Donald Trump panders shamelessly to the US military and one of the things he has done is pardon those people who have been disciplined by the military for doing awful things. This despite the fact that the military is very reluctant to punish wrongdoing done to the victims of US wars and invasions and even when it rarely does so, the punishments are very mild. The case of Eddie Gallagher is particularly striking.
Video recordings of testimony given by Gallagher’s troops have emerged where they say that he was ‘evil’.
A Navy Seal platoon leader controversially cleared of war crimes by Donald Trump was a “toxic” character who was “OK with killing anything that moved”, according to fellow Iraq veterans who reported his conduct to military investigators.
…Gallagher was convicted in July of posing with the dead body of a teenage Islamic State captive he had just killed with a hunting knife. He was granted clemency by the president in November in a decision that angered military chiefs.
In the interviews, conducted by navy investigators looking into Gallagher’s conduct during a tour of duty in Iraq in 2017, fellow platoon members told of a ruthless leader who stabbed the captive to death for no reason then forced his troops to pose for a photograph with the corpse.
…At his court martial, Gallagher was acquitted of murder but demoted in rank for the lesser charge of posing with the body – a decision Trump reversed.
…Another platoon member, medic Corey Scott, said: “You could tell he was perfectly OK with killing anybody that was moving.”
Note that the only punishment Gallagher suffered for his atrocities was a demotion in rank but even that was too much for the panderer-in chief.
Imagine what would be the reaction if some Iraqi or Afghan person had done something similar to a US soldier occupying their country and had then been pardoned by the political leadership.
But the US has never cared about the fact that it is a rogue state that has double standards. It takes that for granted.
He’s appealing to the base. I mean, his base.
All of the US military are murderers and war criminals. Some are worse than others, but they are all involved in prosecuting illegal wars that are killing civilians at a high rate.
Headline/comments & body completely out of synch here.
Interesting title/body mismatch, Mano!
Sorry, I was testing another post and accidentally put the text here! When I complete it, I’ll post it again under the correct title.
I remember playing the computer game F-14 Stealth Fighter. An Iranian acquaintance was amused to discover that he could bomb his home town in the game. I have often wondered what the US would think of an Iranian computer game that allowed you to bomb New York.
No imagination needed. Just look at the complete shitstorm that has been whipped up about Russian interference with the elections. Then know that the US invested billions (according to their own admission) to interfere with the elections in the Ukraine and that they do similar things in other nations.
Or if that is a bit to nebulous the Cuban missile crisis. Started by the US placing US nukes on European soil. The USSR just decided to place nukes the same distance from Washington. Cue almost WW3 since the US lost it.
The New York Time has a feature called “The Weekly”. This week’s episode is “The Gallagher Effect” and features the leaked interviews with Gallagher’s SEAL Team 7 co-members. If you have cable, you can see it air tonight on the FX Channel tonight (Sunday) at 10:00pm (or it is also streaming on Hulu).
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/27/the-weekly/eddie-gallagher-navy-seal.html
I still wonder how it is that Gallagher was not convicted of the murders but only for posing with the corpse.
I would not be surprised if kings and dictators have no more, if not less, powers than this so called democracy has given to a mere president.
And this particular insanity spans from the criminal to the ridiculous: I mean, I have recently learned that he even pardons turkeys… What??
Word I’m hearing, a relative is regular Navy but associated with SEAL teams, is that pardons of these criminals has soured a lot of people within the military on Trump. It isn’t just the executive interference with what is a military discipline issue and the failure to support the established chain-of-command and their well established and practical judgment. It goes deeper than that.
SEALs pride themselves, contrary to what the movies present, as rational warriors who use carefully measured and controlled violence as just one of the methods to accomplish their missions. They pride themselves on not being viscous, bloodthirsty, and indiscriminate killers. Mostly they want to accomplish missions without being detected. The ideal for most missions is to go in, complete the mission, and get out without having to fire a shot.
Very few people in the military wish to have a reputation of being indiscriminate killers and trigger-happy maniacs.