bring the troops home is NOT a purely military decision. Certainly, uniformed personnel on the ground in Iraq are entitled to their opinions and it's always a good idea to listen to what those ideas and cautions and qualifications are, but it's not like their opinions are the only ones that matter. Far from it. The decision as to whether to call the war off is one that the American public has already made. Bush is just trying to bully the Congress into backing down on the latest "emergency" spending bill.