An oath of office
A Department of Defense adviser has resigned, effective immediately, from the military’s science board, citing what he believed to be a violation of conduct from Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.
In his resignation letter to Esper, which was obtained by The Washington Post, James Miller Jr., who served as the US undersecretary of defense for policy from 2012 to 2014, recalled that he swore an oath of office to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States” and “to bear true faith and allegiance to the same,” similar to what the defense secretary had done before he took office.
“On Monday, June 1, 2020, I believe that you violated that oath,” Miller wrote to Esper.
It was the one where they gassed peaceful protesters to clear the way for Trump’s Walk to the Church photo op. Esper and Army General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went with Trump on that walk of shame.
“Law-abiding protesters just outside the White House were dispersed using tear gas and rubber bullets — not for the sake of safety, but to clear a path for a presidential photo op,” Miller wrote. “You then accompanied President Trump in walking from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church for that photo.”
And by doing so he endorsed it. Constitution? Remember that?
“You must have thought long and hard about where that line should be drawn,” Miller wrote. “I must now ask: If last night’s blatant violations do not cross the line for you, what will?”
“Unfortunately, it appears there may be few if any lines that President Trump is not willing to cross, so you will probably be faced with this terrible question again in the coming days,” he added. “You may be asked to take, or to direct the men and women serving in the US military to take, actions that further undermine the Constitution and harm Americans.”
That’s a safe bet.
Although it is heartening to read of people standing up for the constitution, they are too few and don’t wield the power they need in order to keep those in charge from tearing it up.
While I approve of the sentiment, how does resigning help matters?
These actions (the dispersing of peaceful protestors) remind me of the tactics used against the women protesting for suffrage in front of the Wilson White House. The main difference is that they didn’t use the military to do it, only the police. Still wrong, still bad, but not…coup.
Who’s going to be left to refuse to follow bad orders? Are resignations helpful?
I don’t really know.
What can they do but resign, and publicly state their reasons?
Should they continue to be part of a corrupt, proto-fascist administration?
Lady Mondegreen: Well, yes, that would be my first inclination. That way they can choose not to do whatever BS is asked of them, like firing rubber bullets and tear gas at peaceful civilians. At the very least, it would allow them better access to information about the administration’s activity.
@NiV
But we had lots of pearl-clutching “I am only staying in the administration to prevent worse things from happening” officials with anonymous press leaks in the past 3 years. It seems this strategy did not work out very well.
Nullius, I have known a lot of people who stayed with groups they purportedly did not support to “change it from the inside”. Common among these is churches. I have never known one of them who was able to change a powerful institution by virtue of being somewhere within the confines of the system. Most of them showed no signs of even trying, but those who did, I often saw them changed by the institution, instead.
I once had a similar decision, when working for the Oklahoma DEQ. Stay and try to “change from the inside”? Or recognize that my minor level position was not sufficient to change the large and powerful machine that was turning Oklahoma’s environment over to the oil companies and other polluters?
I recognized my inability to make that change. I could be as effective – more, perhaps – from the outside. But before I got my resignation letter submitted, a near-fatal asthma attack sent me home on disability pay, which I could not forfeit in the circumstances, and ended up quitting at the end of my disability period to return to college. It was highly unsatisfying. No change, not even a principled protest. If I had it to do again, I would probably do the same thing, because no principled protest should lead to martyrdom unless your death will change things, and mine would not.