Time: Sat Jun 28 10:51:51 1997
by primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA18543;
Sat, 28 Jun 1997 10:51:42 -0700 (MST)
by usr01.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA12792;
Sat, 28 Jun 1997 10:51:35 -0700 (MST)
Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 10:49:55 -0700
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: SOVIET-STYLE PURGE NOW STALKS DEMORALIZED MILITARY (fwd)
<snip
>
>SOVIET-STYLE PURGE NOW STALKS DEMORALIZED MILITARY
>
>by Georgie Ann Geyer
>
>
>NEWPORT, R.I. -- When the subject of the military's
>"adultery witch-hunt" surfaces here in the dignified
>halls of the Naval War College, interestingly enough
>the ominous word "Soviet" often comes up.
>
>A young officer studying here first used the
>word as we discussed the terror in much of the
>military today over the consuming sexual politics.
>"We're becoming more Soviet," this colonel said.
>"People are opting out, and vertical trust is dying
>because nobody believes he will be defended by
>his superiors. Our best people are just bypassing
>the best positions."
>
>When I discussed this and other subjects with
>Rear Adm. James R. Stark, the experienced president
>of the college, he began by saying simply: "It's
>a purge. If you study the Soviet Union as I did
>in graduate school, you know that purges, once
>started, have a life of their own--and they keep
>rolling until they stop.
>
>"In the beginning, I was rather sympathetic
>with Lt. Kelly Flinn, but then I saw that her case
>had nothing to do with adultery. She preyed on
>the spouse of an enlisted person, not only lied
>but conspired to lie. ... This is a fracturing
>of the trust that you have to have in the service."
>
>Then he paused and added: "Can you imagine
>what would have happened if something like this
>had happened during Vietnam? You can't fight a
>war like Vietnam with something like this. Everybody
>I know looks at this and says, 'Isn't this a tragedy?
>This is not what America is about.'"
>
>And still another leading officer has picked
>up on the comparison with today's military witch-
>hunt to the late Soviet Union, with its vicious
>tactics for breaking down consciences and deconstructing
>institutions. Gen. Michael Dugan, former Air Force
>chief of staff, has been quoted as saying that
>the military "hotlines," which should have been
>a "temporary, pressure-relieving" mechanism to
>report real sexual harassment, have instead become
>a KGB-style "commissar system" for personal vengeance
>and the destruction of careers.
>
>These are some of the remarks, often private
>and sometimes whispered or written on notes, that
>emerged in the corridors of the college's 1997
>Current Strategy Forum, where retired officers
>and serving officers meet once a year. It is clear
>that people in the services see problems far deeper
>than sex stemming from the present "witch-hunt."
>
>One young captain, for instance, quietly handed
>me some ideas he had patiently written out: "Despite
>the protests to the contrary, the military's public
>'people are first' message always seems an afterthought
>-- this is part of what is eating away at our trust,
>both vertical and lateral. The wholesale replacement
>of 'intangible' rewards (belief in the system,
>pride in serving your country) with material incentives,
>when added to this 'afterthought,' strikes directly
>at the esprit.
>
>"It's no longer an adventure, but a job --
>that's the increasingly common complaint among
>the older, more experienced members of the force."
>
>What is NOT being discussed, either in the
>military academies or in Washington, for that matter,
>is 1) What are the dynamics and the process behind
>the destruction of careers in the name of something
>(adultery, without related real infractions of
>the military code) that is not even illegal? and
>2) Why does the Soviet analogy so constantly come
>up?
>
>First, when we look at the dynamics, we find
>that the military, by instituting those "hotlines"
>after the Tailhook scandal, ostensibly to report
>real infractions or crimes, should have realized
>that it was obliterating the meticulous historical
>protections afforded by American law against anonymous
>accusation.
>
>Once thousands of calls poured in without
>any check on them, callers could and did then call
>a Washington press corps that has long been obsessed
>with "getting"--read, destroying--almost any
>kind of authority figure. In the sad case of Gen.
>Joseph Ralston, whose ambitions to be chairman
>of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were destroyed by
>a love affair 13 years ago (which was not even
>illegal under military rules), avid reporters then
>went to his divorce proceedings, found the "dirt,
>" and went to the Pentagon with it. Ralston then
>took his name out of the running.
>
>Second, many of the tactics being employed
>are indeed Soviet-style ones: the anonymous threat,
>the public humiliation, the forced public confession,
>the destruction of personality and career through
>unsubstantiated and unproven accusations, and the
>assumed "collective guilt" of whole groups like
>the military.
>
>Indeed, since the two superpowers began grappling
>with each other for world dominance in the 1920s
>and '30s, the tactics of each have infiltrated
>the other. It is hardly surprising, although Americans
>seem to need to deny it, that so many self-proclaimed
>"Marxists" in American intellectual life have brought
>these tactics with them and that they have passed
>over into other areas of public life.
>
>
>June 13, 1997
>
>Copyright © 1997
>
>==========================================================================
<snip>
========================================================================
Paul Andrew Mitchell : Counselor at Law, federal witness
B.A., Political Science, UCLA; M.S., Public Administration, U.C. Irvine
tel: (520) 320-1514: machine; fax: (520) 320-1256: 24-hour/day-night
email: [address in tool bar] : using Eudora Pro 3.0.2 on 586 CPU
website: http://www.supremelaw.com : visit the Supreme Law Library now
ship to: c/o 2509 N. Campbell, #1776 : this is free speech, at its best
Tucson, Arizona state : state zone, not the federal zone
Postal Zone 85719/tdc : USPS delays first class w/o this
As agents of the Most High, we came here to establish justice. We shall
not leave, until our mission is accomplished and justice reigns eternal.
========================================================================
[This text formatted on-screen in Courier 11, non-proportional spacing.]
Return to Table of Contents for
Supreme Law School: E-mail