General Pace, You Can Save the US - by Arresting Bush for "Conduct Unbecoming"
General Peter Pace
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
400 Joint Staff Pentagon
Washington, D.C. 20318-0400
Dear General Pace,
I note with admiration your courage in making clear your private concerns about the safety of the US military and the longterm danger to US national security caused by the President's stubborn refusal to acknowledge the quagmire in Iraq.
Though you are Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the President's principal military advisor - President Bush has shown his disdain for your honesty and wisdom. Though you are a decorated Vietnam war hero - who has served his nation honorably for four decades - the President is dispensing with your services. You have one month left in your position before you are tossed out by the President.
President Bush is going to ignore your advice. Just as he has ignored the advice of other Generals who have had the courage to respectfully point out how terribly wrong he is in respect of the Iraq War and the safety of the US military he is sworn to protect. Highly-decorated colleagues of yours such as General Anthony Zinni (Commander in Chief of U.S. Central Command), General Eric Shinseki (Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army) and General John Abizaid (Commander of the U.S. Central Command).
General Pace - you have the power to fulfill your responsibility to protect the troops under your command. Indeed you have an obligation to do so.
You can relieve the President of his command.
Not of his Presidency. But of his military role as Commander-In-Chief.
You simply invoke the Uniform Code Of Military Justice.
The United States Code: Title 10, Subtitle A, Part II, Chapter 47, Subchapter X, Section 934.
"Though not specifically mentioned in this chapter, all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces, all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces, and crimes and offenses not capital, of which persons subject to this chapter may be guilty, shall be taken cognizance of by a general, special, or summary court-martial, according to the nature and degree of the offense, and shall be punished at the discretion of that court."
Article 133 reads:
"Any commissioned officer, cadet, or midshipman who is convicted of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman shall be punished as a court-martial may direct."
A gentleman is understood to have a duty to avoid dishonest acts, displays of indecency, lawlessness, dealing unfairly, indecorum, injustice, or acts of cruelty.
To be crystal clear - I am NOT advocating or inciting you to undertake any illegal act, insurrection, mutiny, putsch or military coup. You are an honorable patriotic man.
I am NOT advocating or inciting you to interfere with any of the civilian duties of the President. That would not be a legal action by you.
However you have the legal responsibility - under Article 134 of the Uniform Code Of Military Justice - to protect the troops under your command by relieving the President of his MILITARY command.
If you have reason to believe that the President is responsible for "disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces" and for "conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces, and crimes and offenses not capital" then you have the obligation to act.
In addition to relieving him of his command as Commander-In-Chief, you also have authority to place the President under MILITARY arrest.
Article 7 of the Uniform Code Of Military Justice specifically says:
(b) Any person authorized under regulations governing the armed forces to apprehend persons subject to this Code may do so upon reasonable belief that an offense has been committed and that the person apprehended committed it.
(c) All officers, warrant officers, petty officers, and noncommissioned officers shall have authority to quell all quarrels, frays, and disorders among persons subject to this Code and to apprehend persons subject to this Code who take part in the same.
I understand that it would not be an action to undertake lightly.
In all your 39 years of service you have shown total loyalty to the chain of command.
However, given the current imperilment of US troops, and the "Conduct Unbecoming Of An Officer And A Gentleman" of this President - you have a greater responsibility to your nation, your code of honor and to the US Constitution.
I wish you well as you prepare to undertake the most heroic action of your distinguished career.
General Pace - please save the US.
Respectfully yours,
Martin Lewis
MILITARY DECORATIONS & HONORS AWARDED TO GENERAL PETER PACE
MILITARY DECORATIONS & HONORS AWARDED TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSHerrrr... there aren't any
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As others have pointed out, your suggestion displays an astounding ignorance of both UCMJ and constitutional law.
======MARTIN RESPONDS==========
But did I manage to "display" as much ignorance as the people I was actually satirizing? Tough to do I know. But I hope I succeeded.
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General Pace has no legal authority whatsoever to do what you suggest and if he attempted something like this he would be subject to arrest and court martial himself, and rightfully so.
I notice you're now attempting to buttress your non-existent legal argument with the idea that Pace has the moral or notional obligation to carry through with this even if the law doesn't support it. This, in effect, is advocating a military coup d'etat. And what, once the precedent was established, would prevent a future CJCS from arresting and court martialing President Barack Obama or President Hillary Clinton by invoking the same moral duty to do so? Or were you not aware that the military detested Bill Clinton and generally holds the Democratic Party in low esteem?
