Once upon a time, we had the quaint concept that the provisions of the UCMJ existed to preserve good order and discipline, NOT to unnecessarily endanger the lives of American troops for political ends. Once upon a time, there existed the common sense idea that a combat officer did what he had to do to protect the lives of this men, and that what some JAG officer sitting on his butt in his air-conditioned office, and the other associated REMF types, didn't officially know, wouldn't hurt them. The understanding was, that an officer did what he believed necessary to protect his troops and perform the mission, and that , should he be too obvious about that, and ran afoul of some politically motivated issues, he paid the price for it. Ever since Vietnam, the tendency is to go actively looking for what used to be overlooked as long as it was done discreetly. For some reason, I find that a bigger disgrace, than anything Col. West did.
Combat soldiers aren't cops, Mike; they are trained to break things and kill people; troops are for fighting (and winning) wars, not peacekeeping and nation building. The fact that a lot of Americans have forgotten that, does not make it any less true.
While combat troops are trained to break things and kill people their officers are trained to exercise judgment in their deployment of those troops and to control their actions.
The notion that Col. West was "doing what he had to do to protect his troops" is misleading. It was not his place to act aggressively in response to information -- which he later acknowledged was probably false, but to forward that information to his headquarters for evaluation and appropriate action. He was a line officer, not an autonomous intelligence liaison.
There is a tendency for many Americans to forget that we are not at war in Iraq. The fact is our country illegally invaded and occupied that country without provocation and those Iraqis who are actively resisting us are doing the same thing some Americans would be doing if the situation was reversed. Some of the things our troops do in that country, such as the atrocities perpetrated in the Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere, the routine kicking down of doors and the all-too-frequent mistreatment, including beatings and gang rapes of Iraqi citizens, most of which we never hear about,
are done in all our names.
Such incidents as U.S. Army Colonel West conducting himself like Tony Soprano with a gang of goons isn't helping matters. In fact, such incidents serve as recruiting inducements for the kind of resistance fighters who plant roadside bombs and ambush military movements. So West's assertion that he was acting in the interest of the troops is so much specious nonsense.
Allen West is another self-serving glory-seeking phony from the mold of Oliver North, which is why the Army saw fit to kick him out.
