Commentary

Is Donald Trump right to order U.S. troops to commit war crimes?

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Donald Trump and his friends, the Clintons
Donald Trump and his friends, the Clintons

David French, who served in the military with distinction, takes a look at Trump’s statements for National Review.

He writes:

Donald Trump fundamentally misunderstands the American military. He sees it as an instrument of savage brutality, restrained only by political correctness. There is no honor. There is no law. If only the military were free to torture, murder, and blaspheme, then America would win its wars. By believing that American soldiers would follow those orders — or would want to follow those orders — he slanders the character of the American military.

For months, he has promised that he would order the military to commit war crimes, torturing militants and targeting their families for execution. He was just as emphatic in promising that those orders would be followed.

He was wrong. There is no scenario under which the military would ever follow directives so offensive to its honor and so blatantly illegal. No man I served with in Iraq would comply with an order to intentionally kill an innocent woman or child, and no officer with a shred of decency or honor would give such an order. The Pentagon has many flaws, but truly bad soldiers are few and far between, and the military is institutionally hard-wired to resist exactly this kind of corruption. Trump would instantly sever the relationship between America’s armed forces and their commander-in-chief just by asking them to do such things.

As Lieutenant General James Mattis put it in a 2005 memorandum to the United States Marine Corps, “Marines fight only enemy combatants.” It should go without saying that the same principle applies to soldiers, sailors, and airmen. Our men and women in uniform do not fight innocent civilians and they do not assault prisoners in their custody. Both the War Crimes Act of 1996 and the Uniform Code of Military Justice bind American soldiers to the laws of war, which prohibit such actions.

Donald Trump promised that American soldiers — at the very least — violate Articles 93, 118, and 128 of the UCMJ. Article 93 prohibits “cruelty and maltreatment,” while Articles 118 and 128 prohibit murder and assault.

Here he is explaining his views:

I’m not sure what Donald Trump is thinking by making these sorts of claims about what he can and cannot make the military do. I know people in the military, and they are the opposite of “hired muscle”. Many of them hold to Judeo-Christian values, and they go into the military in order to serve their country honorably. They see their service as a matter of honor and devotion to the country that has allowed them to live free and be prosperous. Character is at the center of their service, in short. They are trained to think not about themselves, but to think of others first. Acts of self-sacrificial heroism are celebrated in the military. Acts of cruelty and barbarism are shamed.

All you have to do to see this is to read the citations for people who win the Medal of Honor… it shows you what the U.S. Military holds in the highest regard.

Look:

The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration that may be awarded by the United States government. It is presented by the President of the United States, in the name of Congress, and is conferred only upon members of the United States Armed Forces who distinguish themselves through conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty:

  • While engaged in action against an enemy of the United States;

  • While engaged in military operations involving conflict with an opposing foreign force; or

  • While serving with friendly foreign forces engaged in an armed conflict against an opposing armed force in which the United States is not a belligerent party.

That’s what serving in the military is about. It’s not about obeying orders, it’s about moral virtues – courage, bravery, selflessness – tested under the most extreme conditions. Military people are who are trained to do the moral thing when their lives are endangered.

If our men and women in uniform were ordered to besmirch their honor in order to serve, they would almost universally disobey orders. The intentional targeting of civilians is something that we do not do. The other side (radical Islamists) targets civilians, but we do not. If Trump were elected, and ordered our fighting men and women to commit war crimes, you could expect a mass exodus of our most patriotic Americans from the armed forces.

News

New study: open relationships in the gay community

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Young people seem to like gay marriage more than they like individual liberties
Young people seem to like gay marriage more than they like individual liberties

Story from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Excerpt:

A new study released this week by the Center for Research on Gender & Sexuality at San Francisco State University put statistics around what gay men already know: Many Bay Area boyfriends negotiate open relationships that allow for sex with outsiders.

[…]”I think it’s quite natural for men to want to continue to have an active and varied sex life,” said 50-year-old technology consultant Dean Allemang from Oakland, who just ended a 13-year-open relationship and has begun another with a new boyfriend.

