Tracking America’s Suicide

 

shutterstock_140840029Amid a plethora of sensational news reports elbowing each other to seize first place in America’s national consciousness, there is a story that has lurked beneath media radar that teaches us much more about the status of our country than school shootings, Russian bombings in Syria, Iranian perfidy, Hillary Clinton’s makeover attempts, and Republican candidates’ daily presidential gymnastics. It concerns an event that took place in Afghanistan in 2011, when a group of Green Berets, which included Capt. Danny Quinn and Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland, were faced with reprehensible acts that pitted them against some local officials in a classic episode involving a clash of civilizations.

It seems that Quinn and Martland were apprised of a situation involving an Afghan mother who was severely thrashed by an Afghan soldier who had kidnapped her son, chained him to a bed, and was repeatedly raping the helpless child whenever he felt the inclination. Quinn and Martland confronted the Afghan commander, who then laughed in their face, said that “it was only a boy,” and that Americans should find better ways to use their time.

But these Green Beret heroes wouldn’t stand for that. Martland proclaimed that they morally could not tolerate Afghan soldiers committing atrocities against their own people in the presence of U.S. forces, and the two men made their point clear by body-slamming the soldier and kicking him off the post. Whereupon the American soldiers “were reprimanded because they were told it wasn’t their place to intervene and they should properly observe Afghanistan’s cultural and relationship practices,” according to Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and has taken up their case against the Army’s outrageous decision. In fact, although Quinn has since left the military, Martland is currently fighting to keep his position before he is discharged, effective November 1.

Without question, these American soldiers represent the best that our country has to offer, sterling exemplars of moral rectitude and courage. However, they are currently facing an enemy that is arguably more insidious than anything they have faced so far on the battlefield. What enemy is that? It is the reigning multiculturalist ideology, a witch’s brew of moral relativism that over the past two generations has morally castrated Western civilization by expunging efforts to make principled judgments defending our values. At best, multiculturalists believe in nothing in particular. And as the West’s enemies know, something always beats nothing, and it doesn’t matter how reprehensible that something is. In short, multiculturalism represents the suicide of Western civilization.

Indeed, westerners could learn much from the approach taken by Sir Charles James Napier, a general in the British Army who was a Commander-in-Chief in India during the 19th century. When confronted by Hindu priests whose custom was to burn alive widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands, he is reported to have said: “Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.”

“Wait a minute!” you might say. Doesn’t this represent that terrible era when Western nations considered themselves morally superior to everyone else? We now all agree how repulsive that was! Well, as a matter of fact, General Napier did live during that era, yes. With regard to claims of Western moral superiority, however, we might have asked the opinion of widows faced with immolation. Or, better yet, ask the boy whom that Afghan commander continuously raped what he thinks of that “custom.”

In fact, our judgments should be based on the values that have defined our civilization for the past two millennia, and not airily dismissed on the grounds of multicultural moral relativism. That means that Martland should be applauded and not condemned for refusing to “respect” a barbarous cultural practice, to which multiculturalism, which dominates nearly every aspect of Western life, can find no objection. This is why it represents the death knell of our civilization, from within and not from without, as presciently noted by another famous 19th century figure, Abraham Lincoln. “If destruction be our lot,” he noted in his 1838 Lyceum Address, “we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

Published in Culture, Military
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  1. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    We’re so crazy. Aren’t we? So strange and schizophrenic…

    I don’t think all is lost yet, though. For one thing, I have only just begun to fight…

    • #1
  2. Job-locked Poet Member
    Job-locked Poet
    @

    To slide from being proud missionaries of freedom and decency, justifiably boastful of free societies established overseas at tremendous sacrifice, to being unwilling to forcefully oppose the buggery of children….

    I have no words.

    • #2
  3. Umbra Fractus Inactive
    Umbra Fractus
    @UmbraFractus

    Anthropologists love to insist that it’s disingenuous to conflate cultural relativism with moral relativism…

    …then something like this happens.

    • #3
  4. Z in MT Member
    Z in MT
    @ZinMT

    I can’t believe this story isn’t attracting more media attention. I agree with everything wholeheartedly, and I hope something changes.

