The Court-Martial Shakespeare Would Love

Back in April Lt. Col. William Steele was charged with a slew of infractions of the military code, including aiding the enemy, fraternizing with the daughter of a detainee while he commanded a military police detachment, aiding the enemy and fraternizing with the daughter of a detainee while he commanded a military police detachment.

Today his court-martial wrapped up with his conviction on all but one of the charges. I'm going to give you the entire report before moving on to why I'm sharing this with you:

Multi-National Corps – Iraq
Public Affairs Office, Camp Victory
APO AE 09342

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RELEASE No. 20071019-15
October 19, 2007

Court-Martial results – Lt. Col William H. Steele

Multi-National Corps – Iraq PAO

BAGHDAD - An Army officer was convicted of six offenses, and found not guilty of a charge of aiding the enemy following a court-martial here today.

Lt. Col. William H. Steele, was convicted at the Camp Liberty court-martial, and sentenced by military judge, Lt. Col Timothy Grammel to confinement for two years, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, a reprimand, and dismissal from the service.

In an earlier session of his court-martial held at Camp Liberty, Iraq on October 7, Steele pleaded guilty to three of the seven charges facing him, including wrongfully storing classified information in his living space;. improperly marking classified information; and wrongfully and knowingly possessing pornographic videos.

Steele pleaded not guilty to the four remaining charges and elected to have these contested charges tried before Grammel rather than before a panel (jury) of officers.

Trial was held from October 15 to 19 at Camp Liberty, Iraq on the following contested charges. Steele was acquitted of aiding the enemy, but he was convicted of remaining charges including a federal espionage based offense by having unauthorized possession of classified information and knowingly and willfully retaining the same and failing to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States; conduct unbecoming an officer by knowingly and wrongfully providing special privileges to and maintaining an inappropriate relationship with an interpreter, wherein such acts constituted conduct unbecoming an officer in the armed forces; and violating a lawful order by having knowledge of the order failing to obey it.

Before the adjudged sentence is approved, Lt. Col. Steele and his attorneys are permitted to submit matters in clemency.

These matters in clemency may request that the General Court-Martial Convening Authority disapprove all or part of the sentence or of the findings of guilt. After the GCMCA has taken action in the case, Steele’s courtmartial will be reviewed by the Army Court of Criminal Appeals.

So, Steele was guilty of most of the charges, including all of the charges resulting from very serious failures in discretion that appear to be evidence of the sort of bad choices about sex that are common with sex addicts.

That's what spawned my earlier post on Steele, one in which I sketched out the plot line of a Shakespearian tragedy built around Steele's addiction-fired bad choices. I'll pick it up from Act Three:

As Act Three opens, Steele has sworn to himself that he can change his ways and he does; he's strong and focused and worthy again. But then the detainee's daughter enters the scene.

Alluring, shapely and possibly available, his focus tragically shifts from his desire to change to his desire to see her change into something more comfortable. She keeps him awake at night; she poisons his thoughts.

As the act unfolds, he makes his fatal mistake, providing the phone. He gets sloppy because his mind is lustily involved elsewhere, and forgets to return files. Then he tries to cover it all up by not following a direct order from his superior officer. And everything crashes.

This little story refuses to die. Nearly every day, people visit my site from browser searches for Steele. Here's today's, for example:

No.....%............Search term

	4	11.11%	lt-col william steele
	4	11.11%	lt. col. william h. steele
	2	5.56%	col william steele
	2	5.56%	army lt. col. william h. steele
	1	2.78%	col. william steele
	1	2.78%	lt. col william steele
	1	2.78%	ltc william steele
	1	2.78%	cheat seeking missiles
	1	2.78%	lt col william steele
	1	2.78%	lt col william h. steele
	1	2.78%	hillary screech
	1	2.78%	confessions written on palm
	1	2.78%	beheading boys
	1	2.78%	drugs sharia law
	1	2.78%	col steele
	1	2.78%	lieutenant colonel william steele
	1	2.78%	duvoisin inquirer
	1	2.78%	chip dolan
	1	2.78%	lt. col. william steele
	1	2.78%	lt.col william h steele
	1	2.78%	definition of multipolarism
	1	2.78%	flat buns commerc
	1	2.78%	matt lauer cheat
	1	2.78%	lt col william h steele
	1	2.78%	cheat seeking missles
	1	2.78%	angels penants
	1	2.78%	lieutenant colonel william steele,
	1	2.78%	black kid beaten open casket in 50's
	36	100.00%

Today's news report spiked the search a bit, but Steele's been showing up consistently since April. And they haven't been quiet readers, either. More than 30 comments have been logged.