“I don’t own my lover, and I don’t own his body,” he said. “I think it’s weird to ask someone you love to give up that part of their life. I would never do it.”

Hoff, who just received a $3.5 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to continue the study for five more years, initially started her research based on findings that HIV infection is on the rise among male couples.

“So much of the HIV prevention effort is aimed at a different set – men in dance clubs or bathhouses having anonymous sex,” she said. “HIV prevention might want to expand its message to address relationships; we have to look at risk in a greater context.”

In her study of gay couples, 47 percent reported open relationships. Forty-five percent were monogamous, and the remaining 8 percent disagreed about what they were.

Another researcher quoted in the story explains how same-sex marriage is compatible with an “open relationship”, and that this interpretation of marriage would be a redefinition of traditional marriage.

Related to that, there is this radio interview with a gay activist.

Excerpt:

“It’s a no-brainer that (homosexual activists) should have the right to marry, but I also think equally that it’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist. …(F)ighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there — because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie.

The institution of marriage is going to change, and it should change. And again, I don’t think it should exist. And I don’t like taking part in creating fictions about my life. That’s sort of not what I had in mind when I came out thirty years ago.

I have three kids who have five parents, more or less, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t have five parents legally… I met my new partner, and she had just had a baby, and that baby’s biological father is my brother, and my daughter’s biological father is a man who lives in Russia, and my adopted son also considers him his father. So the five parents break down into two groups of three… And really, I would like to live in a legal system that is capable of reflecting that reality, and I don’t think that’s compatible with the institution of marriage.”

To me, making a relationship “open” puts an emphasis on each person feeling good, rather than each person committing to love the other self-sacrificially. I wonder if young people understand that. What would be interesting, I think, would be to ask all the young people – especially young women – how they would feel if their partner’s idea of marriage involved having an open relationship. How do they feel about non-exclusivity incorporated into the new definition of the word “marriage”.

It seems to me that it’s one thing to say that marriage is a man and a woman committing to love each other through to old age, regardless of changing feelings and unmet desires. A relationship based on the natural definition of marriage is focused on commitment, and not fulfillment of desires. And that works well for children, who need stability, even if the desires of adults are not met. If marriage is about people abandoning exclusivity and permanence in order to get what they need to be happy “in the moment”, then neither person will be able to depend on the other when they are old, ugly and sickly.

Here’s a video that explains the basics of why people like me support natural marriage:

The word marriage means, one man, one woman, for life. And both parents sacrifice to raise the children they create. And no frivolous divorce, either. And if you ask me, it should also mean no sex before marriage, formal courtship, approval of both sets of parents, and the wife stays home when the children under five.

Commentary

Conservatives in Ohio don’t support John Kasich

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John Kasich: dependency on big government is "compassionate"
John Kasich: dependency on big government is “compassionate”

I see that some people are voting for John Kasich, and I just thought that I should let people know that John Kasich is very far to the left on fiscal, social and foreign policy issues – the left of someone like Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush across the board.

I was going to write something about it, but then I found this article by a leader of the conservatives of Ohio.

The thing that everyone knows about Kasich is that he is a huge proponent of spending taxpayer money to “help” poor people. He’s never met a big government solution to a problem that he didn’t heartily embrace. He thinks that the right way to help the poor is not to use his own money to do it, it’s to take money from the private sector and redistribute it to others, after the unionized government workers take their cut out first.

Here’s an example, John Kasich supports expanding the role of government in providing health care:

  1. Governor Kasich on Obamacare: You advanced Obamacare in Ohio, turning over 600,000 healthy, working age adults into government dependents, costing taxpayers billions of dollars and expanding the largest long term obligation in Ohio history – all against the will of the Republican controlled Ohio House and Senate.

Given that these 600,000 Ohioans would not be government dependents had you not bypassed the legislature and vetoed their wishes so you could accept Obamacare funding and conditions – how can you say you oppose Obamacare while unilaterally championing its single biggest component?

