Do we really and truly believe that in-the-trenches defenders of freedom can never bend the "rules"?

by Ken

At Daily Kos, Shaun King yesterday put up a fine little post called "Midtown NYPD commanding officer posts, then immediately deletes, outrageous tweet," which is pretty startling in its own right but also raises interesting questions. Here's what Shaun posted:

NYPD commanding officer Edward Winski decided to post something inspirational on Twitter for Motivational Monday, but quickly deleted it. [Note: This link will take you to a age that says, appropriately enough, "Sorry, that page doesn't exist! -- Ed.] The quote is from Jack Nicholson, playing Col. Jessup in the movie A Few Good Men, a scene with Jessup testifying regarding two privates he ordered to kill another soldier. In the current climate of protests in New York City that the commanding officer chose to post this to the verified Twitter account of the precinct for motivation is just flat-out tone deaf and shocking, if not revealing.

Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.

Mind you, this quote is given by Col. Jessup just seconds before he admits that he did the unthinkable and ordered the "code red" to have a fellow soldier killed. What in the world was Edward Winski thinking?

This is a good question -- what was Inspector Winski thinking? -- but it's also a complicated question.


ON THE MOST OBVIOUS LEVEL, WE DO HAVE TO
WONDER WHAT THE INSPECTOR WAS THINKING . . .



. . . in posting such an inflammatory quote in a public place. I have no clue here, except that obviously he didn't think, and it didn't take long before either he did finally think or somebody in the NYPD thought for him, with the result that half an hour later the post was unposted.


ON THE LEVEL JUST BELOW THIS, THERE'S THE
QUESTION OF WHY THE INSPECTOR THOUGHT . . .

. . . this was suitable inspirational material for his troops. And here I have to guess that the inspector hasn't actually seen A Few Good Men, and in fact doesn't know anything about it except this quote, to which he relates because he feels that cops are in this same position of doing a dirty job that somebody's got to do, and they're the somebodies.

If in fact Inspector Winski is familiar with any of the context that Shaun provides (and I would say that the more you know about the situation, the more disturbing the context is), and nevertheless thinks the ruminations of Colonel Jessup provide fit inspiration for our men and women in blue, then some sort of commission of inquiry needs to be chartered to look into the command structure and promotion practices of the NYPD. Rising to the rank of inspector is a pretty arduous matter, and if the system is promoting people who believe such things, then it's even scarier than I for one thought.


WHICH STILL LEAVES THE QUESTION OF THE BASIC
PREMISE BEING ARGUED HERE BY COLONEL JESSUP

I mean the premise that what are thought by namby-pamby outsiders who "have the luxury of not knowing what i know" to be "rules" of conduct for front-line enforcers, "rules" by which an organization like a large metropolitan police department operates, aren't actually rules but are more like guidelines that are honored up to a point but of necessity give way whenever they clash with a reality known and understood only by those front-line defenders who "have a greater responsibility than [we] could possibly fathom."

•     •     •

OBVIOUSLY THIS ISN'T A NEW ISSUE

Most topically, it underlies the torture discussion we're sort of having at the moment. There are a lot of people, including no doubt many of the people on the inside of our security agencies, who agree unhesitatingly. For them, we can talk all we like about genteel conduct but when it comes to the nitty-gritty of their job, they do what they have to do, and they have neither the time nor the inclination to explain themselves to people who rise and sleep under the blanket of the very freedom that they provide, and then question the manner in which they provide it. And yes, they would rather we just said thank you and went on our way.

The question clearly also applies to war generally, and the view undoubtedly held by a lot of military people and their cheerleaders that the very idea of "rules of war" (cf. the Geneva Conventions) is an absurdity, that when push comes to shove, warriors do what they have to do, and no further explanation should be required to people who really and truly don't, or at least shouldn't, want to know what is being done, has to be done, in our name.

Now I think that for a lot of Americans this is no problem at all. They cheer when they watch national-security porn like 24, to cite an example we were just talking about. They really have no problem with the idea that in-the-trenches freedom fighters do whatever they have to do. And, probably, with the idea that by and large we're better off not knowing the details, in much the same way that we're frequently advised not to look behind the scenes at the way our sausage is made, just eat and enjoy.

Which brings us back to one of the recent torture-related posts of Ian Welsh's I referred to last night, "The Ethics of Torture 101," in which Ian distinguishes between the ethical and pragmatic arguments against torture -- the ethical argument being that "torture is evil and should not be engaged in," the pragmatic argument being that "torture doesn’t work, or does more harm than good. Because if you really and truly believe that torture is wrong, period, it really doesn't matter how efffective it is.

This is a wild oversimplification of the discussion Ian gets into, and I find it hard to imagine anyone who wouldn't benefit from engaging in that discussion. But for our immediate purposes, I throw it out just to raise the question of how many of us really and truly believe that Colonel Jessup is just plain across-the-board flat-out wrong? And maybe we'd just rather not know about what people like the colonel and like "Big Dick" Cheney do.

Of course, I suppose a potent argument against this idea is that it leads to people like Colonel Jessup and Big Dick. And Big Dick isn't even fictional.

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