Ethicalego Opinion

Berkeley council wrongly attacks U.S. Marine recruiters.

The city council of Berkeley California approved a resolution that showed their disapproval of the U.S. Marine Corp recruiting station there. It directed a letter to the Marines saying they are “uninvited and unwelcome intruders” in Berkeley. They were unpatriotic and lacking in common sense.

The council supported the peace group Code Pink’s harassment of the Marines by approving a designated parking space for them in front of the recruiting office once a week and a free sound permit for weekly protesting. It gets worse.

News reports quoted Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates saying, “I believe in the Code Pink cause. The Marines don’t belong here. They shouldn’t have come here, and they should leave.” Berkeley sits atop the Hayward fault that earthquake experts say will erupt and devastate East Bay areas within 30 years. Let us see if Berkeley leaders are persistent and refuse the presence of military units then.  

The mayor is right on one point. Our Marines should not have come to a place where they have to endure this abuse from immature, rude people. Usually, the Marines and the Navy assign their best career service members to this duty. For many of them it is an opportunity to spend time with family members uninterrupted by deployments. It is sad they have to come home to this type treatment. Military members learn to endure stress. However, I resent Berkeley council members embarrassing them and their families by treating them like diseased scum.  

Code Pink and Berkeley council members protest the violence of the Marines’ mission and the prospect the people they recruit may be killed or maimed in senseless wars. I wrote against the illogic of the Iraq War when President Bush first suggested a possible attack against that nation. I also protested the many military and civilian casualties. 

Unlike Berkeley council members, I never directed displeasure toward members of the armed forces. I understood they are necessary institutions of our democracy as are local police forces and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Rational people do not protest the existence of the military. Instead, they protest how the President and Congress misuse them.

In the same resolution, Berkeley City Council directed its city attorney to research ways to harass the recruit center on issues of sexual orientation discrimination in hiring. This refers to Department of Defense ban against homosexual individuals in the military.  Again, they act cowardly and antipatriotic  against armed forces members for rules created by civilians.  Instead, they should protest to the President and to Bay Area Congress members Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and Representatives Barbara Lee, George Miller and Ellen O Tauscher.

An act equally disrespectful to the U.S. Marines happened at Oakland, California Airport. A North American Airlines flight with 204 Marines aboard traveling from Iraq to their Hawaiian home base made a stopover in Oakland. However, the Airport denied the Marines access to the terminal because of safety reasons. Safety reasons?  So, the Marines spent three hours waiting on the tarmac.

The Marines had their weapons onboard the airplane.  Airport officials said the ground support contractor could not assure security officials they had secured the weapons and the Marines would not bring them into the terminal. Idiots would be my easiest and best description for those civilians, but it is best not to engage in negative name-calling.

Those were U.S. Marines fresh from President Bush’s war to protect the nation from terrorists.  They had the same mission as the civilian airport security guards do. One would not expect airport security to have any security concerns about those Marines with or without their weapons.  Common sense should have told them that 204-armed U.S. Marines could go anywhere they wished to go if they had evil goals to take over the airport.

 An investigation of the incident found there was confusion about procedure, and a lack of communication between military and federal security officials. However, they found no intent to dishonor the Marines. Sorry, but I reject this excuse.

They disrespected them by not respecting who they were. U.S. Marines are probably one of the best-disciplined groups on earth. The civilian guard only needed to ask the senior Marine on board to keep weapons out of the terminal. An order from the commander to leave their weapons onboard would have been complete assurance it would happen. End of problem.

An America society respectful of its service members would have found a way to accommodate them even if they had to clear a special area in the terminal for their three-hour stopover.