For some background, let's refer to Aaron Rupar's article at Vox.com:
Taking cues from Fox News, President Donald Trump is reportedly considering commemorating Memorial Day by pardoning several American troops accused of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan...
On Monday, the Daily Beast reported that Trump’s interest in the pardons is in part a result of “a months-long lobbying campaign” by Iraq War veteran Pete Hegseth, a Fox & Friends weekend co-host who doubles as an informal adviser to the president.
Hegseth reacted to the Daily Beast’s report by tweeting it with hashtags calling for pardons for Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL leader who is awaiting court-martial on charges he shot unarmed civilians and stabbed a defenseless teenager while deployed to help Iraqi forces fight ISIS in 2017; Mathew Golsteyn, a Silver Star recipient (the honor was later stripped) who admitted to killing a Taliban bombmaker in Afghanistan in February 2010 and is scheduled to be tried on charges of premeditated murder; and Clint Lorance, who is serving a 19-year sentence following his conviction on murder charges stemming from the shooting of three Afghan men in July 2012...
But it is not “the left” that has accused the troops in question of war crimes — it is the military justice system. While Trump seems to view the pardons as a gift to the military, it’s actually the military that has decided to prosecute Gallagher and Golsteyn. Pardons, in short, would interfere in prosecution instigated by the military, which is an extremely unusual thing for the president to do.
“Absent evidence of innocence or injustice the wholesale pardon of US servicemembers accused of war crimes signals our troops and allies that we don’t take the Law of Armed Conflict seriously,” Gen. Martin Dempsey, who served as President Barack Obama’s senior military adviser, tweeted on Wednesday. “Bad message. Bad precedent. Abdication of moral responsibility. Risk to us.”
These violent men - who'd have been charged with serial murder and other acts of violence if they did any of this as civilians - are going to get pardoned by a well-documented draft dodger (Google "President Bone Spurs") who seems to think that regular soldiers - our best soldiers - go around like pumped-up Rambos shooting everything in sight.
trump is openly interfering with ongoing military trials - Gallagher hasn't been convicted yet making his possible pardon an unjustifiable preemptive move - all to score political points with a voting base who eagerly cheer on any act of violence against anyone not of their tribe (and Iraqi and Afghani civilians fit that definition).
And if trump thinks this will mollify or encourage greater acts of violence from our troops, he's only stirring more intraservice dread and disunity. If you read the reports on Gallagher, his fellow Navy SEALs were horrified by his blood-thirst and kept reporting him up a chain of command that didn't want to hear any of it. That his own unit turned him in and are willing to testify shows how twisted Gallagher got... and now trump's planned pardon will mock their honor in doing so. As John Cole - a battlefield Iraqi War veteran - notes at Balloon-Juice:
...pardoning war criminals doesn’t honor our troops regardless what fucking day of the year it is done. It’s a spit in the face of every man and woman who served honorably in the military. It’s saying “hey- you’re all murderers anyway.” It’s fucking disgusting.
There is a genuine threat to discipline here: Commanding officers will find it harder to keep the more violent soldiers on a leash if those men believe trump will issue them a "Get Out of Jail Free" card. The troops who don't agree with that violence will realize their military legal system is useless and take matters into their own hands. We'd be bringing back the worst traits and behaviors of Vietnam...
Despite what trump and his Fox Not-News buddies think, our military takes the status of "Noncombatant" civilians seriously nowadays. They want to avoid random acts of bloodshed against innocents, and not because we've been there before with atrocities like My Lai.
It's because of the very nature of the ongoing War on Terror we're in right now. The enemy we're fighting isn't troops on a battlefield, it's mad bombers and snipers hiding among the civilians using them as human shields and daring us to kill 'em all in order to make their war zone a quagmire to trap us until we're broken. Every time our side commits an atrocity the terrorists win. It makes it harder for the United States to justify its actions overseas, alienating our allies on the ground and converting more people to side with a devil they know (the terrorists).
But trump doesn't care about any of that. he's all about appeasing his base and rewarding those he thinks will serve himself.
An honest Commander-in-Chief would never go this low.
And GODS HELP US how these pardoned killers will get feted and honored by the Far Right when those pardons clear.
We are so very royally violently fucked.
1 comment:
Fergus probably envies them because they got to kill people however they wanted to.
-Doug in Oakland
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