Lieutenant Colonel Robert Bowman is coming to Walkerton, Ontario, Canada.
Lieutenant Colonel Robert Bowman
He will be speaking at Jubilee Hall at 7:30 pm on the evening of August 28th.
Colonel Bowman is a courageous man. He has spoken out as a loyal American officer, urging members of the U.S. military to uphold the Constitution of the United States.
His message is clear and forthright.
He reminds us of the principles enunciated at Nuremberg in Germany, following WW2.
The Nuremberg trials resulted in the conviction of many German officers and administration officials who had committed illegal acts and pleaded innocent on the grounds that they were simply “following orders”.
Trial judges ruled at Nuremberg, that the defence of obedience to authority was not sufficient. Many of those officers and officials were executed for their crimes – the primary one of which was – “planning and waging an aggressive war”.
Since those landmark trials, the Nuremberg principles have been enshrined in the laws of all civilised nations, including the United States and Canada and have the force and effect of constitutional law…the highest law of the land in both countries.
A military officer is required by those laws to disobey an illegal order.
Bowman has called on his fellow soldiers to refuse to obey any orders associated with illegal acts of war, which include the war in Iraq.
His message has particular significance for the government of Stephen Harper. Harper’s officials are deporting U.S. soldiers who have deserted the military because the U.S. government wants to imprison them. However, according to Bowman – those men and women were right to desert, because the orders under which they were acting with respect to Iraq were illegal orders.
Thus we have a situation where the government of Canada – by deporting these men and women – is itself acting outside the law.
This is an altogether shameful state of affairs. Those of us who fail to protest our government’s action are also complicit.
There is still an argument to be had. On one hand you have Nuremburg requiring soldiers to disobey orders and on the other you have the military process which is to “break the will” of soldiers so that they will follow orders absolutely and without prejudice. This puts any soldier in an unfair position, expected to obey orders but also expected to make moral judgments about those orders. You can’t suck and blow at the same time.
In the field I’m sure that any refused order on moral grounds would be met with a comment akin to “You’re not here to think, you’re here to follow orders”.
Harper is wrong (as usual) but the argument has teeth.
Yes the argument has sharp teeth. No doubt. And for a young man or woman it is especially difficult I’m sure. The decision to go against “authority” can have devastating consequences.
So really it comes down to this: senior officers with a conscience must lead the way.
In a back-handed sort of way I think Rick hillier did that when he saw the writing on the wall and bowed out of the CAF in favour of a civilian job at CIBC.
Unfortunately Hillier did not have the courage to say that the war in Afghanistan was a monumental mistake.