What, Me Worry?
I admit that I admire General Michael V. Hayden. He is surely the most brilliant person I have ever met. (Don’t get too excited. I doubt the General remembers me from our short encounter over five years ago. Even so, I could tell then that he was one sharp guy.) I watched his press conference on C-SPAN last week and then read the transcript of his briefing on the internet later. If you’re interested, you can read about all the details of this stuff somewhere else.
But I must be awfully dumb since as smart as he is, he still left me wondering.
In his brief before the National Press Club on Jan 23rd, the brilliant General tried to convince us all that the President’s eavesdropping decrees were legal and constitutionally reasonable. He said clearly that this was a focused attempt to catch the bad guys. He assured us that our privacy is not in danger. Based solely on the General’s pedigree and credibility, we should believe him when he says that. Nobody knows what’s going on better than he does.
Besides being brilliant, the General is a true modern military man. He does what he’s legally ordered to do. That “legally” word is important. The General has been following and giving orders for over 30 years. He knows that there’s no excuse for executing unlawful orders. We all know today that both the leader and the follower share the responsibility for knowing what to do in these cases.
In fact, according to a common understanding of Articles 90, 91, and 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), military members have the duty to disobey orders from their superiors if those orders do not comply with the U.S. Constitution or the UCMJ itself.
Smart men like the General are very familiar with things like that. They’ve heard of Nuremberg and My Lai. They know when their ass is on the line in these cases. They simply can not follow on order to commit a crime and beg forgiveness or claim ignorance later.
But in this particular case, I found it remarkable that the General informed us that he went to great lengths to ensure this particular order was in fact lawful. Before acting, he said he asked and received the counsel of three different experts on the legality of such affairs. All three gave him the thumbs up.
Like I said, he’s a sharp fellow. I have no doubt that he would have resisted if the lawyers had told him something different. And I think he is so fortunate to be in a position where he has the time to consider all the implications behind such an order, to even ask for some help in making sense of it. Most military folks don’t have that kind of time or the guts to really think about things before they must act.
Over the years, I’ve witnessed that kind of extraordinary premeditated behavior from smart guys like the General. He said that when the events of 9-11 unfolded, he even took the time to call his wife and check on his children before getting back to work. That’s exactly the kind of cool-headed thing that smart guys do. While everyone else is scrambling around and looking silly, smart guys always make the time to check on their own before saddling up and setting off on the chase.
The General is intimately familiar with the people who follow his orders. He says the folks who follow this unique order even work under a banner which reminds them who they are working for on a daily basis. He says they have a bible, of sorts, concerning precisely these kinds of concerns called USSID 18 and it is constantly on everyone’s mind.
While some of us may think this order sure sounds like the old “Shoot first, ask questions later” kind of thing, he assures us that is not the case. The General is comfortable with the fact that the people who are doing this for him are like him and are very aware of their legal limitations.
The General has done his homework, he knows his people and he knows his stuff. He even argued confidently with one of the reporters at the briefing about the exact words written in our Constitution.
The General knows he can’t violate our 4th Amendment right against “unreasonable search and seizure”. He believes what he is doing is reasonable and therefore not a crime. Admittedly, he refused to tackle the “probable cause” requirement for warrants contained in that same amendment but clearly he checked all this out, the answer was good enough for him and it should be good enough for us. He even clearly stated, “Don’t worry!”
So what am I worried about?
The mere fact that a smart man like General Hayden admits that he worried about the legality of this order at first makes me worry about it, too.
MEB
But I must be awfully dumb since as smart as he is, he still left me wondering.
In his brief before the National Press Club on Jan 23rd, the brilliant General tried to convince us all that the President’s eavesdropping decrees were legal and constitutionally reasonable. He said clearly that this was a focused attempt to catch the bad guys. He assured us that our privacy is not in danger. Based solely on the General’s pedigree and credibility, we should believe him when he says that. Nobody knows what’s going on better than he does.
Besides being brilliant, the General is a true modern military man. He does what he’s legally ordered to do. That “legally” word is important. The General has been following and giving orders for over 30 years. He knows that there’s no excuse for executing unlawful orders. We all know today that both the leader and the follower share the responsibility for knowing what to do in these cases.
In fact, according to a common understanding of Articles 90, 91, and 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), military members have the duty to disobey orders from their superiors if those orders do not comply with the U.S. Constitution or the UCMJ itself.
Smart men like the General are very familiar with things like that. They’ve heard of Nuremberg and My Lai. They know when their ass is on the line in these cases. They simply can not follow on order to commit a crime and beg forgiveness or claim ignorance later.
But in this particular case, I found it remarkable that the General informed us that he went to great lengths to ensure this particular order was in fact lawful. Before acting, he said he asked and received the counsel of three different experts on the legality of such affairs. All three gave him the thumbs up.
Like I said, he’s a sharp fellow. I have no doubt that he would have resisted if the lawyers had told him something different. And I think he is so fortunate to be in a position where he has the time to consider all the implications behind such an order, to even ask for some help in making sense of it. Most military folks don’t have that kind of time or the guts to really think about things before they must act.
Over the years, I’ve witnessed that kind of extraordinary premeditated behavior from smart guys like the General. He said that when the events of 9-11 unfolded, he even took the time to call his wife and check on his children before getting back to work. That’s exactly the kind of cool-headed thing that smart guys do. While everyone else is scrambling around and looking silly, smart guys always make the time to check on their own before saddling up and setting off on the chase.
The General is intimately familiar with the people who follow his orders. He says the folks who follow this unique order even work under a banner which reminds them who they are working for on a daily basis. He says they have a bible, of sorts, concerning precisely these kinds of concerns called USSID 18 and it is constantly on everyone’s mind.
While some of us may think this order sure sounds like the old “Shoot first, ask questions later” kind of thing, he assures us that is not the case. The General is comfortable with the fact that the people who are doing this for him are like him and are very aware of their legal limitations.
The General has done his homework, he knows his people and he knows his stuff. He even argued confidently with one of the reporters at the briefing about the exact words written in our Constitution.
The General knows he can’t violate our 4th Amendment right against “unreasonable search and seizure”. He believes what he is doing is reasonable and therefore not a crime. Admittedly, he refused to tackle the “probable cause” requirement for warrants contained in that same amendment but clearly he checked all this out, the answer was good enough for him and it should be good enough for us. He even clearly stated, “Don’t worry!”
So what am I worried about?
The mere fact that a smart man like General Hayden admits that he worried about the legality of this order at first makes me worry about it, too.
MEB
posted by M.E. Bamboo at
11:33 AM
1 Comments:
Interesting you would say that. What I would add and smartly omitted by MB is what is left unspoken regarding the comment on Nuremburg and My Lai.
And that is there are a small group of people who lived through the latter, ditto for the former, that don't believe it happened. And as small segment of them counter with the ol' glory fluttering on a windless moon.
And it is this inability to reason that hampers many smart people such as Hayden and Ann Coulter. Alas, it is the fate of a world that wants to both eat of the forbidden fruit and live in paradise.
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