    Part of the problem is that it is the Army. I don’t think Marines would have been drummed out like Quinn and Martland.  The rules, regulations, and culture of the Army and Marines are very different. The Marines demand obedience to the chain of command but delegate responsibility and authority downwards and tend to back the decisions of the Marine given the authority wherever they are in the chain of command. The Army hopes for obedience and diffuses responsibility and authority, so everybody ends up playing CYA.

    My aunt was in the National Guard and served in Iraq, and she noticed that in the Army they had curfew and regulations against drinking and partying, that were constantly enforced with monitors. Infractions, were punished but only weakly. The Marines were allowed to do pretty much whatever they wanted as long as they showed up on time and performed their duties. If they couldn’t do that though they were in deep [expletive].

    • #4
  5. Steve C. Member
    Steve C.
    @user_531302

    I’m sympathetic to the plight of the SFC, but can’t help but wonder if there is a Paul Harvey dimension. It seems he is not permitted to re-enlist. This implies the imposition of a “bar to re-enlistment” an administrative sanction typically applied for misbehavior. According to what I’ve read the only sanction he received was a “reprimand” but most likely it is an official letter of reprimand from a general officer in his chain of command. I suspect the reason he is barred is because he has an official letter in his file. Who issued the letter and why?

    • #5
  6. Chris B Member
    Chris B
    @ChrisB

    They beat up an Afghan commander who was beating women and raping children? Sounds like they were “properly observing Afghanistan’s cultural and relationship practices” to me. Shouldn’t they get a commendation for their stellar observation of Afghan culture?

    • #6
  7. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    Marvin Folkertsma: Indeed, westerners could learn much from the approach taken by Sir Charles James Napier, a general in the British Army who was a Commander-in-Chief in India during the 19th century. When confronted by Hindu priests whose custom was to burn alive widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands, he is reported to have said: “Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.”

    Napier ruled the local territory. If he’d hung Indians from gibbets, it would have been after a trial.

    America does not rule Afghanistan. Soldiers should absolutely take actions to stop awful things from happening, and they should support American efforts to ensure that prosecutions take place. They should not designate themselves as judge, jury, and… well, they didn’t kill anyone, but corrections system.

    One of the key problems in Afghanistan is the lack of rule of law and the problem of a warlord culture. We should absolutely do more to ensure that these people get punished, but individual soldiers beating people up is not the way to promote the rule of law. It is, indeed, precisely the sort of abuse of power that we are trying to teach the Afghans to end; warlords are not only problematic when their dictatorship is not benign.

    • #7
  8. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    Z in MT: I can’t believe this story isn’t attracting more media attention. I agree with everything wholeheartedly, and I hope something changes.

    The New York Times has repeatedly run front page stories on it. How much attention do you think it should get?

    • #8
  9. Larry3435 Inactive
    Larry3435
    @Larry3435

    Captain Kirk always found a way to ignore the Prime Directive (which prohibited Starfleet personnel from interfering with the internal development of alien civilizations), and never got reprimanded for it that I can recall.  So I guess the chain of command will become a little more tolerant by the 24th Century.  Or not.

    • #9
  10. Robert E. Lee Member
    Robert E. Lee
    @RobertELee

    James Of England:

    One of the key problems in Afghanistan is the lack of rule of law and the problem of a warlord culture. We should absolutely do more to ensure that these people get punished, but individual soldiers beating people up is not the way to promote the rule of law. It is, indeed, precisely the sort of abuse of power that we are trying to teach the Afghans to end; warlords are not only problematic when their dictatorship is not benign.

    Stopping the buggering of children by calling a lawyer and awaiting proper due process isn’t the best way to save the children.  Sometimes you have to act first and follow procedure later.

    Do we really want our soldiers to be comfortable with standing by while someone tortures or kills innocents?

    As for how much media exposure this is getting, whatever it is is not enough.  Congress and the people should be ashamed that we won’t stand by our own in the face of this barbarity.

    Military members must have more armor, in the front to protect them from out allies as well as our enemies, and in the back to protect them from their own superiors and politicians.

