Its taken me a while to work up to writing this post. It concerns the soon to be Congressman from Florida’s 22nd Congressional district-Rep ( elect) Allen West. Criticizing a someone anointed as a conservative saint is a dangerous undertaking these days. But I figure I can do it because : a) I was senior to him for all of his military career and b) the facts are on my side.
To hear some people tell it-Allen West is the nation’s black version of Dwight D. Eisenhower-all ready to ride down Pennsylvania Avenue on a white horse and claim his rightful place as the new savior of America. You’ll forgive me if I don’t jump on that particular band wagon just yet.
I think I can safely say what Allen West is the second incarnation of though: he is the 21’st century version of B-1 Bob Dornan. As I dug through the record, such as it was- I noticed more than a couple of similarities. But more on that later.
Allen West’s military career was, for the most part, that of your average fast track Army officer’s. He went into the Army, became a field artillery officer and did most of the things one would expect an officer rising through the ranks to do. However in 2003, his Army career took a little detour. Because he broke the rules:
While serving in Taji, Iraq on August 20, 2003, West was in charge of an interrogation of a civilian Iraqi police officer who was suspected of having pertinent information regarding attacks on American soldiers in the area. Interrogators had learned that the detainee had information about a planned ambush. When the interrogators were unable to extract the information from the detainee, West was asked to assist with the interrogation. When the detainee continued to withhold information, West was accused of firing his pistol past the detainee’s head, frightening the detainee into revealing the requested information. According to West’s sworn statement, the detainee informed West that:
“ [The attack] was to occur Friday morning in Saba al Boor vicinity of the police station by positioned snipers supposedly being brought in from Fallujah. [The detainee] was to ID my vehicle and myself for these rooftop firers. We took this information and the following day established flask CPs and used AH-64s overhead. There was no attack and no further attacks have emanated from the town since the apprehension of [the detainee] and his named associates. ”
At least one man was apprehended as a result of the information obtained through the detainee’sinterrogation. His home was searched, but no plans for attacks on Americans or weapons were found. West testified that he did not know whether “any corroboration” of a plot was ever found, adding: “At the time I had to base my decision on the intelligence I received. It’s possible that I was wrong about [the detainee,] Mr. Hamoodi.”
West, who at the time was just short of having 22 years of service, was charged with violating articles 128 (assault) and 134 (general article) of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. West was processed through an Article 32 hearing in November 2003, where he admitted wrongdoing, was fined $5,000 . He then submitted his retirement paperwork and was allowed to retire with full benefits in the summer of 2004.
West reported the incident to his immediate superior who took no action. The commander of the 4th Infantry Division however, when it was brought to his attention through a letter from a soldier in his unit-was not so forgiving. You may have heard of Odierno-he was Petreaus’ right hand man in Iraq and succeeded him after Petreaus moved on up to CENTCOM.
The incident turned West into a cause celebre’ among conservative activists-West received the support of members of Congress and many veterans groups. After his retirement he dropped off of the radar screen. He moved to Florida and taught high school for a year. Just a year-after which he more than likely quadrupled his $38,000 per year school teacher’s salary by going to Afghanistan as an advisor working for MPRI.
So much for the nobility of helping America’s disadvantaged youth. Following his return to the US, he became just another contractor among many, UNTIL, he was either persuaded or volunteered to run against Ron Klein in 2008.
That was the year I first heard of him- partially as a result of some of the more outrageous things he said. However that race was fairly well eclipsed by the Presidential race-and he was just another right wing hack who got trounced at the polls.
Not so a couple of years later. In the intervening two years the Tea Party had come to the fore and they decided to anoint Allen West as their poster child. Narrowly avoiding court martial was no longer something to down play-it became something to campaign on. Conservative bloggers played up his candidacy and made him out to be a saint and a crusader all rolled into one.
As he cruised to victory ( interestingly winning by the same percentage he lost by two years earlier) I became interested in trying to fathom what the truth was about the guy. And I soon discovered it:
He’s an opportunist. And he knows how to play his audience.
Now to take that position is a dangerous proposition and it sets off a great number of folks-but the more I dig about this guy the more troubling he is.
And its not totally because of his incident in Iraq-although that should trigger any number of alarm bells. His supporters paint him as a hero deserving of great admiration for his commitment to his subordinates. I’m not so sure.
I ask myself this question and you should too: How many battalion commanders served in Iraq and didn’t get an Article 15 and get forced to retire? A lot. I remain convinced that the Army did not persecute him, but they recognized the slippery slope they would be heading down if his actions went unnoticed. He is neither a hero nor is he a villain. To court martial him would probably have been going too far-but to let him walk away scot free would have been to beget a whole host of even worse incidents. Or does no one remember a little thing called Abu Graib?
