rumitoid

This is what Trump thinks about the legitimate House Subpoenas. Screw the law. I am god!

He disgraces actual heroes for our country and backs war criminals: what disturbing message is he sending? K**l Muslims as you please.

Take home this comment: "These men, now pardoned, remain a disgrace to our ranks." Commander-in Bone-Spurs is again showing his total lack of what it means to have honor. Like so many other things where I hoped the Right would be finally outraged by his gross misconduct, they will ignore, make excuses for, or find some distraction. Pitiful.

Many in the military, especially in military legal circles, are not celebrating. Trump’s reprieves, issued against the advice of top defense officials, were seen as a sign of disregard not only for the decisions of military juries but also for the judicial process itself.

Military officials publicly accepted the president’s orders — pardons for Maj. Matthew Golsteyn of the Army Special Forces and Lorance, and a sentence reduction for Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher of the Navy SEALs — with a terse yessir.

“We acknowledge his order and are implementing it,” the Navy chief of information said on Twitter.

Privately, though, many worried that Trump’s actions could erode discipline by sending a message to troops and commanders that in some cases the laws of war would not apply.

“It’s just institutionally harmful,” said Rachel VanLandingham, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and former judge advocate who teaches law at Southwestern Law School. “This isn’t about these three individuals, it’s about the whole military justice system and whether that system itself is something of value to the operations of the military.”

The president, she added, “is saying he knows best.”

While all three men were accused of war crimes, the details of their cases raised disparate concerns for military order.

Lorance was convicted at trial in 2013 for ordering the shooting of a group of civilians in Afghanistan, an order he then tried to cover up. He was given a full pardon.

Gallagher was charged with the murder of a captive in Iraq but was acquitted this summer of all charges except for the minor charge of posing for a photo with a corpse.

Golsteyn was awaiting trial on charges that he murdered an unarmed Afghan in 2010.

“Golsteyn is the most troubling, because the system was never given a chance to work,” said Charles Dunlap, a retired major general who was the deputy judge advocate general of the Air Force and is the head of Duke University’s Center on Law, Ethics and National Security.

“A court-martial is the best way to determine the facts,” he added. “We were never able to find out whether the facts would clear Golsteyn or not.”

Many senior military leaders felt the pardons sent the wrong message, said Phillip Carter, an Iraq War veteran who researches military issues at the Rand Corp.

“Ever since Vietnam the leadership has sent a message that there is a link between discipline, respect for laws of war and military effectiveness,” Carter said. “The pardons send a different message that sometimes the laws get in the way.”

Trump is not the first commander in chief to wield the power of clemency in a polarizing way.

Washington pardoned men convicted of treason in the Whiskey R*******n of 1791-94 despite howls of protest from other Federalists, said Mark Osler, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota.

President Abraham Lincoln repeatedly pardoned soldiers sentenced to death for desertion, even though his generals warned it would undermine battlefield discipline. President Gerald Ford announced in 1974 at a convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars that he planned to conditionally pardon 13,000 deserters and draft dodgers, which did not go over well with the audience of war veterans. His successor, Jimmy Carter, unconditionally pardoned hundreds of thousands of draft evaders.

“It has happened after every war,” Osler said. “Pardons are used as a way to forgive the crime and heal the nation. What is different now is, the signal here seems to be to embrace the crime, not forgive it. President Trump seems to be sending a message that the gloves are off, that we are not going to constrain our military.”

Reactions from combat veterans were split. Many thanked the president for intervening on behalf of men who had volunteered to serve and protect their country. Others said the gesture of forgiveness tarnished the service of troops who served in the same vexing conditions but did not break the laws of war.

“This is a sad day for the tens of thousands of us who led troops in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan who were proud of the way in which we maintained our good order and discipline in the face of many challenges,” Andrew Exum, a former Army Special Forces officer who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, said on Twitter. “These men, now pardoned, remain a disgrace to our ranks.”

But for other veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, the pardons only brought back grim memories of violence and a counterinsurgency doctrine that often blurred moral lines.

Jorge Rodriguez was a Marine infantryman deployed to Afghanistan in 2008. Now a police officer in Texas, he remembered a day in southern Afghanistan when, as a lance corporal, his machine-gun team fired on two men fleeing a nearby village on a motorcycle — a village that commanders had said contained no civilians.

Like uncounted k*****gs in Iraq and Afghanistan, it was never reported as questionable, and never investigated.

The bodies were left by the roadside 50 yards from his small outpost for weeks. They were young, Rodriguez said, and to this day he doesn’t know if they were Taliban fighters.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-pardons-servicemen-raise-fears-172350934.html

teabag09

I really wish I could meet you some day. Enough said! Mike

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

I actually find myself in tentative agreement with you on this one Rumi...

Tentative... Because I don't know enough about the cases to form a firmer decision...

padremike Loc: Phenix City, Al

It's all I can do to keep my mouth shut too. This feather merchant doesn't understand fighting an enemy that doesn't wear uniforms and hides behind women and children. Then our guys were also trying to survive under Obama's new rules of engagement in which he successfully was directly responsible for the deaths of many of our troops.

rumitoid

Too kind.Thank you.

rumitoid

Yes, that could factor in somewhat but he chooses war criminals who harmed Muslims, people of color and on his ban list of immigrants. A definite wink to White Nationalist or Populist.

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

Muslims are not "people of color"...

Afghanis are Persian (although there are some Pashtuns from Pakistan) and Iraqis are Arabs... both are white races....

He chose soldiers who made bad calls... In a war zone...

Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq is on the list of banned nations...(although Iraq was on the first list)...

rumitoid

Not people of color? Interesting. How are they profiled at airports? Spanish people are also considered white.

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

They're probably profiled with their passports...

Spanish people are white... What's the point?

So are Italians and Portuguese...

padremike Loc: Phenix City, Al

These acts happened under the Obama Administration. Trump did not choose them, Kyle, he pardoned them. Obama opened our doors to Muslims which was and remains a huge mistake. Trump wanted to put sane restrictions on Muslim immigration for people who could not be vetted. Progressives reacted by calling him r****t but they call all white conservative r****t too. I have searched my limited vocabulary to find a suitable and accurate description of Progressives and I settled on "dumb bastards."

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

The travel ban was one of the platforms that garnered my support (and I think most on the OPP know how I feel about Islam)...

It just made sense... For security reasons...I wish Canada would do the same...

I understand that the crimes happened under Obama's watch...But I don't hold him responsible for the actions of others...

Trump chose to pardon these individuals..And I agree that other should have been left to the military to police their own...

rumitoid

The point is they are mostly olive skinned despite that nomenclature. This is abundantly obvious and not worth a debate.

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

So what?

Do milk white Persians and Arabs get a free pass?

Is the administration blocking travel from Spain, Italy and Portugal?

The travel ban is not r****t...

Nor is it Islamophobic....

It's common sense...

And not the first such ban the States has had...

rumitoid

Made sense? The biggest terrorist stronghold and nine of those responsible for 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia. Why weren't they banned if national security was an actual concern?

1ProudAmerican