[…]Ohioans, let’s be brutally honest about this Kasich decision to expand Obamacare in Ohio. You and your children are being indebted by billions of dollars all to redistribute this money to healthy, working age adults. Not children, pregnant mothers or truly medically fragile people, no. The people Kasich added as government dependents were healthy adults.

Kasich likes to talk a lot about helping the poor through big government, and he does that by increasing spending:

2. Governor Kasich on Spending: You talk about balancing the state budget, but every Ohio Governor balances the budget every year as it’s a Constitutional requirement in your state. Democrat or Republican – every Ohio Governor does this, as it is regular and expected. This is not a unique accomplishment.

Of greater interest is that Ohio’s job and economic growth has lagged behind the national average during your time in office. As we all know, the national economy has improved since the crash of 2008, so tax revenues have increased in both Ohio and across the US. But, as Ohio state tax revenues increased, curiously, so did your spending at a much faster pace.

Governor Kasich, how can you justify increasing spending by greater amounts than any Ohio Democrat or Republican Governor since 1990, outpacing both inflation and population growth, but still call yourself fiscally responsible?

If there is one thing that conservatives stand for, it’s limiting the power of the liberal labor unions to influence government. But John Kasich loves unions, and opposes right-to-work legislation:

3. Governor Kasich on Unions and Big Labor: Every US state with a Republican Governor and Republican controlled Legislature has ended compulsory payment of fees to unions and become a “right to work” state with the exception of Ohio.

As the Ohio border states of Indiana, Michigan and West Virginia have all become “right to work” states during your time as Ohio Governor, not only have you failed to make Ohio a “right to work” state, but you actively pushed Michigan’s Governor Snyder to oppose right to work legislation, you have killed Ohio right to work legislation in committees multiple times and you proactively worked to stop Ohio donors from funding a citizen’s initiative to make Ohio a right to work state through a vote of the people at the ballot.

Ohio’s current ranking is a dismal 38Th in job creation, so while you fought against ending forced union dues payments, right to work states dominated job growth across the country. How can you call yourself someone committed to an environment conducive to job creation when your actions and results  in Ohio have protected unions and inhibited job growth?

The rest of the article talks about many other minor problems with Kasich. Initially, it seemed to me that he was going to champion the same kinds of things that Governor Walker championed in Wisconsin, or that Governor Pence championed in Indiana, or that Governor Bevan championed in Kentucky, or that Governor Snyder championed in Michigan. But he’s been nothing like them – he’s been more like a big-spending, pro-dependency Democrat.

Religious liberty

Kasich considers same-sex marriage to be the law of the land, and he opposes legal protections for Christians who are sued by gay activists.

He gets an F on marriage from pro-marriage activist Maggie Gallagher for his stance on same-sex marriage:

The Supreme Court overturns the marriage laws of your state and many others by inventing a new right?  That gets a big yawn from John Kasich: “I do believe in the traditional sense of marriage—that marriage is between a man and a woman.  But I also respect the Supreme Court of the United States.  The Supreme Court of the United States made the decision, and as I have said repeatedly we’ll honor what the Supreme Court does—it’s the law of the land.”

And he opposes protections for Christians who are sued by gay activists:

What will you do, Gov. Kasich, to protect the rights of gay marriage dissenters?

The other three men on the stage have all indicated support for the First Amendment Defense Act, which protects gay marriage dissenters from discrimination by the federal government, including by the IRS (Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio strongly, Donald Trump half-heartedly).

Gov. Kasich has refused to say whether he would support FADA.

And while we can all applaud the fact that at last night’s debate Kasich no longer actively sided with those stripping Christians (and other traditional believers) of their family’s livelihoods, he also refused to commit to doing anything about it.

No wonder, as he said last night, he’s the Democrats’ favorite Republican.

I do have to say that the one issue where Kasich does perform as expected is on the pro-life issue. There, he has a moderate record of pro-life actions. Nothing as good as people like Rubio or Cruz, though. We can do better than John Kasich.