U.S. Gov’t Threatens “Unhappy” American Soldiers in Afghanistan
On January 3, 2011, the U.S. Government, in its fright over the WikiLeaks releases, granted to all its agencies authority to terminate any Federal employee, diplomat or military member who exhibits unhappiness or who expresses any criticism of anything the American government is doing. Its theory is that an “unhappy” soldier or diplomat may leak information to WikiLeaks about government misconduct, so it is best to remove them from the military or from the diplomatic service before they can do so.
The principal reason given for most revocations is that the soldier or diplomat is no longer deemed “trustworthy.” Untrustworthiness has always been a vague and arbitrary standard. As there are no credible checks and balances on the revocation process, abuses are inevitable. But now the term “untrustworthy” has been expanded such that any pretense of due process and legality has been eliminated.