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Dr. James Joyner, Dave Schuler and Col. Pat Lang discuss the Apache video, COIN, ROE, war in an information age, Thomas P.M. Barnett’s Sys Admin-Leviathan split and Hamid Karzai at OTB Radio. A good discussion.

Charles Cameron, my regular guest blogger, is the former Senior Analyst with The Arlington Institute and Principal Researcher with the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University. He specializes in forensic theology, with a deep interest in millennial, eschatological and apocalyptic religious sects of all stripes.  Here is part II. of a three part series by Charles, entitled “CONFLICT OF COMMANDS”.

PREFACE: 

I would like to state quite categorically that I am not in the business of making “moral equivalences” here. I have culled these quotes from a wide variety of sources – from friend and foe alike, moderate and extremist, local and far-flung. The fact that I juxtapose a variety of quotations in which the issue of divided lines of command comes up in no way means that I equate the principled opposition to state brutality of one quotation with the wilder reaches of conspiracist rhetoric in another. Part I has further details and provides my context. Please note too that as an appendix, I have attached two quotes that only indirectly address the issue of conflict of commands – a white supremacist quote, immediately followed by a principled quote about militia movement members “disgust at the genocidal fantasies in white supremacist discourse” – because I believe it is important to be aware just how far the rhetoric of hatred can go, and just how firmly it can be rebutted.        – Charles Cameron

Conflict of Commands II: Quotations

by Charles Cameron

Principle IV, Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nüremberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal, 1950.

The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

*

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other…

Jesus Christ, in the Gospel according to Matthew, 6.24

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Archbishop Romero to the Salvadoran military, March 24, 1980:

No soldier is obliged to obey an order that is contrary to the will of God. Now it is time that you recover your consciences and that you first obey your conscience rather than an order to sin.

Carolyn Forche, “Oscar Romero” in Susan Bergman, ed., Martyrs.

*

And we call on every soldier working in the crusader armies and puppet governments to repent to Allah and follow the example of the heroic Mujahid brother Nidal Hassan, to stand up and to kill all the crusaders by all means available to him supporting the religion of Allah and to make the word of Allah most supreme on earth.

Operation by the Mujahid brother Omar Al-Farooq the Nigerian, AQAP statement, 26 December 2009

*

Oath-Keepers’ Declaration of Orders We Will NOT Obey:

Recognizing that we each swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and affirming that we are guardians of the Republic, of the principles in our Declaration of Independence, and of the rights of our people, we affirm and declare the following:

1. We will NOT obey any order to disarm the American people.

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US Special Forces have conducted multiple raids into Pakistani territory, local daily The Nation reported today in a front-page article that was basically just quoting an earlier Guardian story. 

One previous US raid that occurred in 2008 was already known about. And when it happened, there was serious concern as to whether such actions by the Americans might lead to the breakdown of the Pakistani army. One respected London-based Pakistan academic said if American troops kept crossing into Pakistani territory he could envisage a situation where Pakistani commanders would lose control over soldiers who would want to fight the incursions.

Londonstani, blogging on CNAS’ Abu Muqawama

*

SINCE its meeting on 28th Shvat 5765, the Sanhedrin has deliberated the initiative of the Prime Minister of Israel, the decisions of the government, and legislation enacted by the Knesset regarding the plan known as “The Disengagement,” henceforth referred to in this document as “the uprooting.”

This plan involves the uprooting of Jewish communities in the Gaza strip and northern Samaria, the forced expulsion of Jews from their homes, and the willful transfer of these lands to a foreign power. Following an intensive study which took place regarding the halachic (authentic Jewish law) questions that arise from the government’s decision, the Sanhedrin hereby brings its conclusions and decisions to the public’s attention. [ … ]

7. Any Jew – including a soldier or policeman – who supports the uprooting, whether directly or indirectly, whether by voting in its favor, or by giving council, or by supplying vehicles or materials, and obviously, anyone who actively participates in the uprooting… by so doing, transgresses a large number of Torah commandments.