    • #10
  11. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    I’m a multicultural-pluralism kind of guy and I agree with the specifics of this article.

    • #11
  12. Front Seat Cat Member
    Front Seat Cat
    @FrontSeatCat

    To ask our service men and women to put their lives on the line in a hostile region of the world is enough – but to then ask them to witness atrocities toward the weakest and defenseless – women and children, or any defenseless people – turn a blind eye and live with it, is more inhuman than the crime itself. We have soldiers returning from battle with emotional scares deeper than their physical ones – they have to live with. Knowing they stood by and did nothing to save the small boy? Who could live with that – could you?  Is this not a repeat of the 1940’s – what we are witnessing across the Middle East?

    Then don’t put our military in those situations because we are moral and descent and should not have to defend that.

    • #12
  13. Wylee Coyote Member
    Wylee Coyote
    @WyleeCoyote

    James Of England:One of the key problems in Afghanistan is the lack of rule of law and the problem of a warlord culture. We should absolutely do more to ensure that these people get punished, but individual soldiers beating people up is not the way to promote the rule of law. It is, indeed, precisely the sort of abuse of power that we are trying to teach the Afghans to end; warlords are not only problematic when their dictatorship is not benign.

    These are Green Berets; the essential purpose of Army Special Forces is to organize and train local militias to fight on America’s side.  To that end they are generally expected to operate off the cuff and ingratiate themselves with the locals – but this has limits.

    This isn’t the same as a couple of rogue cops lumping someone up in an alley because they don’t want to do the paperwork.  The civil-justice route is not one that was really available to these soldiers.

    The painful irony though, is that, being civilized men, the Green Berets did have a civil-justice apparatus above them, which the goon they confronted was able to use against them.

    • #13
  14. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    Wylee Coyote: This isn’t the same as a couple of rogue cops lumping someone up in an alley because they don’t want to do the paperwork.  The civil-justice route is not one that was really available to these soldiers.

    I don’t believe that this is the case. There’s a judicial system. It’s a bad one, but we don’t help it when we impose vigilante justice.

    Robert E. Lee: Stopping the buggering of children by calling a lawyer and awaiting proper due process isn’t the best way to save the children.  Sometimes you have to act first and follow procedure later.

    Right. Their kicking the guy off the base while they waited for the proper due process was useful. Preventative action is helpful and legitimate. Beating the guy “within an inch of his life” is not.

    Do you agree that if it the guy had had some medical condition they were unaware of and had died, that that would be the sort of thing that we ought not to have been doing, or is it your view that our soldiers in Afghanistan should be full on Judge Dredds, without limits?

    • #14
  15. Xennady Member
    Xennady
    @

    This event is an excellent example of just how far off the rails US policy has managed to get.

    US troops aren’t in Afghanistan for the same reason they’re in Alabama. But the pedophiles of Afghanistan are given much more freedom by the US government to practice their culture of child-rape than the people of Alabama are given to decide they don’t want to recognize gay marriage. Something is wrong there.

    Not only that, but the reason why US troops are in that pathetic semblance of a country is because its government allowed its territory to be used as a base to attack us. Or to be less legalistic they attacked us.

    They did this, btw, after we risked nuclear devastation to help them fight the Soviets and while we were their largest source of foreign aid. Since then, we have expended vast sums, to make their lives better.

    This is what is failure looks like. It’s as if we were conquered by them and forced to give tribute. And forced to ignore it when they rape children.

    Successful cultures spread their practices, one way or another- such as when England introduced democracy to India.

    Failing cultures have their practices extinguished- as when the US government forces gay marriage upon Alabama and the rest of the country.

    Cultural suicide indeed. We’re watching it happen, in real time, imposed by our own government, at the behest of its extremist masters.

    We should object. Strenuously.

    • #15
  16. Front Seat Cat Member
    Front Seat Cat
    @FrontSeatCat

    Xennedy you are right – failing cultures eventually implode – why are we still in Afghanistan when obviously the situation has changed and we are supporting a backward, twisted regime – we tried to help these countries – they have rejected the support – or their leadership has – to follow through and take control of their country – defend it and make it better.

    • #16
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