Funny. Only Yesterday I asked (pleaded with) Professor Cohn in this space to remind me military coups are never a good thing. Not never, not no how. Because, in my Anarcho-Buddhistic heart, I, even I, really, really wanted one.
Now, thanks to you, I have come to my senses. I'm reassured so few comments agree with you.
=======MARTIN RESPONDS==========
Me too. You're not supposed to agree with a satirical piece.
==========
Every coup, every one, justifies itself on legal grounds. And military coups are the worst. No, no, no, a thousand times no. Splitting hairs, feinschmecking, all that is so much camouflage. Generals come and go, and if one is an improvement over Mother Theresa, ninety-nine are even worse.
In the neocon putsch of 2000, the body politic got a rusty nail in the foot. Such dangers can be treated. What you propose would put one into its heart.
I never thought that I would ever find common ground with the lunatics over on Free Republic but this is beyond the pale. Impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate (by 2/3 vote) is the process by which we remove officials of the Executive and Judicial branches who may have committed high crimes and misdemeanors or are judged otherwise unfit for office but this amounts to an usurpation of civilian control over the armed forces, in effect a coup. As a progressive liberal, it is the rule of law that I adhere to and though Bush in my view is a clear and present danger and clearly in violation of the law I find it impossible to use this sort of ploy. What sort of Republic would we have if we who hold dear its traditions, its mores and the rule of law if we ourselves succumbed to violations of the law, be the letter or the spirit. I am all for articles of impeachment though the Senate will never convict. It will be a long 18 months but we will endure. We have no other choice and we will prevail.
===========MARTIN RESPONDS==========
Good for you. Glad to have provoked a little more discussion about the topic...
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This entire piece seems almost surreal. A "military arrest" of the president without a military coup?
How - exactly - does this work? Detail the precise scenario. What happens?
I envision a "military arrest" as involving soldiers physically restraining the president and putting him in custody.
This. Is. A. Military. Coup.
If you're proposing some other scenario, then you have to lay it out in considerable detail, because as it stands the reader is left with a "have cake, but eat it, too" situation where everything you're arguing for adds up to a forced military takeover ... but, uhm, err, eh ... it's really something else.
What? Exactly.
===========MARTIN RESPONDS==
Congratulations. You came closer than most with the "seems surreal" comment.
See: http://www
==========
You have all been trolled. If you think he believes this, then you believe Swift really advocated eating the Irish.
I am reminded of a question once posed to British PM Benjamin Disraeli, a Tory, on the difference between a disaster and a calamity. His response was to note that if the Liberal leader William Gladstone fell into the Thames that would be a disaster. A calamity would be to pull him out.
We have a disaster. We all know that (well those of us who actually live in a fact filled world with sentient beings) but to pursue extra-Cons
I'll note with relish that William Gladstone did unseat Disraeli in 1880 when it became evident that pursuit of Empire was not only costly in money and lives but as Roger Osbourne has written "a tawdry piece of theatre concealing a criminal enterprise
facta non verba
San Francisco, CA
===========MARTIN RESPONDS===========
Well said. I too liked that Gladstone bagged Disraeli.
==========
Lewis' argument is full of nuance, so it is difficult to understand. He wants Pace or Petreus to act on their conscience, yet not do anything illegal. What a rational for seizing power, and typical of so many leftist attitudes.
Arrest all who disagree with us. Stop taking away our civil rights. (I hope the irony is apparent to most readers.)
==========MARTIN RESPONDS=========
I wouldn't count on it. Most of the right-wing-nuts who have read this column seem to be oblivious to irony and satire...
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I never thought that I would see the day that I would find common ground with the lunatics at Free Republic but this is beyond the pale. We can remove President Bush and Vice President Cheney if the political will existed among the House Democrats. Certainly the Bush Administration has committed high crimes and misdemeanors but the removal of members of the Executive Branch and the Judiciary is through the process of impeachment not this highly dubious move that amounts to a coup. Whatever consequences the next 18 months may bring, we will endure with great faith in the ability of this Republic to find its core values. Impeachment, as much as it is warranted, will find not conviction in the Senate. Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney will find their private life once gone from office akin to that Pinochet. They will not be able to set foot outside the US for fear of a war crimes tribunal and history has already condemned them not only as dishonest individuals full of folly and blunder but also as men who lied the world into a war that has taken 600, 000 Iraqi lives and sullied the reputation of this great land and Western civilization for generations to come. I have in our traditions but I have no faith in General Pace and to replace one tyrant for another is beyond reason and outside the law. If we are true to our beliefs as progressive liberals we must remain committed to the rule of law. Otherwise, Bush would really win and he hasn't. He has lost and he has lost more than he can ever realize.
