rumitoid

First a few words to get this disgusting chapter of Trumpian both amorality and demagoguery into perspective:
“You’re sending a signal out there that we as a country don’t have the appropriate moral values to recognize right and wrong,” said retired Brig. Gen. Howard Yellen, a former deputy commander of U.S. Army Special Operations Command. The pardons would send a message “that you can go out there in the heat of battle, in the fog of war, and be able to commit a law of land warfare crime, and not receive any punitive actions for it, that you can act with impunity,” he said. In effect, a presidential fiat to ignore the Geneva Convention, as Hitler did.

President Donald Trump’s reported plan to pardon a series of accused and convicted war criminals on Memorial Day is not popular with retired special operations leaders attending a conference here.

“It’s not going to have a good effect on the force,” said a retired senior special operations officer. “People might see it as supporting the troops. It’s not supporting the troops. This will not go well.”

The New York Times reported May 18 that the White House was expediting the paperwork required to pardon individuals involved in a series of high-profile war crimes. Those mentioned include:
Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL charged with shooting civilians and killing a prisoner;
Maj. Mathew Golsteyn, a Special Forces officer accused of murdering an unarmed prisoner;
a group of Marines who urinated on a Taliban fighter’s corpse;
and Nicholas Slatten, a former sergeant in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division who was convicted of murder for his part in the killing of 14 Iraqis in Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007 while working as a security contractor for Blackwater.

The White House declined to comment on the record about the possibility of those pardons, and Trump has given no recent public indications that he plans to do so.

Earlier this month, however, Trump pardoned Michael Behenna, who served five years in prison after being convicted of murdering a prisoner as a lieutenant in the Army’s 101st Airborne Division. That single pardon drew sharp public criticism from some former military personnel.

Now special operations veterans attending the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference are highly critical of Trump’s reported plan to pardon more convicted and accused war criminals.

If Trump pardons Gallagher on Memorial Day, it will be before the SEAL’s court-martial, which was scheduled to begin on May 28, but was delayed this week by the judge following claims that the Navy prosecutors spied on defense attorneys and a reporter).

The retired senior special operations officer said the notion of pardoning someone accused of war crimes without even allowing the military justice system to play out would be “the most damaging” aspect of what Trump was reported to be planning. “I cannot imagine a case where it would benefit good order and discipline to preemptively pardon someone without letting the process work,” he said. “You will not find anybody who thinks this is a good idea.”

proud republican Loc: RED CALIFORNIA

Link please...

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

Anyone who commits a true war crime should be executed...

Anyone sentenced to prison should pay their dues...

Pardons for war crimes are ridiculous...

They make a mockery of the system...


The true solution is to pull out of these unwinnable wars...

Or win them...God forbid... Amen...

rumitoid

Boo_Boo Loc: Jellystone

It is incredible that these men are on trial in the first place. They were soldiers, they were sent to fight an enemy.... and they killed the enemy. What has happened to our nation who has no problem with granting clemency for a deserter a insignificant fine for giving classified military information to the enemy, but plans to execute or jail for life men who killed the enemy? (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41860828, deserter gets fined the judge said the Idaho native, Bowe Bergdahl, must forfeit pay equal to $1,000 (£765) per month for 10 months.) (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/17/chelsea-manning-sentence-commuted-barack-obama, Manning clemency). Decorated war "heroes" to war criminals https://video.foxnews.com/v/5982834236001/#sp=show-clips Yet we allow men who killed the enemy to be tortured, held without bail or trial. What is wrong with this picture?

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

If we prosecuted every American soldier or Marine for what PC now defines as a "war crime", we'd have run out of prison space a long time ago.

US Marines in the Pacific boiled the skulls of dead Japanese and sold them to sailors on the ships. They yanked gold teeth out of wounded Japanese and cut off their tongues. They cut off their penises and stuffed them in their mouths. American troops in Vietnam cut off the ears of dead Vietcong and made necklaces out of them. SF interrogators threw VC prisoners out of helicopters in an effort to get others to spill the beans.

