Cult of leader leads to military impunity

Calvin Coolidge is credited with offering the sobering observation that an army without organization amounts to a mob. A tad pointed, maybe, but the essence of the dictum holds water. Effective, lawful, publicly funded armed forces depend heavily upon solid organization, commitment to process and loyalty to nation through a chain of command. They also require a fair but assured disciplinary structure. Of course, within that framework, there’s room for improvement through policy development, adopting best practices and even restructuring.

A current discussion around who should mete out military justice and how it should be done is an example of this tradeoff. One side of that debate holds that commanders ought to be free to manage disciplinary issues on their own and without external interference. Others feel military jurisprudence would benefit from a healthy dose of civilian legal machinery.

It’s significant, though, that both positions acknowledge the uniqueness of military operations, as well as the idea that within Western democratic tradition, military commanders ultimately answer to a civilian political master — but to serve the needs of the country, rather than those of a private individual or group.

Against this backdrop, it’s difficult to fathom why any modern democracy would want to pardon and reinstate those within their fighting forces who’ve been lawfully convicted or accused of war crimes. The idea of intentionally blurring the boundary between what can only be termed necessary violence of battle and wanton brutality is as sickening as it is dangerous.

It also runs counter to the notion that regardless of the system in place, military commanders are responsible for what occurs on their watch. This is especially so in the case of war crimes, but regardless of the offence, and to paraphrase the oft-quoted Lord Hewart, justice must not only be done; it must also be seen to be done.

Yet from all appearances, the current U.S. president appears to have done exactly the opposite by becoming involved in the prosecution and sentencing processes of members of his military.

I’m unaware of the details behind a decision like this, but a political pundit recently opined that it’s not beyond the pale for people to come to regard their nation and their leader as one and the same — in other words, the nation is the person and vice versa. He added that under such thinking, all kinds of things become acceptable to one degree or another — things like commandeering of government departments, political loading of the courts, squelching the media, denying facts and making routine forays into other jurisdictions.

Political involvement in a military’s means of managing its own people is in keeping with this approach.