How It Should Be when It Comes to Honor — Army Captain Nathan Michael Smith — Sued the Obama Administration over its Arguably Unauthorized War against ISIS

© 2016 Peter Free

 

05 May 2016

 

 

The background

 

The United States has made a business of losing one geopolitically senseless and illegal war after another since Vietnam.

 

In that time, virtually no general officers have stood up to halt strategic foolishness, unnecessary carnage, and Executive Branch attacks on the Constitution that they have been sworn to defend against enemies.

 

Enter Army Captain Nathan Smith

 

Let us take Captain Smith’s story at face value. Unleavened with character sniping and legal arguments about standing, claim, and the meaning of “defend against all enemies” (among other things) —  it provides us an opportunity to reflect about the full-scope meanings of military honor and duty:

 

 

Nathan Michael Smith joined the Army, swearing an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

 

He took up this mission on the battlefield in Afghanistan, and is now serving as a captain in Kuwait at the command headquarters of Operation Inherent Resolve, the campaign against the Islamic State that President Obama initiated in 2014.

 

The president claims that Congress’s authorizations in 2001 and 2002 for the wars against Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein can be stretched to cover his current campaign. But many legal experts question his unilateral assertion of power.

 

Does the captain’s participation in this undeclared war involve him in a mission to destroy, not “defend,” the Constitution?

 

Captain Smith . . . has now brought suit in federal court to request an independent judgment on whether he is betraying his oath.

 

During the last months of the Nixon administration, a bipartisan congressional majority passed the War Powers Resolution over the president’s veto. Its aim was to prevent future presidents from following Nixon’s example in escalating the Vietnam War far beyond the limited authorization provided by the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

 

The 1973 resolution requires the commander in chief to gain the approval of the House and Senate within 60 days of introducing forces into situations involving “imminent hostilities.” If he fails to gain congressional authorization, he must terminate his campaign within the next 30 days.

 

© 2016 Bruce Ackerman, Is America’s War on ISIS Illegal?,  New York Times (04 May 2016) (extracts)

 

 

On the one hand — and on the other

 

Some will criticize Captain Smith for so blatantly challenging the Commander in Chief and, implicitly, his own chain of command.

 

Others may think that it is about (damn) time someone military stood up against the easily arguable illegality of one quasi-monarchically initiated American military action after another.

 

We are allegedly not Nazis here. We should not obey unlawful orders and forget about it.

 

 

The moral? — A “lowly” captain does what a line of general officers should have done long ago

 

Power and authority corrupt. The very people who have the most ability to deter the United States from strategically unwise and illegal actions are usually and dishonorably the last to use it.

 

Credit to Captain Smith. Demonstrating again that thoughtfully exercised virtue more often corresponds to youth and powerlessness than age and rank.