Please, impeach my
commander in chief
By Daniel J. Rabil
he 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. |
