A Study in Contrast: Bergdahl and Michael New
When SGT Bowe Bergdahl walked away from his unit in Afghanistan, he apparently did so as a matter of conscience. Fred Reed has written a sympathetic column.1 Hundreds of others have written scathing condemnations.
Reed makes some valid points — how many people have we killed in order to make them safe from Communism, or from radical Islam? Is it more than coincidental that Halliburton and McConnell-Douglas and Brown & Root have grown filthy rich off the war industry? Did not Dwight Eisenhower warn us about the “military-industrial empire” that now runs our country?
Never mind that the war is illegal. Never mind that we are fighting another undeclared war, without a Congressional declaration, as required by the Constitution.
Never mind that we are fighting another unwinnable war, and have no will to win.
The first point here is that one might well admire, on one level, any man who takes a stand for his conscience’ sake. When one gives up what one has for a principle in which one believes, it has a noble quality all its own.
When SPC Michael New took his stand on conscience, he went about it in a completely different way. First, he informed his chain of command that the order he had received (to wear a United Nations uniform and serve under foreign officers) was an order he was going to disobey, if necessary, and he requested a transfer.
Michael New didn’t go AWOL, in the dead of the night.
Michael New didn’t defect to an enemy, and then support that enemy against his own country.
Michael New didn’t cause any American soldiers to die in looking for him.
Michael New is the only US soldier in American history to be court-martialed for wanting to serve his own country, exclusively, in agreement with his Oath of Allegiance to the Constitution (not the president, not the chain of command).
For his stand on both conscience and the Constitution, SPC New received a court-martial and the Army prosecutors argued that he should spend a few years in Leavenworth, just to prove the point that one must obey orders. Unable to convince a jury of that, he was given a Bad Conduct Discharge, and his career was ended, not by himself, but by the chain of command.
For his stand on conscience, which included his religious faith, SGT Bergdahl got to live with the enemy he so loved, probably caused the deaths of six to fourteen US soldiers, and now can probably make a fortune writing his memoirs and signing film contracts.
Why such a difference in the way these two objectors were handled?
There is a simple answer. SPC New’s actions were a red light on the road to a politically correct New World Order.
SGT Bergdahl’s actions, on the other hand, were a green light on the road to a politically correct New World Order.
Anything that weakens the American military, or better yet, the will of the American people to defend Liberty, pleases the International Socialists who run the Democrat Party. They are opposed to nationalism, working instead for globalism. With the Muslim sympathizer Obama, this takes on a hitherto unknown flavor that favors a radical Islam as well, but it hardly changes the direction in which every Democrat president since FDR has taken us. Marxism is the prevailing philosophy of the Democrats today. They may loathe the military, but obviously will support a soldier who does all within his power to break down morale and integrity within the military itself, for they loathe the military.2
Those who run the Republican Party are very different, to say the least, being best described as National Socialists. They favor a strong military, a nation strong enough to control our friends and thwart our enemies, in a 21st Century version of “imperialism”, or “colonialism”. They favor big government and big business working hand in hand.3 They love their military-industrial complex, and there is no way they can support a soldier who challenges their unconstitutional policies.
While both parties hate one another with the same fervor that Hitler and Stalin hated one another, we should realize that both were, and remain today, socialist in essence. Both favor central planning and government by power elites. Both have contempt for the Jeffersonian concept of “binding down the government with the chains of the Constitution.” And they won’t support a simple citizen soldier who dares to challenge the growing power of a commander in chief who thinks more like an emperor than a civil servant.
Can a constitutional republic survive when to two major political parties are at odds only over the question of how to make us a more socialist nation? Of course the USA will continue to exist. But it will no longer be a constitutional republic.
The USA has become something the Founding Fathers would not recognize, much less support. Indeed, we have become precisely what the Founders warned us against. They would know what to do today, and if we were to have a generation read their writings, then we, too, would know what to do.4
Sadly, Bowe Bergdahl was right in some of his conclusions about what we have become. Tragically, he took a course that has cost lives, and will cost many more, before it is over.
If this story continues to unfold and expose Bowe Bergdahl as a traitor to his country, then the only question will become whether he should spend life in prison, or be executed for treason.
Bergdahl’s fate is of secondary importance to the nation, as was that of SPC Michael New. They will both become minor sidebars in the history of our nation. But the completely different way in which they were handled is very telling, and does not bode well for our future.
What do those in military uniforms conclude when they look at these two soldiers? If you betray your country, you might well be treated as a national hero, whereas if you do it by the book, and oppose unlawful orders through the proper process, you will find yourself court-martialed and count yourself lucky to get off with a Bad Conduct Discharge.5
© 2014, Daniel New
2 “We loathe the military.” — Bill and Hillary Clinton.
3 Some readers will recognize that the word, “Nazi” is derived from Adolf Hitler’s approach to government, “National Socialism”.
4 “…Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the People to alter or abolish it.” Thomas Jefferson, in The Declaration of Independence.
5 Readers may want to get a copy of the book, MICHAEL NEW — Mercenary, or American Soldier?, and the video, GOOD CONDUCT, The Story of Michael New. Both are available from www.MikeNew.com, and the book is available on Kindle from Amazon.
© Daniel D. New, Permission to copy, with credits, is hereby granted.-
