Active-Duty Military Tea-Bag

(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

I shouldn’t be surprised by this, I really shouldn’t, but, I am.

A new Tea Party group, Armed Forces Tea Party Patriots, has grown quickly since being launched last month by an active duty Marine Corps sergeant. The group, which vows to “stand up on the very soil we defended to preserve common sense conservatism and defend our Constitution that is threatened by a tyrannical government,” currently has over 400 members, who have signed up through its Facebook page, though many are not active duty military. And it has close ties to the broader Tea Party movement.

It is indeed in the military oath to defend the Constitution from all enemies – foreign and domestic. And, I don’t dispute this statement:

Many people in the military “feel like they can’t speak out against Obama or Congress,” said Stein. “The armed forces should have a little bit more say than we think we do,” he said.

Yes, those in the military are allowed to have opinions, even political opinions. But, if that opinion is based on right-wing falsehoods, that opinion can become dangerous to the military as a whole.

We have already seen reserve military members refuse to follow President Obama’s orders because they believe he is “illegitimate”.

U.S. Army Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook, the reserve soldier who says he shouldn’t have to go to Afghanistan because he believes Barack Obama was never eligible to be president, has had his deployment orders revoked, Army officials said.

It even infected the active-duty military (am not linking to WND).

A U.S. soldier on active duty in Iraq has called President Obama an “impostor” in a statement in which he affirmed plans to join as plaintiff in a challenge to Obama’s eligibility to be commander in chief.

The statement was publicized by California attorney Orly Taitz who, along with her DefendOurFreedom.us Foundation, is working on a series of legal cases seeking to uncover Obama’s birth records and other documents that would reveal whether he meets the requirements of the U.S. Constitution.

“As an active-duty officer in the United States Army, I have grave concerns about the constitutional eligibility of Barack Hussein Obama to hold the office of president of the United States,” wrote Scott Easterling in a “to-whom-it-may-concern” letter.

But, when you read on in the Tea-Party in the Armed Forces article, it states:

In promoting the Armed Forces Tea Party Patriots, Stein has raised the possibility of disobeying presidential orders. In one recent online posting, he wrote:

   

My oath was to the Constitution, not to the politicians, and that oath will be kept. I wont’ “Just follow” orders. There is at this time a debate within the ranks of the military regarding their oath. Some mistakenly believe they must follow any order the President issues. But many others do understand that their loyalty is to the Constitution and to the people…

Notice that these people didn’t stand up when George W. Bush was illegally spying on Americans. They didn’t stand up against torture in U.S.-run prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo. They didn’t stand up when Bush decided he could unilaterally revoke habeas corpus. No, these people only “stood up” when right-wingers pushed the “Obama isn’t an American” lie. In contrast, during the Bush administration there were numerous “retirements” by officers who then spoke out against what they were ordered to do.

I cannot stress this enough, NOW THERE IS TALKS ABOUT FOLLOWING ORDERS. Not when it mattered. Not when torture could have been exposed and stopped. Not when George W. Bush could have been impeached and removed from office. No, only now, because right-wingers are outraged that the people elected Democrats in a total landslide.

What makes this even worse is that these people are not only not in the stockade, but, have been shielded by higher ranking officers.

Indeed, Stein may be violating military policies that restrict political statements and activities by active duty personnel. “I’ve seen military command go against people on a lot less,” Mike Lebowitz, a former JAG lawyer who’s an expert on issues of military expression, told TPMmuckraker.

In fact, military command usually dropped hammers on those that violated their orders during the Bush administration.

Several months later, 60 Minutes II broke the story of the pictures. An article in “The New Yorker” revealed Darby’s role, though no one in Iraq seemed to notice.

But then, while Darby was having lunch in the mess hall watching Donald Rumsfeld testify before Congress about Abu Ghraib, the defense secretary said, “There are many who did their duty professionally and we should mention that as well. First, Specialist Joseph Darby, who alerted appropriate authorities that abuses were occurring.”

“I just stopped in mid bite. I was eating and I just stopped. What the hell just happened? Now the anxiety came back. Now, I’m worried,” Darby remembers. “Everyone in the unit knew within four hours.”

Several months later, his identity STILL a secret around the unit, it was DONALD RUMSFELD, Secretary of Defense, that told everyone in his unit who had leaked the information. In fact, because of Rumfeld’s revelation, Joe Darby couldn’t even return home.

To prevent any soldiers from retaliating against him in Iraq, the military sent Darby back to the states early, ahead of the rest of his unit.

“I get called into my commander’s office at like ten o’clock at night. He said, ‘Do you have your bags packed?’ I said ‘Sir, we live in a tent. I always have my bags packed.’ He said ‘Good. Be on the flight line. In an hour you leave,'” Darby recalls.

When Darby arrived at Dover Air Force Base, his wife Bernadette was there to meet him. He thought they would head back home, but the Army had other plans.

An officer asked Darby what he wanted to do. “I said, ‘Sir, I just want to go home. I’ve always just wanted to go home.’ He said, ‘Well son, that’s not an option.’ He said, ‘The Army Reserve has done a security assessment of the area and it’s not safe for you there. You can’t go home,'” Darby remembers. “‘You can probably never go home.'”

“They said, ‘If you had to choose, where would you want to live?’ And you know basically where do you pick, you know? You’ve lived a whole life in one area,” he says.

Asked if it seemed fair to him, Darby says, “No.”

“It’s not fair. That we’re being punished for him doin’ the right thing,” his wife Bernadette adds.

The Army’s security assessment of his hometown had concluded that “the overall threat of harassment or criminal activity to the Darbys is imminent. …a person could fire into his residence from the roadway.”

Amazing, isn’t it? That those who did the right thing, that protected the constitution and the law, was treated as Joe Darby found himself, while those who refuse to follow the orders of President Obama because of a myth are now having “debates” as to their role.