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Members of all branches of the United States Military will soon be facing a most critical decision. A report emerged that Obama is using the deployment of additional troops to Afghanistan to cover for the movement of some 200,000 troops, presently on duty in countries other than Iraq and Afghanistan, to USNORTHCOM to prepare for the “expected outbreak of Civil War within the United States before the end of winter.”

LewRockwell.com

*

Rabbis and teachers from Hesder yeshivas, which offer Torah studies alongside military service, released a letter to students in which they reiterated their assertion that soldiers must refuse orders if they are commanded to evacuate settlements, arguing that Torah law is above the Israel Defense Forces. … “Unfortunately, the IDF has been used for purposes unrelated to Israel’s defense and directly opposed to God’s wishes for quite some time,” the rabbis wrote in the letter. “This situation faces IDF soldiers with a contradiction between Jewish commandments and commanders’ orders.”

Chaim Levinson, “Hesder yeshiva rabbis: Torah law is above IDF”, Ha’aretz, Deecember 18, 2009.

*

AL-JAZEERA: How can you agree with what Nidal did as he betrayed his American nation?”

AL-AWLAKI : More important than that is that he did not betray his religion. Working in the American Army to kill Muslim is a betrayal to Islam. American today is Yesterday’s pharaoh; it is an enemy to Islam. A Muslim is not allowed to work in the American Army unless he intends to walk the steps of our Brother Nidal. Loyalty in Islam is to Allah, His messenger and the believers, and not to a handful of soil they call “nation.” The American Muslim’s loyalty is to the Muslim Nation and not to America, and brother Nidal is a proof on that through [executing] his blessed operation, so may Allah reward him with the best of the rewards for that.

Al-Jazeera Interview with Anwar al-Awlaki regarding Maj. Hasan, December 23, 2009

*

You must understand that the desire of the nation isn’t meaningful for someone who believes in the creator.

Rabbi Ariel Bareli, quoted in Christian Science Monitor

(more…)

One law for them, another for the rest of us.

Courtesy of Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca.) and Richard Durbin (D- Daley Machine).

I made an appearance, albeit an erratic one, on OTB Radio at the kind invitation of Dr. James Joyner of Outside the Beltway and the Atlantic Council, where we discussed Afghanistan with his co-host Dave Schuler of The Glittering Eye.  It was a good conversation and a fun experience, marred only by a bizarre cascade of tech problems that were entirely on my side of the equation and for which I have to apologize to James and Dave. Ultimately, I may have been on air for 20-25 minutes or so, and at other times, today’s election was discussed.

OTB Radio – Tonight at 5:30 Eastern

The next episode of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live from 5:30-6:30 Eastern.

Dave Schuler and I will be joined by Zenpundit‘s Mark Safranski to talk about the “elections” in Afghanistan, today’s off-off-year elections in the USA, and the state of opportunity in America. 

We’ll also be taking calls at (646) 716-7030. Owing to a high trolls to legit callers ratio, however, we’ll be using the BTR chat feature to screen for legit calls.

Go here to listen to the OTB program.

Jessica Margolin, who blogs at Solvation on topics that I would broadly call “political economy” and emergent trends within the moderately liberal, techno-VC–silicon valley – futurist-“social capital”, business culture, writes in to me:

“Hi. As an educated and articulate libertarian person, could you PLEASE point me to conservative points of view that aren’t espoused by retarded ranting weirdos? I know there must be some. Help”

This cri de coeur caused me to ponder. 

Compared to my more leftwing blogfriends at ProgressiveHistorians or NewsHoggers, Margolin does not seem to me to be more than mildly liberal liberal/progressive but, she lives, if I recall, in an area not noted for a high proportion of conservative residents. If all I saw of conservatism were the bombthrowing personalities in 30 second MSM clips, I’d think the Right was composed of wingnuts too.

