Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James Conner.
Over at Intelligent Discontent, Don Pogreba has going a spirited discussion on the allegations that John Walsh committed a near treasonable sin by using his official email account to urge members of Montana’s national guard to join an association that lobbies for better equipment and pay for members of the guard. It’s a sin on the order of a parking ticket, but without the fine.
But the banana republic officers involved in the complaint to the army’s inspector general, and who leaked a military document stamped “For official use only. Dissemination is prohibited…,” are committing very serious violations of written and unwritten codes — they’re meddling in electoral politics, and worse, meddling in a clandestine fashion worthy of Oliver North.
It’s no secret that America’s officer corps is deeply conservative politically. Some run for office as Republicans when they retire from active duty. Others become agitators for far right organizations that strike me as dangerously authoritarian. Montana’s national guard serves in a conservative state, and I would not expect its officers to share Wesley Clark’s political positions. But I do expect officers on active duty to conduct themselves as professionals and not meddle in politics, and especially not to meddle clandestinely.
This affair reeks of disloyal officers in a Central American Republic scheming to overthrow a legally established government. No, the sabotage Walsh conspirators haven’t drawn swords, seized radio stations, or surrounded the Lt. Governor’s home with tanks commandeered at gunpoint — we’re not that crass here in the States — but their motivations, their schemings, their hit-and-run political tactics, are wholly commensurate with the morals of banana republic officers who equate coup d’états with peaceful politics.
So far, the Montana guard’s banana republic officers — the anti-Walsh complainers, the leakers of “Dissemination prohibited” documents — have not stepped forward and identified themselves. Now is the time for them to do so.