This is a statement from the anti-war organization of veterans and active-duty military personnel, March Forward! To read more statements by March Forward! click here.
General McChrystal left the military after making disparaging and
insubordinate remarks about other U.S. military and political officials.
He leaked sensitive information in order to pressure President Obama to
escalate the war in Afghanistan. Bradley Manning, on the other hand,
has been accused of releasing documents exposing war crimes and
violations of the sovereignty of oppressed countries.
For over a
year, Bradley Manning has been held in solitary confinement, stripped
naked in his cell and humiliated every night, allowed only one hour of
exercise and is deprived of basic necessities. Manning, a Private First
Class, has not been convicted of any crime yet has been vilified by much
of the media.
McChrystal’s punishment? An early retirement with
a $12,475 a month pension, supplemented by his involvement in a number
of corporations and lucrative lecture tours, for which he receives
six-figure honorariums for a single speaking event. He has been praised
by Secretary of Defense Gates as “one of America’s greatest warriors”
and instantly started making a lucrative salary teaching at Yale. Even
after being fired as commander of operations in Afghanistan, he was
awarded medals upon his departure.
The extreme privileges of
the top brass are clearly on display when these two cases are compared.
The officer McChrystal is rewarded for very real breaches of military
conduct, while enlisted service member Manning is brutally abused for
allegedly exposing criminal actions.
This is not the first time
that members of the officer class have been given a free pass while
service members are punished. Stunning acts of torture carried out at
Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were exposed in 2004. A dozen enlisted
soldiers were court-martialed for their involvement, many of them
receiving jail time.
Lt. Col. Stephen Jordan was the only
officer to be put on trial for his role in the scandal. He was acquitted
on charges of detainee abuse. No effort was made to follow the abuse
further up the chain of command, much less to hold Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld responsible.
The culpability of the officer corps
for ordering these terrible crimes and others does not exonerate the
GIs who carried them out. In fact service members have a right to refuse
unjust or illegal orders. However, the incredibly lenient treatment the
top brass received does highlight one of the many injustices of the
rigid military hierarchy.
Completely unaccountable to anyone
other than the wealthy elite they serve, the Pentagon brass and the
entire officer corps will continue to send us to our deaths with
impunity.
The vast difference in treatment for officers vs.
enlisted makes crystal clear why enlisted personnel have the right to
organize to collectively defend and fight for our own interests.
