Over on the Spengler blog, David Goldman wonders why General Petraeus is weighing in on a First Amendment issue:
Burning the Koran (or any book) is a bad thing, and the Rev. Terry Jones of something called the Dove World Outreach Center will violate basic standards of decency when he sets fire to the Muslim holy book on Sept. 11. But it is Constitutionally-protected free speech. Last year a North Carolina church observed Halloween by burning Bible translations it considered heretical, to nary a peep from the national media. Blasphemous treatment of Christian religious symbols is commonplace, from Andre Serrano’s crucifix-in-urine construction to Chris Ofili’s elephant dung Madonna.
Where does Gen. David Petraeus get off telling American civilians how to express their opinions? Serving American military officers are not supposed to poke their noses into such matters. Petraeus well may be correct that “extremists” will use the burning of the Koran to stir up anti-American sentiments. If an American commander finds it inconvenient when Americans express antipathy towards Islam, where will it end?
September 7th, 2010 | 5:42 pm
Why? Because it’s very likely to cost lives. Everybody with half a brain should publicly objecting to these purposeless and juvenile stunts. If being in public office doesn’t disbar one from expressing religious sentiment, then it shouldn’t disbar one of from expressing common sense, either.
September 7th, 2010 | 6:31 pm
This is the inevitable result of the politicization of the military, which has been ongoing. There was a time (MacArthur?) when generals wouldn’t even wear their uniforms to Congress. The motive was deference to separation of powers. Those days are gone, as are the days of legally declared wars.
September 7th, 2010 | 7:10 pm
General Petraeus should be killing our enemies, not appeasing them.
September 7th, 2010 | 9:21 pm
I don’t think it’s “inserting himself,” interfering with the First Amendment, telling people what to say, or anything else unsavory to inform people of the potential consequences of a particular act. If expecting people to take into account the effects of their speech is some kind of inappropriate chilling effect, then we’re saying that speech should not only be free from government intrusion, but held to be blissfully without consequence. That’s not very rational.
September 7th, 2010 | 10:30 pm
Honestly, it strikes me as almost precisely a mirror image to the “9/11 Mosque”. Many, many people are saying that the owners have the right to build it there, but it’s not a good idea to do so…
September 7th, 2010 | 10:54 pm
Petraeus’ comments seem to fall into the category of “you’re within your rights, but acting stupidly and provocatively” which by-and-large distills the main objections to the ground zero mosque.
September 8th, 2010 | 12:15 am
The problem is that Petraeus is a military officer, and so is restricted from making any sort of pronouncements on domestic matters, no matter how it might affect his mission or troops. That is a core tenet of our governmental stability, to keep the military out of domestic politics.
I agree that someone should say what Petraeus said. Because what he said is true. But it ought to be Obama or Secretary Gates, the civilian leadership.
September 8th, 2010 | 12:53 am
Matt wrote: “There was a time (MacArthur?) when generals wouldn’t even wear their uniforms to Congress”.
I’d like to see a source for that. I expect Matt is thinking of MacArthur’s appearence after he left active duty. Here is a link to a photo of the Chief of Staff, General George Marshall testifying in uniform in 1945:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://cache4.asset-cache.net/xc/50501167.jpg%3Fv%3D1%26c%3DIWSAsset%26k%3D2%26d%3DE41C9FE5C4AA0A144ED68B622F689AFB032853297FBFE21289483B457E99EFC6B01E70F2B3269972&imgrefurl=http://www.life.com/image/50501167&usg=__7Ua2GDQRC6AnS4BjpaFbQaaOvQ8=&h=397&w=594&sz=43&hl=en&start=4&zoom=0&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=Pu46fhPnFToDXM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgeneral%2Bmarshall%2Btestify%2Bbefore%2Bcongress%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26rlz%3D1T4ADFA_enUS364US364%26tbs%3Disch:1
September 8th, 2010 | 12:59 am
Mike wrote, “General Petraeus should be killing our enemies, not appeasing them”.
