Oliver North: Traitor

Goddamn, Oliver North pisses me off.

Crooks and Liars has the account of his appearance on, you guessed it, Fox News:

Oliver North: As you know, I’m the history guy at Fox News Channel, right? I’ve done this WWII series – 52 of our episodes about WWII. Had it not been for Chamberlain going to sit down with Adolf Hitler and try to cut a deal in Munich, WWII might never have happened, but it emboldened the dictator. That’s what the President said yesterday in Jerusalem. And a little reminder today, a shot across the bow here at the NRA, when John McCain got up and said, ‘You cannot have these kinds of unconditional, no preconditions discussions, with despots and dictators’ - dead on the mark.

The nonsense about "appeasement" has been shredded thoroughly enough by, who'd a thunk it, Chris Matthews. Kudos to Tweety - keep it up.

No, what pisses me off is, as Bill W. at Crooks and Liars put it, "For someone who was lucky not to have spent the better part of the last two decades making license plates, he’s got some nerve touching this topic."

North was a traitor to his country, period. He violated the Oath he took when he joined the armed forces, by willfully failing to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic." He defied both the will and the laws enacted by the duly elected representatives of Congress, and gave aid and comfort to our enemies, thereby violating that Oath. That is treason. That he thought he was serving a "higher purpose" is irrelevant. Benedict Arnold believed he served a higher purpose too. There were those in the Continental Congress who strongly disagreed with the decision to declare the Revolution, such as John Dickinson of Pennsylvania. But once the decision was made by the People, he fought in the Revolution as a distinguished Patriot. Others left and aided the British Army, our declared enemies, thus becoming enemies themselves. But even they did not take an Oath to the United States and then actively and clandestinely work to undermine it.

If Oliver North could not uphold his Oath because of what he believed was right, he had the option to resign his commission. That was the honorable course to take. He did not. When he appeared in the Iran-Contra hearings in his full dress uniform, he disgraced that uniform and insulted all of his fellow soldiers who have worn it. He was and is a blatant, unrepentant traitor to his country, and in a thoughtful world he would be shunned by all decent thinking citizens of that country.