My professional take – FLDS, Army cases challenge us on religious liberty

From my May 1 newspaper column:

They look different from us. They dress differently. They’re standoffish. They have weird religious beliefs and social customs.

How many of these statements and more crossed the minds of many Americans in the days and weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, thinking about Muslims in America?

By actions if not words, we’re hearing or seeing the same beliefs today — over a splinter Mormon group right here in Texas.

It seems that the state of Texas, including the overworked and understaffed Child Protective Services and District Judge Barbara Walther are acting on presupposition and prejudice in how they have acted from the moment of raiding the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or FLDS, compound in Eldorado.

First, the phone call itself that led to the April 3 raid on the FLDS compound.

Colorado court records show the calls made to a San Angelo domestic violence shelter were made from prepaid mobile phones previously used by Rozita Swinton. The Colorado Springs woman has been charged with making a false report in Colorado and is on probation there for a similar offense.

Teenagers, especially ones who are mad at their parents or other adults, do that. But, CPS and the Texas Department of Public Safety didn’t show much responsibility or initiative in trying to determine whether or not the call was legitimate before making the raid.

Then came further actions by CPS, many substantiated by Judge Walther, followed by other actions of her own.

First was the decision to separate the children at Eldorado from their mothers. If fathers at Eldorado had forced mothers unto either underage or polygamous marriages, of course, CPS would be right to separate both mothers and children from the men.

But, nobody has charged the mothers with any wrongdoing.

Instead, a surface interpretation of CPS actions would be that the state wants to deprogram these children out of their “weird” beliefs in an “extremist offshoot Mormon cult.”

The idea that the state wants to “deprogram” these 437 children is only furthered by Judge Walther’s actions.

She refused to take the time or effort to treat each child as an individual. Instead, in a temporary custody hearing on whether to keep them in state custody rather than return them to their mothers, she had one giant hearing for all children. She even called it a “cattle call” afterward.

If either polygamous marriages were celebrated, or statutory rape was committed, at the YFZ Ranch, then perpetrators need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Ditto if reports of broken bones or other, lesser child abuse against boys at the compound were committed. Even if the broken bones are not from abuse, but healed poorly due to lack of medical care, then child neglect charges should be filed.

And, even on that issue, The Dallas Morning News notes the injury rate of boys at the compound is in line with other rural areas:

While physical injuries can be an indicator of abuse, checks by The Dallas Morning News suggested broken bones for 9 percent of a group of rural children is not out of line.

According to the Web site of the Seattle Children's Hospital, about half of all boys and a quarter of all girls break a bone sometime during childhood. In 2001, about 16 percent of youngsters under 20 living on farms suffered an injury – the most common being broken bones, a federal study says.

Meanwhile, the story indicates that Child Protective Services is continuing to invent ideas first, then fish for justification for them afterward.

Carey Cockerell, head of the Department of Family and Protective Services, parent agency of Child Protective Services, has claimed that boys at the compound were sexually abused, but at a Texas Senate panel hearing Wednesday, had no proof to offer.

But, the FLDS members, especially before any indictments have even been issued, are entitled to the presumption of innocence just as much as anybody else.

Unfortunately, the state of Texas isn’t acting that way.

Beyond the legal presumption of innocence, all FLDS members, whether fathers, mothers or children, are entitled to their First Amendment rights, protections and freedoms. So, too, are Jews, the Muslims stereotyped after 9/11, the Hindus and Buddhists who moved to our shores later, the American Indians who still practice ancestral religions handed down for hundreds and thousands of years before Europeans came here, and even the irreligious.

At the time that amendment was drafted and ratified, America had more than just Christians. A number of cities had Jewish communities. A number of the Founding Fathers weren’t Trinitarian Christians, but rather Deists, the forerunners of today’s Unitarians. And through French and British philosophers, ideas of agnosticism and atheism were well-known.

Indeed, John Adams said, “The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”

From where I sit, though there really haven’t been a lot of legal test cases, the First Amendment includes protection of freedom from religion, too.

Spc. Jeremy Hall, a real, live atheist in a foxhole as an Iraq vet, is suing the Army over that very proposition.

Hall came out of the secularist closet last year, after being involved in a firefight as a gunner on a Humvee that took several bullets in its protective shield. Afterward, his commander asked whether he believed in God, Hall said.

“I said, ‘No, but I believe in Plexiglas,’” Hall said.

The issue came to a head when, according to Hall, Maj. Freddy J. Welborn threatened to bring charges against him for trying to hold a meeting of atheists and other secularists.
Welborn claimed Hall dishonored the Constitution. I think Welborn had his finger pointing in the wrong direction.

Likewise, let’s not prejudge the FLDS. Remember, the Pilgrims came here for religious freedom. Remember also that if you try drawing First Amendment lines to exclude one belief, you’ve lost the right to object when somebody else wants to exclude yours.

For more about the atheism Henry loves, including a link to Carnival of the Godless, and for my Friday SCATblogging which Blue Girl knows about, see SocraticGadfly.

