General Pace's Skewed Morality

[babylonsister]

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/03/16/general_paces_skewed_morality.php

General Pace's Skewed Morality
David McReynolds
March 16, 2007

snip//

The issue, however, is whether those of us who have had to go through this intense struggle to gain self-knowledge—some sense of what is truly right and wrong—should not also have learned that our very process of facing painful decisions made us more aware than the average person of just what is truly immoral. The gay and lesbian struggle should focus—must focus—on the fact that the war in Iraq is a criminal adventure, in violation of the United Nations charter. There is not a question of this realization being "left" or "right"—rather, it is a question of right and wrong. If, on the one hand, we demand military service be open to our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, surely, on the other hand, we must urge them to avoid such service when they may find themselves used as pawns of what the ruling class perceives as its interests. (And the interests of those who run a country are usually quite different from the interests of the rest of us.)

There was another aspect to General Pace's comments which should cause all of us—left, right, gay, lesbian—to pause. Increasingly we find the U.S. military is being systematically infected by a kind of Christian fundamentalism which is concerned with the "moral questions" of sexuality—whether adultery or homosexuality—but not concerned with the more basic moral questions which have been addressed by all the great religions—matters of social justice and compassion.

It was precisely this concern which led to the death of Jesus, to the murder of Gandhi, to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A more careful examination of what is moral and what is immoral might lead the good general to resign his post. A true sense of moral values often subverts the existing order—never more so than today, when the U.S. has become a rogue state.

As the son of a father who served his country in the Army Air Force in World War II, and retired as a lieutenant colonel, I respect—deeply—the role of the military in trying to defend a country, even if my pacifist beliefs lead me in a different direction. But there is a vast difference between the defense of your country, and the invasion of someone else's. Let us hope that at some point this occurs to General Pace.

[Briar]

1. Excellent article

but it isn't only Pace's morality. We live in a world where private matters of sexual preference are pored over with moralistic fervor, yet where killing if one is in uniform is authorised and even encouraged by a blatantly militaristic culture. What is the mark of a hero in our fictions? Being ready to kill (though naturally there will be much sophistry expended on rationalising and justifying the slaughter: then the killing can be as merciless and bloody as possible). What objects are most prized? Instruments of killing like guns and swords - which are portrayed with elements of almost sexual potency. Violence is sensualised - but homosexuality deemed criminal? The rot goes a lot further than Pace and his uniformed icons of national virility.

[babylonsister]

2. Briar, you need to write more. You express yourself so wonderfully.

And I agree about the rot; it infests many places in our country sadly.