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The American military is subject to
civilian control, and we deeply believe in that principle. We also
believe, as affirmed in the Nuremberg Trials, that servicemen are not
bound to obey illegal orders. But what about orders given by a known
criminal? Should we trust in the integrity of directives given by a
president who violates the same basic oath we take? Should we be asked
to follow a morally defective leader with a demonstrated disregard for
his troops? The answer is no, for implicit in the voluntary oath that
all servicemen take is the promise that they will receive honorable
civilian leadership. Bill Clinton has violated that covenant. It is
therefore Congress' duty to remove him from office.
I do not claim to speak for all service members,
but certainly Bill Clinton has never been the military's favorite
president. Long before the Starr report, there was plenty of anecdotal
evidence of this administration's contempt for the armed forces. Yes,
Mr. Clinton was a lying draft dodger, yes his staffers have been
anti-military, and yes, he breezily ruins the careers of senior officers
who speak up or say politically incorrect things. Meanwhile, servicemen
are now in jail for sex crimes less egregious than those Paula Jones and
Kathleen Willey say Mr. Clinton committed.
Mr. Clinton and his supporters do not care in the
least about the health of our armed forces. Hateful of a traditional
military culture they never deigned to study, Mr. Clinton's disingenuous
feminist, homosexual and racial activist friends regard the services as
mere political props, useful only for showcasing petty identity group
grievances. It is no coincidence that the media have played up one
military scandal after another during the Clinton years. This
politically-driven shift of focus, from the military mission to the
therapeutic wants of fringe groups, has taken its toll: Partly because
of Mr. Clinton's impossibly Orwellian directives, Chief of Naval
Operations Jay Boorda committed suicide.
So Clinton has weakened the services and fostered
a corrosive anti-military culture. This may be loathsome, but it is not
impeachable, particularly if an attentive Congress can limit the extent
of Clinton-induced damage. As officers and gentlemen, we have therefore
continued to march, pretending to respect our hypocrite-in-chief. Then
came the Paula Jones perjury and the ensuing Starr Report. I have always
known that Clinton was integrity-impaired, but I never thought even he
could be so depraved, so contemptuous, as to conduct military affairs as
was described in the special prosecutor's report to Congress. In that
report, we learn of a telephone conversation between Mr. Clinton and a
congressman in which the two men discussed our Bosnian deployment.
During that telephone discussion, the Commander-in-Chief's pants were
unzipped, and Monica Lewinsky was busy saving him the cost of a
prostitute. This is the president of the United States of America?
Should soldiers not feel belittled and worried by this? We deserve
better.
When Ronald Reagan's ill-fated Beirut mission led
to the careless loss of 241 Marines in a single bombing, few questioned
his love of country and his overriding concern for American interests.
But should Mr. Clinton lead us into military conflict, he would do so,
incredibly, without any such trust. After the recent American missile
attacks in Afghanistan and Sudan, my instant reaction was outrage, for I
instinctively presumed that Mr. Clinton was trying to knock Miss
Lewinsky's concurrent grand jury testimony out of the headlines. The
alternative, that this president --who ignores national security
interests, who appeases Iraq and North Korea, and who fights like a
leftover Soviet the idea of an American missile defense -- actually
believed in the need for immediate military strikes, was simply
implausible. And no amount of scripted finger wagging, lip biting, or
mention of The Children by this highly skilled perjurer can convince me
otherwise.
In other words, Mr. Clinton has demonstrated that
he will risk war, terrorist attacks, and our lives just to save his
dysfunctional administration. What might his motives be in some future
conflict? Blackmail? Cheap political payoffs? Or -- dare I say it --
simply the lazy blundering of an instinctively anti-American man?
It is immoral to impose such untrustworthy leadership on a fighting
force.
It will no doubt be considered extreme to raise
the question of whether this president is a national security risk, but
I must. I do not believe presidential candidates should be required to
undergo background investigations, as is normal for service members. I
do know, however, that Bill Clinton would not pass such a screening.
Recently, I received a phone call from a military investigator, who
asked me a variety of character-related questions about a fellow Marine
reservist. The Marine, who is also a friend, needed to update his
top-secret clearance. Afterward, I called him. We marveled how lowly
reservists like us must pass complete background checks before routine
deployments, yet the guardian of our nation's nuclear button would raise
a huge red flag on any such security report. We joked that my friend's
security clearance would have been permanently canceled if I had said to
the investigator, "Well, Rick spent the Vietnam years smoking pot
and leading protests against his country in Britain. His hobbies are
lying and adultery. His brother's a cocaine dealer, and oh, yeah -- he
visited the Soviet Union for unknown reasons, while his countrymen were
getting killed in Vietnam."
Do I show disrespect for this president? Perhaps
it depends on the meaning of the word "this." If Clinton were
merely a spoiled leftist taking advantage of our free society, a la Jane
Fonda, that would be one thing. But you don't make an atheist pope, and
you don't keep a corrupt security risk as commander- in-chief. The
enduring goodness of the American military character over the past two
centuries does not automatically derive from our nation's nutritional
habits or from a good job benefits package. This character must be
developed and supported, or it will die. Already we are seeing declining
enlistment and a 1970s-style disdain for military service, squandering
the real progress made during the purposeful 1980s. Our military's
heart and soul can survive lean budgets, but they cannot long survive in
an America that would tolerate such a character as now occupies the Oval
Office. We are entitled to a leader who at least respects us -- not one
who cannot be bothered to remove his penis from a subordinate's mouth
long enough to discuss our deployment to a combat zone.
To subject our services to such debased leadership
is nothing less than the collective spit of the entire nation upon our
faces. Bill Clinton has always been a moral coward. He has always had
contempt for the American military. He has always had a questionable
security background. Since taking office, he has ignored defense issues,
except as serves the destructive goals of his extremist supporters. His
behavior with Paula Jones and Kathleen Willey was bizarre and deranged
-- try keeping a straight face while watching mandated Navy sexual
harassment videos, knowing that the president's own conduct violates
historic service rules to the point of absurdity. For a while, it was
almost possible to laugh off Mr. Clinton's hedonistic, "college
protester" values. But now that we have clear evidence that he
perjured himself and corrupted others to cover up his lies, Bill Clinton
is no longer funny. He is dangerous.
William J. Clinton, perhaps the most selfish man
ever to disgrace our presidency, will not resign. I therefore risk my
commission, as our generals will not, to urge this of Congress: Remove
this stain from our White House. Banish him from further office. For
God's sake, do your duty.
Daniel J. Rabil is a major in the
Marine Corps Reserve. |