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The latest worry for U.S. troops — a superbug

The Observer reports that U.S., U.K. and Canadian troops are bringing back a new virulent bacteria from both Afghanistan and Iraq:

The bacterium, Acinetobacter baumannii, first emerged as a “mystery infection” afflicting US service personnel returning from the war in Iraq in 2003-04. It was described by a scientific journal specialising in hospital epidemiology as the “most important emerging hospital-acquired pathogen worldwide.” The journal added that it was potentially a “major threat to public health” due to its ability to mutate rapidly and develop a resistance to all known drugs.

Although different types of acinetobacter have been known for decades in hospitals, the new “T” strain identified in the injured troops is particularly virulent and has been observed to appear in US servicemen within two hours of being admitted to a field hospital. It affects the spinal fluid, bones and lungs, causing pneumonia, respiratory failure and other complications. Equally worrying is its resilience. Extremely difficult to eliminate from medical facilities once established, the bug can survive for up to 176 days in a human host. US officials concede that, once established in the medical evacuation chain, the germ is almost impossible to stamp out.

It remains to be seen just how bad this may become, but, it doesn’t sound good to read about.

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How to politicize the Army in one easy step

They can try to spin this however they want, but however they spin it doesn't matter. It all boils down to politicization of the military, and that way lies a deep and harrowing darkness.

General Petraeus has been summoned back to Washington to head up the Brigadier General's Review Board. I realize that only a few people stopped dead in their tracks at that news - somewhere south of .75% I would guess - Since just under 2% serve in any capacity, .75 is a healthy allowance for career officers, and career officers and their families are just about the only folks out there who even know what the hell a Brigadier's Review Board even is (hell, it's 'teh ungoogleable')...but lets get back on track before I start speaking jargon and tell you about the process by which a clutch of about a thousand Colonels are nominated, and about 40 get stars on their epaulets.

And you have the most political General in modern times heading up the winnowing process.

[keep reading]

You damn well know that no Colonel who has opposed or spoken out against the folly of Bush's vanity war is going to be one of the anointed forty.

I saw the WaPo article, and I immediately felt sick to my stomach. I made three phone calls to three different people who over the course of a lifetime will forget a whole hell of a lot more than I'll ever know, even at my peak awareness - and they were all feeling queasy themselves.

Putting the General in charge of combat operations in a country they have long-term occupation plans for in charge of selecting the next crop of Army generals is a signal that they don't ever intend to leave, and to that end, they are setting about staffing the flag ranks with those who will march lockstep with Petraeus.

The spin is "We're innovating!"

So let me take a moment to remind you that the more things change the more they stay the same. And turning a ship the size of the U.S. Army is not a mean feat. I have been saying for three years now that it will take at least two decades to rebuild the Army in the wake of the vandal aWol breaking it, but I have been foolishly optimistic. It's going to take that long to get rid of the influence of the Perfumed Prince.

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Not just enlisteds leaving the Army

Officers from West Point are refusing to re-up after their initial term:

West Point cadets are obligated to stay in the Army for five years after graduating. In a typical year, about a quarter to a third of them decide not to sign on for another term. In 2003, when the class of 1998 faced that decision, only 18 percent quit the force: memories of 9/11 were still vivid; the war in Afghanistan seemed a success; and war in Iraq was under way. Duty called, and it seemed a good time to be an Army officer. But last year, when the 905 officers from the class of 2001 had to make their choice to stay or leave, 44 percent quit the Army. It was the service’s highest loss rate in three decades.

Col. Don Snider, a longtime professor at West Point, sees a “trust gap” between junior and senior officers. There has always been a gap, to some degree. What’s different now is that many of the juniors have more combat experience than the seniors. They have come to trust their own instincts more than they trust orders. They look at the hand they’ve been dealt by their superiors’ decisions, and they feel let down.

The gap is widening further, Snider told me, because of this war’s operating tempo, the “unrelenting pace” at which soldiers are rotated into Iraq for longer tours — and a greater number of tours — than they signed up for. Many soldiers, even those who support the war, are wearying of the endless cycle.

Meanwhile, many Army generals are bringing this on themselves by their arrogance:

Soon after (Lt. Col. Paul) Yingling’s article appeared, Maj. Gen. Jeff Hammond, commander of the Fourth Infantry Division at Fort Hood, Texas, reportedly called a meeting of the roughly 200 captains on his base, all of whom had served in Iraq, for the purpose of putting this brazen lieutenant colonel in his place. According to The Wall Street Journal, he told his captains that Army generals are “dedicated, selfless servants.” Yingling had no business judging generals because he has “never worn the shoes of a general.” By implication, Hammond was warning his captains that they had no business judging generals, either.

The article linked is an excellent one about an Army career development school for captains. Many of them there are ready, willing and able to challenge general officers’ perceptions and comments about Iraq. Who knows? Maybe we will see more and more material, in various forums, like the recent New York Times column from members of the 82nd Airborne.

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