He has been doing that very effectively for several years, especially in Iraq. Part of doing that is building and maintaining local alliances. Another part of his job is concern for the welfare of his soldiers. That includes giving his expert opinion about legal but stupid behavior which may threaten them and the conduct of the war.
September 8th, 2010 | 5:55 am
Of course, David Goldman took exactly the opposite tack when it came to the Ground Zero mosque issue — saying that public officials should not only criticize the planned construction but also actively seek the demolition of the building (“If built, a sensible future city administration should demolish it.”). So much for First Amendment principles.
As for Gen. Petraeus, I didn’t see him literally say that the church should not burn the Korans. I would agree with Goldman’s (unfortunately hypocritical) invocation of the First Amendment that military officials have no business telling Americans what they can or cannot say. On the other hand, a military official in a time of war can and should say that certain kinds of speech endanger the lives of troops and that Americans who care about the troops and their mission ought to think about that before they post videos of their awesomely subversive speech on Youtube. I think that is all the General said based on this WSJ article.
Even here, I admit there is not a clear line. Still, American soldiers are in harm’s way and if a general thinks that civilians can help the troops by behaving in a responsible matter, I don’t think it is too out of bounds to make a public statement to that effect. I certainly don’t see how this is any worse than “loose lips sink ships” [or did Goldman temporarily forget that we are at war?]. Anything more strongly worded ought to be avoided by public or military officials, though.
September 8th, 2010 | 7:42 am
I agree that someone should say what Petraeus said. Because what he said is true. But it ought to be Obama or Secretary Gates, the civilian leadership.
I agree in theory but I wonder if this was not done deliberately. I’ll go out on a limb and guess that Mr. Jones and the other officials at his church did not vote for Barack Obama and don’t particularly like his administration.
It doesn’t seem like there is any back-peddling by the Pentagon on Gen. Petraeus’ statement: that suggests he was authorized to make this very rare public remark on a domestic matter on behalf of the Pentagon. It may well be that any statement by Administration officials would have been seen as useless if not worse than useless.
Getting a dedicated and widely respected warrior who is much closer to the front to make the statement may have an impact.
September 8th, 2010 | 9:17 am
“If an American commander finds it inconvenient when Americans express antipathy towards Islam, where will it end?” You’ve got to be kidding me — “inconvenient”? As the uncle of a Marine officer serving in Iraq, Goldman’s unwillingness to see the potential deadly consequences of this juvenile act leads me to believe that his hatred for all things Islamic has detached him from reality…..
September 8th, 2010 | 9:33 am
Petraeus didn’t actually say the Florida church should not burn the Korans, he merely noted that news of the burning would incite violence in the Muslim world. That’s different than the impression I got from this post.
Nonetheless, even though book burning is stupid, and doing everything for our troops is paramount, this ‘respect Islam or suffer violence’ is a form of extortion and must be resisted.
September 8th, 2010 | 9:34 am
Burn some korans? Lord knows we wouldn’t want to offend those who blew up the Bamyan buddha statues.
September 8th, 2010 | 12:25 pm
Sean,
You don’t payback idiocy by acting like idiots yourself. We are trying to win a war in Afghanistan, which is a predominately Islamic country. Part of that invloves winning the population to our side, in which we’ve had some success. These kinds of actions (burning the Koran) plays right into the hands of the Taliban and what’s left of al Qaeda.
September 8th, 2010 | 12:29 pm
“That is a core tenet of our governmental stability, to keep the military out of domestic politics.”
And an unwise action by a bunch of citizens in Florida is not “politics.” Of course the military shouldn’t be influencing domestic government policy — or even foreign policy, that’s why we have civilian control of diplomacy and the military. But warning people who could be expected to care whether American troops die that their actions might cause such deaths, is not “interfering in policy.”
Is “loose lips sink ships” also an inappropriate meddling of the military in domestic policy and free speech, or is it just good advice to people who might temper their actions by it?
September 8th, 2010 | 3:11 pm
‘Winning hearts and minds’ was the slogan for the last big war we lost. When we defeated the Axis powers, there was no talk of winning over those populations, but our sole aim was to destroy enemy infrastructure to the point their militaries could not function. That is winning a war. If we don’t want to go to war, fine, but if we do, we should fight to win. Our military is not a police force. No one’s is.