Oh, but we cannot even think about the atrocities our enemies have committed against our troops, against civilians and whole societies of people. The Japanese and the Germans in WW2 were absolute saints. Islamic Jihadists today are so kind and compassionate it makes your heart just swell.

War is a nasty, brutal business that cannot be won by being Mr Nice Guy.

rumitoid

No they murdered the enemy: there is a difference you seem unable to distinguish. As does your Fuhrer.

rumitoid

Really? Chucky Cheese of atrocities, no big deal. Bring the kids to play cut off their tongues or penises or ears. Win a prize. Objecting to such behavior is not PC but basic human outrage at inhumane and sick practices. What is truly sicker is to say that PC is what makes it wrong, not that it is in and of itself an abomination of spirit no civilized country should tolerate.

You want to make what we or you or I do okay by what disturbed monsters do to others? There is a world of difference apart between being Mr. Nice Guy and savagery. Does the My Lai massacre warm your heart this memorial day? It does for Trump.

Boo_Boo Loc: Jellystone

These men were sent to a war zone to kill the enemy..... they killed the enemy, mission accomplished. BTW, does it not bother you that these men have not had their day in court, yet you have decided they are guilty of murder?

rumitoid

One of them has yet to have their day in court, and to pardon him before due process is unjust.

SS officers "killed the enemy" at Auschwitz and other camps, mission accomplished. As a Jew, you should know the difference between murder and kill. It is plain that you do not.

Boo_Boo Loc: Jellystone

The men and women in Auschwitz were not enemy combatants, they were people that Hitler decided were inferior, none to my knowledge even owned a weapon. The men killed by those who may be pardoned were armed and enemy combatants. Big difference.

rumitoid

You did not read all the charges and that person was convicted. But more importantly: you have enlisted men and a respected general who see these pardons as not just wrong but thoroughly reprehensible. How do you argue against them? Make them part of the "deep state"?

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Be honest, rumi, you don't give a flying donut hole about the fate of those men or how this effects the morale of our troops. I really doubt that President Trump even thought about the My Lai massacre. You are waxing hyperbolic again. This is just one more sniveling bleeding heart effort to point your gnarly finger at President Trump.

War is savage, it is an ugly, brutal, soul shattering experience, extremely traumatic for those who have to fight them. I've seen what it has done to good friends of mine and it isn't pretty. Five of them to be exact.

You have a lot of nerve talking about moral compasses, expressing outrage, calling these men "monsters". Taking the measure of what these men have done does not even register on the barometer of atrocities. Some of them obviously crossed the line, committed crimes or made bad decisions and wracked up a combined body count of maybe 100 people, not all of whom were exactly innocent, but you make it sound like they committed the worst atrocities in human history, and why? President Trump.

rumitoid

Blade, so very sad. How you dance around Trump's vile character is great theater. Arthur Murray's Dance Studios could charge thousands for it. But it is just monkey business. In my opinion, and this is with great grief, I feel you have sold your soul to this monster. That you still remain clueless and in his corner is clear evidence you are in his thrall. My prayers.

Boo_Boo Loc: Jellystone

Screened combat footage collected from a helmet camera exonerates Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher of one of the charges against him. Military prosecutors in the case of a Navy SEAL charged with killing an Islamic State prisoner in Iraq in 2017 installed tracking software in emails sent to defense lawyers. How shameful is that?

Maj. Mathew Golsteyn.... he killed a bomb maker. And did you know, the lead investigator has pleaded guilty to falsifying his military record and wearing the Air Assault Badge, Pathfinder Badge and Purple Heart medal, none of which he had earned.

First Sergeant Nicholas Slatten, opened fire because he thought a bomb-laden car was headed toward his convoy.

I know that you do not understand how confusing and horrible war can be as you sat out your enlistment from behind a desk. For those who have served understand that decisions are sometimes split second. War is savage, it is blood and guts, it is men dying while other plead for the mercy of death...... None of these men had fair trials and I include Gallagher, for he has already been tried by armchair warriors.