But what’s more than a little troubling is the way West has capitalized on it and made an industry out of playing up to his tea party audience. West in his run up to the election, and afterwards, has portrayed himself as a so called expert on Islam. This video has been making the rounds in conservative blog cirles even though it is at best an example of some pretty flawed logic. One would think Lex would know better:
Now lets follow his logic carefully-because what the good Congressman elect is saying is that all Muslims must be judged by all the words in the Koran. Therefore all Muslims are a threat to civilization. That’s like saying that because Leviticus advocates stoning someone, or Exodus advocates selling one’s daughter into slavery-all Christians are to be opposed on that basis. Its like saying because Fred Phelps calls himself a Christian we should oppose all Christians. Now, most reasonable people know that’s not right-nor is it fair to the literally millions of Christians who act with compassion and decency.
West can rattle off a list of military battles. Well so can I. I can also point out that he has his history more than a little wrong:
Charles Martel fought because he was asked to by the elderly Duke Odo of Aquitane. Charles Martel was not fighting “the Muslim army,” as there was no such thing. He was fighting a very specific force — the Ummayad– which was an imperial force, not an outfit of missionaries. (The reigning religious zealot of the era, in fact, was Martel’s own grandson, Charlemagne.) Charles Martel fought all his life, usually against other Christians and on one occasion against Duke Odo himself. In the Battle of Tours, he was, very simply, a defender of certain regions of Europe from a conquering imperial power. He was hardly a saint: A military leader with shifting political allegiances, he was in the habit of installing puppet kings in regions his armies had conquered, paying fealty to them in public, and privately wielding almost dictatorial control over their lands. He was, by any modern classification, a tyrant. (And consider: If there had been a Charles Martel 800 years earlier, fending off foreigners with strange beliefs, the Roman Empire might never have rescued Europe from barbarism. Western Civilization wouldn’t exist, and Allen West wouldn’t have anything to defend.) Martel is hardly a useful conscript for West’s War on Terror.
Want to continue?
In the Battle of Vienna, Europeans permanently drove back the Ottoman Empire. This was good for the preservation of Christendom, whatever that means, but it was hardly a victory against Islamic fundamentalism. It wasn’t even a victory against Muslims per se — at least, not Muslims as we presently think of them. The Muslims banging on Vienna’s gates were mostly from Transylvania, Moldovea, and Crimea — hardly modern battlefields in the War on Terror. Citing Vienna as an excuse for increased aggression in the prosecution of America’s wars is a bit like Palestine using Christian aggression during the Crusades to justify war on the Catholics of Argentina. Pure silliness. Anyway, the Battle of Vienna was prosecuted by the Ottoman Empire on political, not religious, grounds. It was a grab for valuable real estate and for control of the Danube. At the same time as the Austrians were busy defending themselves from the Ottomans, France’s King Louis XIV — the Sun King — was using the Ottoman distraction to scoop up Austrian land while nobody was looking, just as the Ottomans would have if they could. Should we suppose Allen West hates the French too? (Don’t answer that.)
All of which leads back to Allen West’s historical mentor, B-1 Bob Dornan. Bob Dornan came from three different Congressional Districts in California. Dornan moved whenever he thought the odds were against him. Thus he left West Los Angeles andmoved to Orange County-a world that is similar to the district that West will represent. At least Dornan had some historical connection to California. West had no connection to Florida until he retired. ( I’m sure the lack of a state income tax had nothing to do with his decision!).
Bob Dornan understood Tip O’Neill’s old adage-all politics are local.Meaning that you only have to scare the bejesus out of 300,000 people in a district that is primarily white-and wealthy. That’s not hard to do-especially when you can play both the military and the victim card ( twice!). But in return for that-you gain a national platform to scare a lot more people and win a national audience……..
What’s trickier though is getting the voters to overlook some of the other pesky details like the 11,000 dollars in tax liens you racked up since retirement from the armed forces.
But hey-he’s liked by Saint Sarah so all is forgiven right?
Allen West is a Tea Partiers tea partier. He’s allied himself with some really bad folks and is using them to further his own political career. He’s made a deal with devil from what I can see. In a normal world he would be regarded as a crank and a extremist-regardless of his skin color. In today’s topsy turvy political world, he gets to channel the ignorance of a millions and create a climate of fear and loathing.
So at the end of the day-I felt compelled to speak out about this guy. There are plenty of military retirees who could do an outstanding job in Congress. But Allen West is not one of them. Reasonable people have to see through the hype and oppose this guy. I will lead the charge-follow me!