War Crimes Era of 'Don’t Ask Don’t Tell' Ends, Thanks to Fox News
It only seems appropriate that an administration whose actions regularly undermine the rule of law would intervene on behalf of an accused war criminal.
Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer was fired this weekend after President Trump told Secretary of Defense Mark Esper to do the deed.
There have been a bunch of counternarratives to this story including one where Spencer threatened to resign, but based on the evidence I’ve seen and the letter acknowledging his termination (required by Navy rules, BTW), he was given the boot.
From the Washington Post:
Spencer’s letter Sunday to Trump, acknowledging his “termination,” echoed that of former defense secretary Jim Mattis, who resigned in December because of similar concerns about Trump’s unwise intervention in military and national-security decisions.
“As Secretary of the Navy, one of the most important responsibilities I have to our people is to maintain good order and discipline, throughout the ranks. I regard this as deadly serious business,” Spencer wrote. “The rule of law is what sets us apart from our adversaries.” In a paraphrase of what Mattis wrote 11 months ago, Spencer wrote that Trump should have a Navy secretary “who is aligned with his vision.”
For Navy commanders who have worried about eroding discipline in a SEAL force that’s lionized in movies and television, and protected by presidential diktat, Spencer’s most ominous line was: “I no longer share the same understanding with the commander in chief who appointed me, in regards to the key principle of good order and discipline.”
We can trace back the President’s interventions in this case to Fox and Friends, the TV show Trump watches in lieu of reading his daily intelligence summaries.
Pete Hegseth, a Fox & Friends co-host and informal adviser of the president, began lobbying on air at the start of 2019 on behalf of several U.S. servicemen involved in high-profile cases of gunning down civilians or killing detainees.
And here’s the San Diego connection to this sad story. Via The Daily Beast:
Hegseth, whom Trump had previously considered for senior posts in his administration, hasn’t been alone in pushing Gallagher’s case to Trump. He’s worked privately with like-minded political figures, such as Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), one of the knowledgeable sources said.
Hunter, a former Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, has become one of the most vocal advocates on Capitol Hill for Gallagher and other servicemen accused of war crimes. His Twitter feed is a stream of attempts to turn Gallagher into a conservative hero, along with links to his appearances with Hegseth and other right-wing media personalities to make the case for Gallagher, and photos of his meetings to check up on the Navy SEAL and his family...
Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher was reported by his troops for shooting unarmed civilians, including a young girl and an old man, in Iraq in 2017 and 2018. He was also accused of slaying an unarmed Iraqi captive being treated by American medics, according to a 439-page Navy confidential criminal investigation.
He was charged with 12 counts, including murder, attempted murder, and obstruction of justice for allegedly attempting to intimidate troops reporting his crimes.
Gallagher ended up being acquitted on all but one of the charges (posing for a picture with a dead combatant) against him, despite eyewitness testimony from his own men, thanks to a last-minute "confession" from another SEAL who already had immunity. Prior to the sudden about-face, that SEAL had repeatedly told prosecutors about witnessing the crime.
Gallagher’s punishment was drastically reduced by the Navy’s top admiral, sparing the SEAL from the most serious consequence he faced, a steep demotion that would have cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars in retirement pay.
Even that reduction wasn’t enough for the coterie of war hawks that had gathered around. After appealing to the president (Fox News again), Gallagher’s rank was restored by executive order.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1198574811678683137?s=20
The Navy began proceedings to strip the SEAL of his recognition as a part of the elite fighting unit. Fox News began yammering again, and the President heard their plea.
From the New York Times:
Navy leaders initially intended to punish Special Operator Gallagher more harshly, including administrative sanctions as well as his sentence, Navy officials said. But the leaders came to believe that any adverse action would be reversed by Mr. Trump, perhaps derailing the careers of Naval officers in the process. After the court-martial verdict, Mr. Trump angrily ordered the Navy to strip commendations from the prosecutors in the case.
In recent weeks, Special Operator Gallagher has appeared defiant in social media posts, including one where he called top Navy leaders “a bunch of morons.” Another recent post announced that he planned to leave the Navy and start a clothing line.
On the day Navy Secretary Richard Spencer was fired, Gallagher appeared on Fox News, and made openly insubordinate statements about his superior officers, saying "This is all about ego and retaliation. This has nothing to do with good order and discipline."
At the time the President intervened in the Navy SEAL case, he also issued pardons for Major Mathew Golsteyn and 1st Lt. Clint Lorance, both already convicted and serving sentences for war crimes. The moves by the administration came despite opposition raised by military justice experts and some senior Pentagon officials.
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Thus ends an era where the military/intelligence community essentially self-policed itself.
While some egregious war crimes (or those exposed by the news media) were prosecuted, many were buried by leaders with a vested interest in protecting the institutions they led.
As James Palmer points out in Foreign Policy article titled America Loves Excusing Its War Criminals:
Peacetime failures are serious enough but behind all this is also a long history of America’s failure to convict or punish its own personnel for war crimes in Asia. That goes back to the numerous atrocities committed during the occupation of the Philippines at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1902, Republican Sen. George Frisbie Hoar, a vehement anti-imperialist, condemned U.S. war crimes in the Senate: “You make the American flag in the eyes of a numerous people the emblem of sacrilege in Christian churches, and of the burning of human dwellings, and of the horror of the water torture.”
Yet the men responsible for mass murder and torture received little punishment. Jacob Hurd Smith, who had ordered the revenge killing of thousands of Filipinos after 48 U.S. troops were killed in an ambush, became infamous for his instructions to kill every man over the age of 10. But while he was court-martialed, the consequence was only a quiet retirement, and other high-level perpetrators went untouched.
Vietnam was little better. While war crimes were sometimes investigated, many were swept under the carpet. To be clear, these weren’t the high-level war crimes that critics of the Vietnam War accused Washington of pursuing, such as strategic bombing of civilians, but acts of rape and murder illegal under U.S. military law—but rarely prosecuted. The men of Tiger Force, an elite unit of the U.S. Army, murdered, tortured, and mutilated their way across Vietnam’s highlands; a four-year investigation by the Army confirmed the crimes but produced no prosecutions.
This excerpt from the History News Network concerns how Nixon sought to cover up the My Lai massacre. At least he didn't pardon anybody.
President Richard Nixon also sought to undermine the credibility of Thompson and others who had called My Lai a massacre. Over the Thanksgiving holidays of 1969, he met in his Key Biscayne retreat in Florida with advisers and expressed concern that the My Lai charges would accelerate the popular demand for an immediate withdrawal from Vietnam and interfere with his Vietnamization plan of phased withdrawal.
Nixon wanted members of Congress to discredit Thompson and other witnesses. Calley, Nixon declared, was “probably a good soldier” who might be “getting a bum rap.” The president ordered the establishment of a secret “Task Force—My Lai” to undermine press stories of a massacre as part of a “dirty tricks” campaign aimed at deflecting national attention to Viet Cong atrocities committed at Hué.
Now, all it takes to beat the military brass on one of those occasions when it tries to do the right thing is a good connection with a Fox News talking head.
It’s a short road from this cult of cruelty to the point where medals for bravery are replaced by strings of the ears of “enemy” combatants being awarded in White House ceremonies.
Did the above statement disgust you? Good.
Now think about living in a country where what’s legal is determined by the Dear Leader.
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https://twitter.com/girlsreallyrule/status/1198957162145419270?s=20
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