There must be a reason why General Amos is still the Marine commandant, but I can't think what it is

"General Amos needs to fall in line and salute or resign now.""

-- Aubrey Sarvis, executive director
of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network

by Ken

No price to pay.

Is this going to be the legacy of the Obama administration? Establishing as operating policy that there is no price to pay for governmental or government-related wrongdoing?

Oh, this administration knows how to punish people who are supposed to be its friends and allies. Lord knows while Rahm Emanuel was White House chief of staff he knew how to put the fear of Rahm into the hearts of the Inside the Beltway crowd. But he couldn't even get confirmation for such executive nominations as the administration managed to send to the Senate. The strategy from the start seems to have been cut-and-run at the first sign of disgruntlement from Republican senators. Or perhaps, if you were to ask Dawn Johnsen, abandon-and-leave-dangling.

And when it came to a reckoning for the eight years of mayhem wrought by the Bush regime -- first to understand how things went so catastrophically wrong, in order to figure out how to keep the same thing from happening again, and second to make sure rewards and punishments have been properly meted out. But as we know, the Obama administration's policy from the start was uh-uh, we don't look back, only forward.

So for the people who got us into two disastrous and ruinously expensive wars, principally by lying, and then botching and obfuscating the prosecution of those wars -- nope, nothing to look at here. For the people whose insatiable greed led smack-dab to the economic meltdown, nope, we've got to look forward. For stolen elections, for systematic corruption and politicization of virtually every agency of the Executive Branch, nope, must look forward.

And the message to all the people who were spared accountability for their actions? No price to pay. What a difference it might have made if some of the people -- not the easily scapegoatable small fry, but the real movers and shakers, from Wall Street, for example, and from the higher reaches of the Bush regime. If people had seen a procession of those folks heading into the clink, we might have had a shot at reclaiming the country. But no, the lesson was clear: no price to pay.

Is it any wonder that the Republican congressional leaders decided to gamble that they could get away with systematically opposing every initiative of the new president, not even on ideological grounds, but just in hope of bringing him down? Heck, was it ever really a gamble? After all, if the Obama administration has any guiding principle, isn't it that there's no price to pay, ever, for crossing them? (Except for liberals and progressives, but that's another story.)

Which brings us to Gen. James Amos, the commandant of the Marines.

Amazingly, when Gen. Stanley McChrystal got it in his head that he could run his own military policy, in view of the public, and never mind such old-fashioned catch phrases as chain of command and civilian control of the military, there was, for once, a price to pay. A lot of us didn't think the president had it in him, but by golly, after just a bit of shilly-shallying he did what the situation called for: axed the son of a bitch.

That has to have gotten the attention of other high-ranking U.S. military officers, but it may be that one firing doesn't do the whole job. Which brings us to the question of why General Amos is still on the job.

Let's back up a little, to his appointment to the job, by President Obama.

The president has claimed all along to be unwavering in his support for repeal of the dreadful Don't Ask, Don't Tell service policy. We know too that President Obama had a personal chinwag with Gen. James Amos before he was appointed commandant of the Marines, during which you would assume that the subject of DADT repeal came up.

Okay, we're assuming here -- first that the subject was discussed between the general and the president, second that the general was forthcoming in making clear his opposition to DADT repeal. For someone who claims to be so concerned with how repeal, when it happens (or should I say if?), can be implemented with minimal impact on military readiness, you would assume that he understands the importance of decisive, forthright leadership from the top, wouldn't you? Another assumption, granted, but how can we assume otherwise without believing that the guy is a total doofus?

And in his lates congressional testimony, General Amos seems to have grown bolder in his disregard for those quaint old concepts, chain of command and civilian control of the military. Chris Geidner began his MetroWeekly report yesterday by noting a certain distance traveled in the general's testimony regarding DAT.

Marine Chief's Stated Concern that DADT Repeal Could Cost Lives Sparks Outrage
Posted by Chris Geidner on December 14, 2010 4:20 PM

The Marine Corps commandant, Gen. James Amos, made it clear when testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Dec. 3 that he opposed the repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. He also, however, said, "Could we implement repeal at this time? The answer is yes. ... We are Marines."

Today, however, Amos appeared to think less of the ability of the Marines to implement a repeal of the 1993 military policy banning open gay and lesbian service, focusing on the "distraction" it might cause and suggesting that DADT repeal could lead to a loss of life.

The comments led Aubrey Sarvis, the executive director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, to say in a statement that "General Amos needs to fall in line and salute or resign now."

As Kevin Baron from Stars and Stripes reported, Amos took questions from reporters at the Pentagon today, saying, "Mistakes and inattention or distractions cost Marines lives. That's the currency of this fight.

"I take that very, very seriously," Amos said, according to Baron's report. "I don't want to lose any Marines to the distraction. I don't want to have any Marines that I'm visiting at Bethesda [National Naval Medical Center, in Maryland] with no legs be the result of any type of distraction."

Aaron Belkin, the director of the Palm Center, told Metro Weekly, "Among those U.S. Marines who know a gay or lesbian peer in their unit, 88.1 percent say that the unit functions effectively. Gen. Amos is cherry-picking the data to support his 20th century views, and everyone knows it."

Belkin added, "Gen. Amos admitted [in his testimony on Dec. 3] that he is the only Service Chief who did not take the time to ask his colleagues in foreign militaries whether allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly undermines combat effectiveness."

Human Rights Campaign spokesman Fred Sainz echoed that point, saying in a statement, "The experience of all foreign militaries has been that the integration of gays and lesbians is accomplished successfully when it is done quickly and with the full support of military leaders. We're still hoping that General Amos heeds these lessons."

Servicemembers United executive director Alex Nicholson, meanwhile, said in a statement that Amos's "commentary is moving from the realm of reasonable disagreement in the provision of professional military advice to hysteria-inducing absurdity on this topic that reflects very poorly on DOD and on the administration."

SLDN's Sarvis went on in his statement to say of Amos's comments, "He had his say before the Senate and House. General Amos needs to stop lobbying against his Commander-in-Chief, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. If he cannot do that, the President should ask for his resignation."

Sainz, as in his earlier comments, took a less stark tone, saying in a statement, "General Amos should be listening to his two bosses, the defense secretary and the joint chiefs chairman. Both have made it clear that a gradual and orderly process carried about by the Pentagon as a result of legislative repeal is a far better alternative than a judge’s decision that could bring about repeal overnight." . . .

Granted, the military people I hear from tend to be on the leftish side of things, but them seem pretty well agreed that General Amos has crossed the line into insubordination. I guess we'll find out if there's any price for him to pay.

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