There are many angles from which to view the “Scandalous Saga of the Seditious Six,” the recent story of six Democrat congresspeople who went public to admonish serving military personnel that they don’t need to follow orders they deem illegal.
As a Marine Corps veteran and the current chair of the House Committee on State-Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs, I was unsurprisingly contacted by a reporter when the story broke. He sent me a link to the video and asked for a comment, which I provided as follows:
“A very disturbing video … At Marine Corps Mess Nights, we always faithfully toasted our commander-in-chief, whether we liked them or not, be it Clinton, Bush, or Obama. This (attitude) is a huge threat to military discipline and the good order required. Very dangerous and disappointing to see partisanship introduced to our military culture in this way.”
The video is of particular interest to Granite Staters in that one of the six is our Congressperson Maggie Goodlander. Ironically, I had just spent some quality time with her on the Marine Corps Birthday on Nov. 10. We Marines appreciated her getting up early that day to be at the State House flag-raising to offer comments. Later that day, I shared a table with the Congresswoman and others at the ball in Franklin, where she again offered very nice comments to the large crowd while I read Governor Ayotte’s proclamation.
It’s hard not to like Goodlander. So, the video was both a surprise and a disappointment.
The other five video participants were Senators Mark Kelly and Ellissa Slotkin as well as Representatives Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan. All are Democrats, which made their action appear to be nakedly partisan. Surely, they could have found at least one Republican to provide a patina of bipartisanship to their stunt.
An early reaction was to wonder whose idea this was. Indeed, only 26 Democrats in all of Congress are veterans.
Goodlander threw gasoline on the subsequent political fire by doubling down and providing a second video which attempted to rationalize and justify the first.
The initial video unfortunately didn’t point to any specific issue or incident, which would have been instructive. Speaking in broad, ambiguous terms was perhaps an attempt to “poke the bear” to get a reaction. If that was the intent, it succeeded, as President Trump responded that he saw the behavior as seditious, which could involve a death penalty. Democrats happily replied by (inaccurately) claiming that the president called for the murder of the video participants.
The president is familiar with this “bear poking” dynamic. He often utters provocative comments likely designed to cause apoplexy amongst his many political opponents who suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome who take the bait and end up looking foolish with their hysterical responses. Then Trumpsters effectively shine lights on their unhinged behavior.
Yes, specific examples concerning relevant orders would have been helpful. Short of that, speculation subsequently centered on administration policies related to domestic National Guard deployments or international interdictions of suspected nautical Venezuelan drug runners.
Goodlander is standing on especially shaky ground here, as she’s married to Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s National Security Advisor. Recall that the Biden Administration ordered bombing missions in Iraq, Syria, or Yemen — without Congressional sanction. Those actions likely resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians and could certainly be construed by some as “illegal orders” worthy of being disobeyed, if we follow the logic from the video.
But the lawmakers were silent on these bombings, thus confirming that the video was prompted by partisanship, not patriotism.
Stone, meet Glass House.
An example of an illegal order would be a senior telling a subordinate to kill an unarmed civilian detainee. But most military orders result from leaders seeking to accomplish missions assigned by elected officials. Members of any effective military unit do not have the luxury of discussing or debating the morality or probity of most missions or orders.
To be sure, that approach has been tried before — with disastrous consequences.
For example, during World War I, Russia’s Imperial Army was infiltrated by Bolsheviks and other disruptors who succeeded in implementing Order #1, which called for the election of soldier “committees” to review policies and orders. Discipline and morale collapsed. That army disintegrated. Communists took over the country and sued for a separate peace with Germany in 1918 and then established a Soviet Union which would inflict almost a century of horrors all over the world.
So, if a result of the video is a new appreciation of important history, then that’s good. And if another result is an enhanced awareness of craven partisan political motives that undermine the good order and discipline in our military, then that is also good.
So, are the congresspeople actually seditious?
I want to think not.
Are they shameful?
Yes.
State Rep. Mike Moffett (R-Loudon) is a retired Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel who chairs the House Committee on State-Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs.