In today’s (Dec. 2) Democratic Voices, Jonathan Kraut exposes a disguised variant of Trump Derangement Syndrome. He continues the disruptive, deceitful deception of the Democratic video that encourages our soldiers to disobey “unlawful orders as directed by civilian leadership.” Who are they talking about? There is only one civilian leader in our military — the president! And since when has he given orders to the troops in the field? Never! The military has a strict, proud protocol of following their chain of command. The orders come from the top, but are vetted, clarified, corrected and even challenged within that chain of command.
For those six Democratic officials who took the oath and served our country to publicly encourage our military to independently challenge our commander in chief is shamefully political. For Jonathan Kraut to perpetuate a hypothetical, non-existent myth is shameful and betrays his service to our country.
Our military has a very proud tradition of swearing allegiance to the Constitution, not the president. All branches of our military have a well-established ethic of what is lawful and unlawful and doing what is lawful and avoiding that which is unlawful. To issue a video to the public that implies that there are unlawful orders and we must encourage our military to make those political decisions is a grandstanding stunt and disrespectful to our fine military men and women. For Mr. Kraut to perpetuate that myth is even more shameful.
Jim Scott
Santa Clarita
