Frank Gaffney suggests dissent is treasonous

Glenn Greenwald, who is now blogging at Salon, has exposed the latest conservative pundit to suggest that dissent is treasonus.

In a Washington Times column, national security commentator Frank Gaffney begins by citing a quote calling for the arrest, exile or hanging of dissenting members of Congress, which he attributes to Abraham Lincoln:

Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged.
— President Abraham Lincoln

But as Greenwald points out, the quotation has been debunked as false. Lincoln never said it.

Gaffney continues by suggesting we should reconsider whether dissent should be a "hanging offense:

It is, of course, unimaginable that the penalties proposed by one of our most admired presidents for the crime of dividing America in the face of the enemy would be contemplated — let alone applied — today.

Still, as the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate engage in interminable debate about resolutions whose effects can only be to "damage morale and undermine the military" while emboldening our enemies, it is time to reflect on what constitutes inappropriate behavior in time of war.

Scarcely anyone seems to consider the conduct of the Congress inappropriate, to say nothing of a hanging offense. As various sitting members, whose day jobs increasingly are those of presidential candidates, jockey to outbid one another in their defeatism, the talk is not about whether such behavior is appropriate in time of war — or consistent with the national interest.

After denouncing various allegations of intelligence politicization, which he warns will have a "chilling effect," Gaffney concludes that such allegations "really should be a hanging offense":

The Journal has properly warned that Senator Ahab's [Senator Carl Levin, D-MI] misbehavior is likely to have implications far beyond the immediate disservice it does to Mr. Feith and those who labored so ably under him. It will likely also have a severely chilling effect on the willingness of policymakers rigorously to challenge, and thereby to improve, the quality of the intelligence they are getting about tomorrow's threats.

If there's one thing that really should be a hanging offense, it is behavior that results in our being even less equipped to deal with such threats than we were before this phase of the War for the Free World began on September 11, 2001

Add this to the long list of attacks on dissent since 9/11...

[Disclosure: Spinsanity was featured on Salon in 2002.]

Comments

[bird dog]

Not legally treason, but a lawyer could quibble over what actually helps an enemy. Anti-war movements as you know have been part of every war the US has been involved in, from the Dem Copperheads to the large anti-war movement throughout the time of WW2. You are quite right to ask "What's the alternative plan" to deal with international threats? Isolationism does not work when people want to kill you, and neither bribery nor surrender don't quite seem right either.