Active Servicemembers Petitioning?

Lightning I absolutely agree however, lets kick it up a notch and see Seaman Hutto for who he really is:

http://www.antimedia.us/

Check out "Military Personnel Speaking Out"

Not your typical Sailor.

Being a retired SNCO for 6 years after spending 22 years in the service including service in Desert Storm and Kosovo I agree with the premise that we all volunteered to serve in the Armed Forces, with the knowledge that our elected leadership could send us off to fight in a foreign land. Having said this I think a lot of what you see in articles in the Marine, Air Force, Army and Navy times and this Appeal for Redress are a result of the frustration of the seeming inability to get a handle on the current situation in Iraq. Every day brave young men and women are killed and yet Mullah Sadr is still breathing our air, why? Other events like the ongoing travesty of the Pendleton Eight only fuel the discontent and hurt moral. People are more worried about the terrorist scum held in Guantanamo Bay than these young men. Of course in Iraq it is hard to get the straight story from the media or the Pentagon. The MSM will spin in to help their left leaning candidates; the Pentagon’s professional cheerleaders will continue to tell us that the insurgency is in it’s last throes and just a little longer and we will achieve victory. While I would like to belive the Pentagons press briefings I know how constrained the officer corps is because of politics to say anything negative about actions or senior leaders. The truth probably lies somewhere in between. I always find it ironic like has happened recently when senior flag officers retire and suddenly discover that policy or actions resulted in unnecessary deaths among the troops. I want to ask them so why weren’t you talking about this when you could have done something about it? From a tactical standpoint we cannot lose, but I wonder if we can really handle the strategic and political reality that is Iraq and the Middle East in the 21st century. I pray nightly for the safe return of all of our troops and also for our senior leadership both civilian and military to do the right thing and smash with all available resources the insurgents and their handlers.

Hutto's background prior to joining the Navy was as a left-wing activist which included anti-war activity. The fact that he is now agitating from within the military suggests to me that that was his purpose in joining the Navy in the first place. Someone who joins the military with the intention of organizing dissent in the ranks is not engaging in any legitimate form of freedom of speech, but rather is engaging in a form of sabotage.

When I read this post, I viewed it through the lens of regulations and traditional constraints on the political activities of men in uniform. I think that there is a tangible difference between milblogs, which express the opinions of their authors (both for and against the war), and Seaman Hutto's petition, which constitutes (or at least purports to constitute) an organized/organizing political dissent within the military. Mind you, people in the military have every right to any political or personal opinion that anyone else holds. However, they are constrained from advocating political opinions AS MEMBERS of the military, and rather are only supposed to do so as private citizens.

It is a tough balance to strike, and it is certainly one that I struggled with as a politically conscious individual and a Marine (I wasn't always a lawyer, thank Christ). In this instance, I think that Hutto is attempting to make a political statement which derives its power from the military identity of the petition's signatories. I therefore think that it is innapropriate.

Hutto has the right to any opinion he wants to hold. But just like any other military man, he has the right to that opinion as a private citizen, not as a "member of the military against the iraq war."

Incidentally, this opinion leads to the converse logical conclusion as well: members of the military should not express opinions supporting the iraq war AS A POLICY while in uniform, either. The nature of a de-politicized military, which is the cornerstone of a functioning modern democracy, requires that "the military," as an institution, and its members, as members of that institution, refrain from making statements on policy. They are free to do so as private individuals, but not as professional warfighters.

OK, that's all I've got as a lawyer. Semper Fi, err yut murder maim kill.

Chris

This is a tough. I am a retired SNCO with ober 20+ years serive to include Vietnam until the mid-1990s. Part of what we are seeing is a more diverse population that are now in the military as well as one that is older, better educated, and have familiies. In addition, we are slso seeing a society that has not real ties to country and such concepts as "duty, honor, country" has no relevance. The end result is that we are seeing a reflection of our society as a whole. That society does not understand committment, duty, or responsibilty. So it is not surprising that this spills into our armed forces society. It probably will not pass but evolve into something the military can accept. We did it after Vietnam and after Gulf War 1. We will do it again.