Big Brass Picks
by digby
This is one good reason why you don’t want career military brass in charge of domestic intelligence and police functions. Their experience often gives them a perspective that leads to a certain amount of confusion about domestic issues.
Greg Sargent at The Plumline has this about the proposed head of DHS:
Donald Trump has chosen retired Marine Gen. John F. Kelly to run the Department of Homeland Security, a post that will have great consequence in a Trump administration, given Trump’s vow of a much tougher approach to combating illegal immigration and internal terrorist threats, both areas that DHS oversees.
In that context, there is a quote that Kelly delivered in 2010 that libertarians and civil liberties experts see as troubling, and in need of further clarification. The Post account describes it this way:
Kelly learned firsthand the pain and loss suffered by many military families. His son, 2nd Lt. Robert M. Kelly, died in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban in 2010. Four days later, the general delivered a passionate and at times angry speech about the military’s sacrifices and its troops’ growing sense of isolation from society.
“Their struggle is your struggle,” he told a crowd of former Marines and business people in St. Louis. “If anyone thinks you can somehow thank them for their service, and not support the cause for which they fight — our country — these people are lying to themselves. … More important, they are slighting our warriors and mocking their commitment to this nation.”
That quote, which was about members of the military fighting against the terrorist enemy, seems to suggest that one cannot criticize a war without being seen as anti-troops. That said, it could also mean that one cannot criticize the broader act of defending this nation without being anti-troops.
A full transcript of the speech, which was linked to in a Post article in 2011, provides a slightly different rendition of the quote:
“I know it doesn’t apply to those of us here tonight but if anyone thinks you can somehow thank them for their service, and not support the cause for which they fight — America’s survival — then they are lying to themselves and rationalizing away something in their lives, but, more importantly, they are slighting our warriors and mocking their commitment to the nation.”
Civil liberties experts are calling for him to “clarify” what he meant by that in his confirmation hearing. And if he’s smart he’ll prepare something that papers over the remark. Maybe he was just emotional in the moment. But the fact is that his boss, the president-elect, is a full on enemy of civil liberties who has made it quite clear that he doesn’t have a clue about the constitution and if, god forbid, we have a terrorist attack or some other kind of crisis, he will give the go-ahead for just about anything. The hope was that he would have people around him who would keep a cooler head. There’s no indication that this is a guy who would do that.
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