There are many defiantly in support of Steele:

LTC Steele is a fine officer who has worked tirelessly for the American soldier for the past 13 years. He has unselfishly given up a great deal of his life to advancing the cause of the US Army, but I know that his family and his friends stand behind him today and will always. The Army has inflicted a wound against itself in this case.

A commenter named Aver is his strongest defender:

Shame on you for taking this in an entirely inappropriate direction for your own inappropriate goal. Do you believe everything you read? Don’t flog Bill Steele so you can flap your tongue about something you know little of nothing about! Steele’s family and friends stand by him now as ever. I am one of Bill Steele’s friends. I’ve known him for twenty-five years. I have broken bread with him and, shared salt with him in good times and bad times. I’ve consistently served in the same units with him and overseas in combat with him. While he’s not the most popular of officers he’s been doing a very unpopular job. He holds soldiers to doing the right thing at the right time. He’s a professional law enforcement officer and an advocate of keeping the peace. He was doing his job. If he goes down it’s because the government is protecting someone in authority above Steele and hiding another scandal.

Some, like Mo Lubee, made it personal

Wake up and get a life you bible thumping overzealous kook. Where is your sense of charity and fair play? This is America, and an accusation isn't a conviction, except to a posturing drivel-spouting religoius zealot such as yourself.

I did quote one verse in my post -- For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose. (Phil. 2:13 NIV) -- but I hardly thumped it. Besides, there are plenty of non-Christian men suffering from sexual addiction and seeking recovery -- religion's got nothing to do with it.

But maybe I'm missing the point, says Jiminy Cricket, who is not a Steele fan:

I think you're missing the point...

Pornography was certainly a negative aspect of this man's persona, but it was a symptom rather than the cause.

Steele wants one thing and one thing only: power. He had it for a time, more than his rank allowed. But his indiscretion and sheer stupidity ensured that he WOULD be caught someday.

But most compelling is this, from a commenter who just signed in as 200343:

Do you know what it's like to watch a LTC give a cell phone to one of the worlds most notorious terroirst, WITH OUT AN INTERPRITOR PRESENT?!?!?! Then, the next day watch a 120mm Mortar land five feet from a tower and almost kill five of the United States Finest? HUH!?

Do you know what it's like to sit on Route Tampa after being blown up, and hear that someone has made the call to NOT STOP AND HELP THE WOUNDED!?

Our Warrior Ethos include "I will never leave a fallen comrade behind." If your brother or sister was about to be killed, would you just say, nah... Someone else can help them, I have my own personal things to do!!!

Think about that, get your facts straight. I can't wait till they declassify Camp Cropper, and let us, the guards/soldiers that worked there, UNDER THIS RETARD come out and say what it is that we NEED to say!

Aver rebuts that (he seems to check the post regularly for new comments), but I'm sure you all will agree that the story of Lt. Col. William Steele is absolutely one Shakespeare could have had a heyday with.

As Craig Steps Down, Hope

Sen. Larry Craig has resigned, which every way you look at it is good: Good for his family, good for him, good for the GOP, good for America. (Perhaps airport restroom gays will not find it good, but that's just evidence that you can't get everyone into the tent.)

Craig, despite his apparent missteps, is a family man, so it is not hypocrisy we see in his actions, but conflict. Through my church work with addicts (alcohol, drugs, sex, porn), I am sure that the man he wants to be and the man he is are two different men. He must be struggling against the flesh, and like all addicts, he probably feels wonderful for a brief moment when he falls, then feels wracked with grief and shame.

Am I hasty or illiberal in calling him addicted, since I don't know him? I don't think so. Look at the man: Senator, husband, father, recognized, respected, dependent wholly on the public's estimation of him for his future. Yet despite all these solid reasons not to act out, he cravenly solicited homosexual sex in an airport men's room.

That's insane behavior, behavior he knows he should at all cost repress, yet he was unable to. In short, he was behaving in an addictive manner.

And I feel sorry for him, because his options are so limited. Even for normal folks without a huge public profile, it is very difficult to gather the courage to go to a meeting or a counselor and begin the recovery process. Craig's position made it impossible to do so with any guarantee of anonymity, and without such a guarantee, going into recovery was pretty much career suicide.

When I rolled this idea by Incredible Wife this morning, she suggested that he could have just gone to a counselor, where rules of non-disclosure would protect him, but I disagreed. A Senator is visible for his entire day, his schedule set by others, his steps shadowed by aides. It would be quite impossible for him to slip away for two hours without somebody noticing. And in his line of work, somebody noticing would lead to leaks, news coverage ... and ended careers.

