|
Butler bush { June 4 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/3106289p-4107890c.htmlhttp://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/3106289p-4107890c.html
Air Force colonel suspended after bad-mouthing Bush
By KIM CURTIS Associated Press Writer
Published 2:00 p.m. PDT Tuesday, June 4, 2002
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A U.S. Air Force colonel who called President Bush "a joke" and accused him of allowing the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to happen because "his presidency was going nowhere," has been suspended and could face a court-martial.
The letter from Lt. Col. Steve Butler, who was vice chancellor for student affairs at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, was published May 26 in The (Monterey County) Herald.
"He did nothing to warn the American people because he needed this war on terrorism," Butler wrote. "His daddy had Saddam and he needed Osama. His presidency was going nowhere. ... This guy is a joke."
Butler, who called Bush's alleged silence "sleazy and contemptible," was suspended from his position on May 29 pending the outcome of an investigation into his remarks, Air Force spokeswoman Valerie Burkes said Tuesday. He remains assigned to the Defense Language Institute.
Butler, who entered active duty in April 1979, was a navigator during Desert Storm, Burkes said. His wife, Shelly, told The Herald that Butler plans to retire in a few weeks.
Military law specifically prohibits "contemptuous words against the president" and other political leaders. The prohibition against anti-government speech goes back to 1776, when soldiers were forbidden from using "traitorous or disrespectful words." The rules were updated several times and "traitorous or disrespectful" changed to "contemptuous." The president, vice president, Congress and state governors also were specifically banned as targets of bad-mouthing.
In 1950, Congress enacted the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the prohibition against contemptuous language survived intact as Article 88, and, for the first time, applied only to commissioned officers.
The maximum punishment under Article 88 is dismissal, forfeiture of all pay and allowances and confinement for one year.
The only known Article 88 court-martial took place in the mid-1960s, according to an article by Lt. Col. Michael J. Davidson published in the July 1999 edition of "The Army Lawyer."
In that case, 2nd Lt. Henry Howe was charged with using contemptuous words against the president and conduct unbecoming an officer. On Nov. 6, 1965, Howe, dressed in civilian clothing during off-duty hours, left Fort Bliss and went to nearby El Paso, Texas, to participate in a demonstration against the Vietnam War.
Howe, who was turned in to military police by a gas station attendant who noticed an Army sticker on his vehicle, carried a sign that read "Let's Have More Than a Choice Between Petty Ignorant Fascists in 1968," and "End Johnson's Fascist Aggression in Vietnam."
He was convicted and sentenced to dismissal, forfeiture of all pay and allowances and confinement at hard labor for two years.
"This kind of thing has happened repeatedly," Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, a Washington-based nonprofit group that advocates improvement in the military justice system, said Tuesday. "Clinton was repeatedly bad-mouthed."
In fact, an Air Force general was fined, reprimanded and forced into early retirement for referring to Clinton as "gay-loving," "womanizing," "draft-dodging" and "pot smoking," Ryan said.
Another Air Force general was reprimanded for telling an inappropriate joke about Clinton at an Air Force base in Texas. Two Marine Corps officers also were administratively punished for published letters to newspapers that were disrespectful of the president. That led to military officials warning military members against engaging in similar conduct.
|
|
