(Bloomberg) -- The Pentagon is barring display of the Confederate flag on U.S. military bases after Defense Secretary Mark Esper issued a list of acceptable flags that doesn’t include the symbol of the old South and of White supremacy.
The move on Friday may have been an to sidestep a direct clash with President Donald Trump, who has defended the banner of the Confederacy. Rather than barring the flag explicitly, Esper issued a list of permitted flags that excluded it.
“I know people that like the Confederate flag, and they’re not thinking about slavery,” Trump told CBS News in an interview this month. He also criticized Nascar after the auto-racing organization banned display of the flag.
Esper said in a memo Friday that “flags are powerful symbols, particularly in the military community for whom flags embody common mission, common histories, and the special, timeless bond of warriors.”
He said the American flag “is the principal flag we are authorized and encouraged to display. The flags we fly must accord with the military imperatives of good order and discipline, treating all our people with dignity and respect, and rejecting divisive symbols.”
Esper’s guidance applies to public displays or depictions of flags by service members and civilian employees in all Department of Defense workplaces, common access areas, and public areas.
Renaming Bases
In another dispute over military bases, Trump has vowed to veto the annual defense policy bill if it contains provisions requiring new names for military bases named for Confederate generals.
Versions of the measure in both the House and Senate would mandate the name changes.
General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has also waded into the national dispute over symbols that critics call signs of systemic racism. At a congressional hearing, he called for taking “a hard look” at renaming military bases that bear the names of Confederate generals.
The Confederacy was an “act of treason,” and the decision to name U.S. Army bases for generals who supported slavery was a political one, he told told the House Armed Services Committee on July 9.
In addition to the American flag, the list Esper issued on Friday permits displaying flags of U.S. states and territories and the District of Columbia; military service flags; flag or general officer flags; presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed civilian flags; senior executive service and military department-specific flags; the POW/MIA flag; flags of other countries, for which the United States is an ally or partner, or for official protocol purposes; and flags of organizations in which the U.S. is a member.
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