Another Sign of Hope

Navy JAG Lt. Commander Andrew Williams has resigned his military commission over the alleged use of torture by the U.S. and the alleged destruction of videotapes of said torture. Williams had already been outraged when Brigadeer Gen. Thomas Hartmann, the legal counsel for the detainees at the Gitmo Gulag, repeatedly refused to call the hypothetical waterboarding of an American pilot by the Iranian government "torture."

Some of my peacenik friends are too dismissive of all military personnel as having no consciences. Although I am a pacifist who became a conscientious objector in 1983 while serving in the U.S. Army, I have never shared the disdain with which SOME (far from all) peace folk hold the military. I come from a military family and know that disagreements over all use of violence does not equate with a blind acceptance of violence and totalitarian rule. Really, some liberals have got to wake up to the fact that many great peacemakers are former members of the military--including Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, the late Philip Berrigan, all the fine folks at Veterans for Peace, Vietnam Veterans Against War, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, Gold Star Families for Peace, etc. And some of our biggest warmongers and torture fans are civilians who deliberately avoided military service ("chickenhawks") like Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, John Ashcroft, Scooter Libby, Condoleeza Rice, Saxby Chambliss, and, Kentucky's own Chief Chickenhawk, Mitch McConnell.

I am impressed with the many military personnel who have protested this war and the torture and other human rights violations it has engendered. They include Navy Lt. Commander Charles Swift who vigorously and successfully defended the rights of Osama bin Laden's driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan--all the way to the Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. (Of course, then Congress attempted to undo that great work by passing the horrible Military Commissions Act of 2006.) Swift was passed over for promotion and forced out of the Navy. Others have paid even higher prices--while most of this nation's civilian population has yet to even write an angry letter to the editor of a local paper!

Public visible resignations of office, like public refusal or return of awards and honors, is a form of nonviolent protest and can be very effective. (Imagine where we would have been today, for instance, if then-Sec. of State Colin Powell, instead of rejecting only part of the speech he gave before the UN in '02 had simply refused to prostitute himself before what he had to know was a tissue of lies and half-truths. What if he had resigned in protest of the march to invade Iraq?) The resignation of high ranking military attorneys like Lt. Cmdr. Williams gives added pressure to the investigation of both the existence and destruction of the torture tapes. We owe folks like Lt. Cmdr. Williams not only our thanks for their military service, but also their service to our country in refusing to go along with the continued shredding of our Constitution and values. His resignation in protest is perfectly consistent with his oath to defend the Constitution from ALL enemies, both foreign and domestic.

I hope others join him. Indeed, I would like to see high level resignations of the CIA for this and of career members of the Justice Department. If I met Lt. Cmdr. Williams, I would shake his hand. Honor and integrity are in short supply in this age of fear mongering: When found it should be honored.