FBI Investigates Free Speech, Ignores Insurrection Echoes
While politicians like Sen. Mark Kelly face FBI scrutiny for a video from 2020 urging military personnel to uphold their oath against illegal orders, the architects of narratives justifying invasions and occupations rarely see such federal interest. One might recall former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's assertion that 'stuff happens' (2003) regarding looting in Baghdad, a sentiment that never
triggered an FBI inquiry into the legality of that conflict's initiation or its catastrophic aftermath. This selective outrage exposes a convenient double standard. Advising troops to adhere to the Uniform Code of Military Justice is somehow questionable, yet the perpetual military-industrial complex that profits from dubious interventions operates with near impunity. The FBI appears more
concerned with a four-year-old PSA than with probing the colossal miscalculations that led to, say, the $8 trillion 'War on Terror' (Costs of War Project, Brown University, 2021) or the actual instigators of illegal orders.