It isn’t, of course, any more than the Left is exclusively populated by Hugo Chavez worshipping, Cindy Sheehan clones. I think the problem in the mutual perception of respective Left-Right wingnuttery comes down to three factors:

1. Partisanship

2. Ideology

3. The Infotainment Media Business Model

Number three is the most significant factor. Bombastic clowns draw an audience. Reasoned discourse puts viewers to sleep. The media is a business, not a charity organization or even a totally one-sided political machine. Basically liberal broadcast networks will air a few conservatives who bring in ad revenue. Period. This model is a driver to propagating corrosive, demonizing, political rhetoric in the public discourse and it garners attention far beyond the actual numbers of people who genuinely support such positions

The most aggravating figures in political life are really more partisan than ideological. Something about the intrinsic one-sidedness of partisan rhetoric, I suspect.  Richard Nixon and George W. Bush were not very conservative in their policies but they were aggressive partisans. Bill and Hillary Clinton are partisan Democrats as was Jimmy Carter (the much maligned Carter enraged stalwart liberals among the House Democrats). By contrast, LBJ, Obama and Reagan are/were more ideological than partisan presidents. Eisenhower, JFK and Ford were neither sharply partisan nor ideological but epitomized pragmatic consensus politics.

Ideology is the bedrock of political conviction. Certain people though prefer purism to policy “wins” and are willing to go down with flags flying rather than compromise their principles. We can even find this praiseworthy, in retrospect; men like Barry Goldwater and Hubert Humphrey appear far more admirable in the eyes of history than the opponents who beat them for the presidency. By contrast, others appear to be a little cracked, impractical and unreasonable tilters at windmills and political ass-clowns who only injure their own party with buffoonish antics.

Returning to Jessica’s question, conservatism is a coalition and not a movement, like liberalism. There are real and important philosophical differences between factions on the Right – neocons, paleocons, libertarians, moderates and the religious right – that do not have counterparts on the Left. The Right tends to stick together based more upon what they are against than what they are for.

Here are some voices in the different conservative factions that I find to be “reasonable”, most of the time. It is an imperfect and admittedly arbitrary list composed of pundits, media personalities, philosophers, bloggers and historical figures. I do not claim to have read every word each person has ever written or that I endorse all of their views. I am using these labels very broadly ( Ayn Rand rejected the term “libertarian”, John Adams was also a radical because he was a republican revolutionary, etc.) and my familiarity with religious right figures is very weak. I did not include a category for “moderate conservatives” – something that probably describes most GOP general election voters who often do not bother to vote in the primaries.

All I am saying is that these individuals are among the better representatives of different kinds of conservatism in the Anglo-American sense of the term, the a couple of figures are probably borderline, depending where you stand.

Paleoconservatives:

Arnaud de Borchgrave, W. Pat Lang, Bernard Finel, George Will, Fabius Maximus, Milt Rosenberg, Russell Kirk, William F. Buckley, George Kennan, Robert Taft, Whittaker Chambers, Edmund Burke, John Adams

Libertarians:

Amity Shlaes, Virginia Postrel, Charles Murray, Thomas Sowell, Stephen Chapman,  Ayn Rand,  Milton Friedman, Friedrich von Hayek,  Murray Rothbard, Ludwig von Mises, Barry Goldwater,  Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine

Neoconservatives:

Max Boot, Fred Kagan, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Richard Pipes, Donald Kagan, David Horowitz, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Irving Kristol, Constantine Menges, William J. Bennett, William Kristol

The Religious Right:

Cal Thomas,  Richard John Neuhaus, Dinesh D’Souza, Reinhold Niebuhr

Comments, criticism, complaints, suggestions. Open fire in the comments…..

ADDENDUM:

By acclamation from the learned gents in the comments section, 20th century American political theorist James Burnham and 19th century French philosopher Frederic Bastiat, are officially added to the list.

I have not read either, though I’ve seen Bastiat frequently quoted by libertarian writers. Joseph Fouche of The Committe of Public Safety blog did an excellent series on Burnham which you can access here.