I know some will say Craig doesn't have an addiction he has to give up; rather, he has a sexual orientation he needs to stop repressing and start celebrating. I can't say I disagree because I'm not Larry Craig, but I certainly don't immediately agree with them out of a PC acceptance that homosexuality is genetic.

I have three close friends who have had gay experiences and want to get away from them; two have rather extensive gay backgrounds, one had one "gay slip" as part of a larger sexual addition that drew him to female prostitutes. The two with extensive gay backgrounds have a history of gay molestation in their childhood, so to say homosexuality is a genetic condition is to utterly ignore the impact of their early childhood environment on them.

They have struggled heroically against a behavior they don't want and find to be personally abhorrent, and they have found victory, to varying degrees. They have done so with lots of support and a certainty that their names will never be made public.

Larry Craig as a U.S. Senator had no hope of either. Now that he will soon be Larry Craig, citizen, he has a chance. I hope he makes good use of it because he appears to be a man who would rather not have an attraction to the gay side, and he can achieve victory over that attraction -- with a lot of commitment, help, accountability and faith.

Porn And Pity, Or Porn And Responsibility?

James Pacenza just might shake up the American workplace ... in a very weird way.

Pacenza is suing IBM, his employer, for firing him just because he was logged onto an adult chat site while working.

They should have helped me not fired me, say Pacenza, because he's just self-medicating, not getting into pornography at work.

Well, he could be right, of course. A lot of sexual addition is just an owie-cover, just as lots of alcoholics and drug addicts use their habits to cover the deep psychological ailings within. In Pacenza's case, he says its to cover post-traumatic stress disorder from his time in Vietnam.

Sorry, Jimmy, you ol' lech. You've had 40 years to get over that stuff, so I don't think it's really that great an excuse for chompin' in the pornocopia.

Besides, it would be a real shame if Pacenza prevailed because it won't end when he pockets the $5 million he hopes to strip from Big Blue's pockets. If companies are forced to keep se addicts who are acting out at work on the payroll, it's a bit different from having to keep the druggie or boozer on the payroll.

For starters, they look at porn on their computers. For the person at the next work station, that's not exactly like their co-worker having the munchies or beer-breath.

And you can't type your credit card number into your computer and get a drink or a joint, but you can get everything from horny nuns to gay pipefitters -- and once that happens, it's as likely that the addict will get back to work that it is to get a drunk out of the bar before Happy Hour is over.

Pacenza is pathetic. Either he's hiding behind his addiction instead of dealing with the problems in his head, or he's fabricating the problems in his head to justify his addiction -- and he thinks IBM has an obligation to deal with this mess.

I just hope the judge isn't a guy who logs onto porn sites when the doors close to his chambers.

Left Gets Off On Tobias' Fall

There is an undeniable and delicious irony (or tragic irony, depending on whether you're looking at it from the left or the right) in the resignation of Randall Tobias as Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator.

The Left deridingly calls Tobias "the abstinence czar" because of his efforts to push abstinence to help reduce the incidence of AIDS, and the Left hates abstinence because it gets in the way of feelings, so they're positively giddy about the news.

The Tennessee Guerrilla Women, who peddle "Panties for Peace" on their blog, had this to snark:

And just two days ago Bushie was praising Tobias for his work on the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa. Randall Tobias -- aka the Bush AIDS Czar -- is infamous for bashing condoms and praising abstinence while allegedly getting massages from call girls and working to alleviate the AIDS epidemic.

As a commenter over at The Blotter asks:

So did Tobias wear a condom when he didn't have sex or not?

Tobias is a Christian, a Republican, a white male and a believer in abstinence. No wonder they hate him so. Nevertheless, he was able to make a good point on the subject of abstinence:

Tobias, who was in Berlin for the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS' 2004 Awards for Business Excellence, said that promoting abstinence and monogamy are "far more effective" than distributing condoms for preventing the spread of HIV, according to Agence France-Presse. "Statistics show that condoms really have not been very effective," Tobias said, adding, "It's been the principal prevention device for the last 20 years, and I think one needs only to look at what's happening with the infection rates in the world to recognize that has not been working." (emphasis added)

Without offering a peep of sound rebuttal, the incorrectly named AmericaBlog said the Tobias/Bush position on abstinence is an "outrageous view" that "is widely criticized by thinking people." These "thinking people" believe in their hearts (or perhaps their pants) that abstinence is a false road simply because they cannot imagine an individual having the power to not yield to lust -- so it's no wonder they are so gleeful that Tobias yielded to his.

Given all this, Tobias had no choice but to resign. He would be utterly ineffective if he attempted to continue his efforts -- the "He's lying" signs would be replaced with something much, much worse.