Possibly GWB has the "geedunk ribbon" (National Defense).
Zhu Bajie
Nice try Martin, but the president is not subject to the UCMJ. Here are the individuals who are. Basically Pace would be committing treason if he attempted to arrest Bush.
The following persons are subject to this chapter:
(1) Members of a regular component of the armed forces, including those awaiting discharge after expiration of their terms of enlistment; volunteers from the time of their muster or acceptance into the armed forces; inductees from the time of their actual induction into the armed forces; and other persons lawfully called or ordered into, or to duty in or for training in the armed forces, from the dates when they are required by the terms of the call or order to obey it.
(2) Cadets, aviation cadets, and midshipman.
(3) Members of a reserve component while on inactive-duty training, but in the case of members of the Army National Guard of the United States or the Air National Guard of the United States only when in Federal Service.
(4) Retired members of a regular component of the armed forces who are entitled to pay.
(5) Retired members of a reserve component who are receiving hospitalization from an armed force.
(6) Members of the Fleet Reserve and Fleet Marine Corps Reserve.
(7) Persons in custody of the armed forces serving a sentence imposed by a court-martial.
(8) Members of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Public Health Service, and other organizations, when assigned to and serving with the armed forces.
(9) Prisoners of war in custody of the armed forces.
(10) In time of war, persons serving with or accompanying an armed force in the field.
(11) Subject to any treaty or agreement t which the United States is or may be a party to any accepted rule of international law, persons serving with, employed by, or accompanying the armed forces outside the United States and outside the Canal Zone, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands.
I don't usually blog here although I am an avid reader. I am curious at the anger being expressed at the writer of this post. Perhaps Martin is incorrect on some or many points, at least he is trying to find a creative way to get Bush out of office before he attacks Iran and starts the next world war. I say "good try Martin,I have NO IDEA if what you are suggesting is doable but at least you are thinking which is more than I can say about 80% of the country".
One thing you can say about US is that we take
the Constitution *very* seriously (as do the
officer corps of our military services). More
seriously, it seems, than we take the current
occupant of the Executive Office.
It would still be possible, trust me, to rig up
a deal where GWB becomes Chairman of the Board,
or (failing that) King. Just get him 'out of the loop'.
You can do amazing stuff with Executive Orders, y'know.
Then, sit back & see what Dick Cheney is *really* capable of.
Quite apart from the abject ignorance of both military and civil law this post displays, it also ignores that we already have a perfectly legal and constitutional method for "relieving" a presiden
Would this be a coup? Bush would be relieved of his military duties. Duties he knows nothing about. This will not be harmful to the country. It will only state, let those who know the military, run the military.
This seems too easy. Why wasn't it done before?
If this could be done, General Pace, you have a duty to your country.
"Let those who know the military, run the military."
What an appallingly stupid remark. In a single sentence, you've managed to throw away 200+ years of civilian control of the military.
Braaaaaavo, Herr Moonbat.
"I make crystal clear that I do NOT call for any form of mutinous or seditious act and that I utterly reject any such action."
Guess you do not read what you write or know the definition of these words because when you state specifically:
"In addition to relieving him of his command as Commander-In-Chief, you also have authority to place the President under MILITARY arrest."
You are in fact calling on the military to overthrow the government by arresting the President of the United States and relieving him of command.
Also just curious who does Gen. Pace report to after he arrests the President because you do know Vice President Cheney is next in line? Should he relieve him of command and arrest him also and where do you want him to stop?
I notice you are from Britain in your bio so you might want to go to your local college and take a US Gov 101 class. The UCMJ does not trump the US Constitution.
Finally based on your line of reasoning if Gen. Pace feels that because Congress is not funding the troops enough and causing them to die because they do not have the equipment to do their job, then he can take over that part of the Government also. Oh not their funding for schools, health care or any Civilian programs, just the part that deals with the Military. See where you are going with your reasoning and logic on this?
With all due respect Mr. Lewis, I think you are too far down your eight year descent into Neanderthalism to recover at this point - as evidenced by your most recent suggestion to effectively have the biggest guy in the cave club the president over the head and drag him off by the hair.
And what prehistoric twist of logic produces this sentence:
"I have not advocated that General Pace "court martial" Bush. Nor could he. I have suggested that he relieve him of his command - which would automatically trigger a court martial"
I see, you're not advocating a court martial, just a course of action that leads automatically to court martial. The hairs split there are fine indeed, for it seems like the reason you advocate your course of action is exactly because of the consequences it leads to.
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