How would this go over in the USA?
The views expressed here are those of The Crawfish. He tied up and gagged the editors at VAJoe before making this post.
HARARE, Zimbabwe - A top Zimbabwe army general called on the nation’s soldiers to vote for Robert Mugabe in a presidential runoff or quit the military, the official media reported Saturday.
Army Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Martin Chedondo told troops at a target-shooting competition to leave the military if they did not support Mugabe, the state Herald newspaper reported.
“Soldiers are not apolitical. Only mercenaries are apolitical. We have signed up and agreed to fight and protect the ruling party’s principles of defending the revolution. If you have other thoughts, then you should remove that uniform,” he was quoted as saying.
He told soldiers at the Cleveland shooting range outside Harare on Friday that Mugabe was head of the nation’s defense forces.
“We should therefore stand behind our commander in chief,” he reportedly said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/zimbabwe;_ylt=Ahj3tf.6iukC2ZTdpn8WDQPAwtcA
What would happen if this was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs saying this to the US military? That might depend on who is President. If it was a Republican President, this would be the top story in the media for months. The general or admiral would be forced to resign and would probably be court martialled. Even without a court martial, Congress would grill him and pass legislation removing all of his pay and benefits from that day on. If it was a Democrat President, the media would either completely ignore the story or back the general.
“We should therefore stand behind our commander in chief.”
What about another situation that has been mentioned in a number of blogs and forums across the internet. What if the President and Congress were to institute so many unConstitutional measures that the populace finally stepped up and started rebelling? Is it the duty of the members of the American armed forces to follow the commander in chief? Do we follow our oaths to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic? If so, which is the enemy, the government or the people? Do we rely upon the UCMJ’s edict that we only follow LAWFUL orders? Would the military fracture?
I, for one, would stand with the Constitution. If that means that I would support the people against a government that is using the Constitution as Charmin, so be it
June 18th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
The Military Will Not Be Called On To Put Down A Rebellion
Not withstanding Posse Comitatus the politicians could not trust the military to stand between them and an angry American Citizenery, so…
The government has made an end run around the Constitution.
And
The government has developed its own army to protect it from any possible future uprising by the citizenery. This army is right in front of your eyes and on your television every night on the 5:00 o’clock news.
What do police need with SWAT teams and snipers, all dressed in black jump suits with ski masks as finishing touch? (It would be too simple to do like the UK which merely surrounds the fugitive’s house, cuts off all utilities and waits forhim to come out). We hamstrung police methods of old that worked in order to set out these ‘new’ methods of “War on Crime” and replaced cops (whose methods worked..once) with storm troopers.
SWAT teams and police snipers are only part of this army. The main body is all the alphabet agencies the government has developed such as ATF, DEA, FBI etc.
As shown at Waco and Ruby Ridge, these arms of the political army don’t give a tinker’s damn about Constitution, human rights, life or anything other than enforcing the politicians’ wills. If it is LAW, that is all they care about. Whether the law is constitutional or not is of no concern. This will be the army facing any civilian dissent to future legislation we know is coming and legislation we know will be unconstitutional.
Waco and Ruby Ridge were trial runs for these ’soldiers’ of the politicians. The real thing is coming and will be much worse.