And what exactly is he lying about, by the way? Obviously, abstinence is healthier than unprotected sex and anyone who says otherwise is lying. The Bush policy, despite the Left's lies to the contrary is "ABC," abstinence first, being faithful second ... and in third spot, condoms. The "Bushies" are not in support of unprotected sex.

Whatever. Let's not let facts get in the way of a good roll. Speaking of being on a roll, over at HuffPo, Roy Sekoff says self-righteously:

I really don't give a damn what Tobias does in his down time; it's the endless hypocrisy of the holier-than-thou crowd on the right I can't stomach.

Sekoff apparently has no problem with the hypocrisy of the Left: Al Gore's energy consumption, "man of the people" John Edwards' mansion and haircuts, Bill Clinton's over-sized Bible, billionaire George Soros' demands for wealth redistribution, Sheryl Crow, who just made millions from Clairol hawking their latest noxious chemical bath for hair suggesting we use one square of TP to save the planet.

Nonetheless, a sad good riddance to Tobias. He let bad personal decisions harm the Administration he served, so you'll not find a word of defense here at C-SM. You will find, however, a word of compassion. Like Lt. Col. William H. Steele, and like millions of other men, Tobias folded under the unrelenting onslaught of sexual temptation forced on us by the sex, porn and lust industries (and that includes ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox).

It's too bad he didn't seek help; if he did, he would still be doing important, meaningful, life-saving work instead of struggling to save his marriage and his self esteem.

Lt. Col. Steele's Tragedy

Here's a tragic story, worthy of the attention of a new Shakespeare:

BAGHDAD (AP) - A senior U.S. officer has been charged with nine offenses, including aiding the enemy and fraternizing with the daughter of a detainee while he commanded a military police detachment at an American detention facility near Baghdad, the military said Thursday.

Army Lt. Col. William H. Steele was accused of giving "aid to the enemy" by providing an unmonitored cell phone to detainees.

Steele was the commander of the 451st Military Police Detachment at Camp Cropper, a U.S. detention center on the western outskirts of Baghdad, when the offenses allegedly occurred between October 2005 and February, military spokesman Lt. Col. James Hutton said. ...

The other charges included unauthorized possession of classified information, fraternizing with the daughter of a detainee, maintaining an inappropriate relationship with an interpreter, storing classified information in his quarters and possessing pornographic videos, the military said.

Steele also was charged with improperly marking classified information, failing to obey an order and failing to fulfill his obligations in the expenditure of funds, the military said.

What a complete fall from grace! One can assume that Steele, having attained the rank of Lt. Col., was passionate about his military career and his country, and spent years in dedicated service. He was willing to put his life at risk for his country and obviously had made sacrifices to be where he was.

No comfy life in the suburbs, no going to the game with buddies on Saturday, no easy job in the corner office; instead, Steele opted to serve. Close the curtains on Act One.

In Act Two, we begin to see Steele's fatal weakness manifest itself, as he begins to make a bad decision here, is forced to cover up a small error there. A cycle of lies, secrets and self-recrimination follows.

As Act Three opens, Steele has sworn to himself that he can change his ways and he does; he's strong and focused and worthy again. But then the detainee's daughter enters the scene.

Alluring, shapely and possibly available, his focus tragically shifts from his desire to change to his desire to see her change into something more comfortable. She keeps him awake at night; she poisons his thoughts.

As the act unfolds, he makes his fatal mistake, providing the phone. He gets sloppy because his mind is lustily involved elsewhere, and forgets to return files. Then he tries to cover it all up by not following a direct order from his superior officer. And everything crashes.

Steele falls far, from warrior to traitor, and we leave him at the final curtain alone in his cell in Kuwait, torn between feelings of guilt and failure ... and thoughts of her.

What was Steele's fatal weakness? It lies in one of the minor charges against him, "possessing pornographic videos."

Steele didn't fall for money or false allegiances. He fell to lust, a sex addict whose addiction caused him to make a series of bad choices and live a life of secrets and lies.

Lust fueled by pornography destroyed Lt. Col. William Steele as it does millions of greater and lesser men every year. What he didn't know is that there is a life free of this addiction.

For Christian men, visit Celebrate Recovery. There should be a Celebrate Recovery group at a church near you. Here are the program's workbooks. And here's a message from Pastor Rick Warren on addiction and recovery.

Any concerned man or concerned wife should also read Out of the Shadows by Dr. Patrick Carnes, the premier secular work on the subject.

For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose. (Phil. 2:13 NIV)

Update: True to form, a porno spam-bot latched onto this post and posted a comment with links to porn sites. I've deleted it, of course, but it shows the lengths the porn industry goes to suck in new addicts and to get more money out of those it's already ensnared.