If enemy militias will target American soldiers for a Koran burning, the best solution is destroying those militias.
September 8th, 2010 | 4:23 pm
mike,
Afghanistan is a very, very different place. There is very little infrastructure and their tribal culture is largely pre-modern. If you “removed” the Taliban, things would not necessarily be any different. The Afghan population is what needs to be won. They are the ones who will live and work in Afghanistan long after this war is over. They are the ones who grow poppies to feed their families in a land poor in resources and utterly devoid of development. They have nothing to lose, so threats of – and actual – violence never changes things for the better. That’s the harsh reality.
September 8th, 2010 | 4:27 pm
Mike,
There is no infrastructure in Afghanistan to destroy. And part of what helped the surge in Iraq succeed was winning over hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. While it makes us feel good to talk about winning a war by “destroying” an enemy and not fighting any “police” actions, sometimes the world is a little more complex than that . . . you have to fight smart. There are Afghan’s dying everyday fighting side by side with US Soldiers. Should they be destroyed too? Don’t you think these soldiers may not like seeing their holy book desecrated? Why is that so hard to grasp?
September 8th, 2010 | 4:55 pm
Besides what Hampton and publius said, exactly which infrastructure and military capability is being destroyed by the burning of Korans in Florida?
It would be one thing if Petraeus had warned against some constructive tactical action because it might anger our enemies; this is not that. This is Petraeus suggesting that a meaningless symbolic exercise with no tactical value would be better left undone because it could HURT our military efforts. It is not appeasement to say “Don’t do X stupid thing because it will harm our military efforts by getting our soldiers killed with no tactical advantage.” It would be appeasement to say “Don’t engage in an effective tactical strategy because it might make them mad.”
September 8th, 2010 | 9:08 pm
I appreciate everyone else’s comments in this thread. It has been very thought-provoking. I won’t add to my previous comments except to give definitions of the words ‘appease’ and ‘extortion’ because there does seem to be a question as to whether we might be appeasing extortionists or not, not to mention the question of whether that’s even the most important issue, given that many of us undoubtedly have loved ones overseas who may be subjected to increased danger. But clarity can’t hurt.
The following definitions are from thefreedictionary.com. Of course other definitions were also listed for each word.
To appease means ‘to pacify or attempt to pacify (an enemy) by granting concessions, often at the expense of principle.’
Extortion is ‘the act of securing money, favours, etc. by intimidation or violence; blackmail.’
September 9th, 2010 | 4:28 am
It used to be considered the hall-mark of a democracy that the army was “The Silent Lady” (La grande Muette)
We, in Europe, and your neighbours in Latin America, have seen, all too often, where neglect of that principle leads.
September 9th, 2010 | 7:27 am
It used to be considered the hall-mark of a democracy that the army was “The Silent Lady” (La grande Muette)
We, in Europe, and your neighbours in Latin America, have seen, all too often, where neglect of that principle leads.
Indeed, which is precisely why Gen. Petraeus’ statement was as restrained as it was.
From the general’s perspective, this act makes it more likely that more American soldiers will come home in body bags and more girls in Afghanistan will have acid thrown in their faces by Taliban goons who will be better equipped to fire up the local populace against the government if this act takes place. He is right to speak up if that assessment is accurate.
Given that he is in a position to monitor intelligence reports and hear what is going on from the guys who are on the ground there, I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss his assessment either.
September 9th, 2010 | 12:18 pm
I do not support the decision to burn the Koran–it is not an action I believe Christ would undertake. One should pray for your enemies, even if you must sometimes kill them to protect the innocent.
That said, if the Koran burning causes some to kill, they should be hunted down and brought to justice, not appeased or deferred to, as too many suggest. If a person would kill another child of God over the burning of a book (Bible, Koran, or any sacred text), that person is totally responsible for the murder they commit.
September 10th, 2010 | 10:11 am
You might also ask why Sec. Gates made his call to Jones. These moves are blatantly political and no general or SecDef would make them without approval or “nudging” from the president.
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