Trump administration looking to pardon convicted war criminals...WTF?

[Unknown Poster]

Unfathomable evil’: Trump’s proposed plan to pardon war criminals provokes massive backlash

COMMON DREAMS

19 MAY 2019 AT 07:40 ET

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Progressives, human rights advocates, and journalists responded with outrage on Saturday to a New York Times reportthat President Donald Trump “has requested the immediate preparation of paperwork needed to pardon several American military members accused or convicted of war crimes.”

Unnamed U.S. government officials told the Timesthat on or around Memorial Day, Trump may pardon multiple servicemembers involved with “high-profile cases of murder, attempted murder, and desecration of a corpse.”

As the newspaper reported:

The requests are for Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher of the Navy SEALs, who is scheduled to stand trial in the coming weeks on charges of shooting unarmed civilians and killing an enemy captive with a knife while deployed in Iraq.

They are also believed to include the case of a former Blackwater security contractor recently found guilty in the deadly 2007 shooting of dozens of unarmed Iraqis; the case of Maj. Mathew L. Golsteyn, the Army Green Beret accused of killing an unarmed Afghan in 2010; and the case of a group of Marine Corps snipers charged with urinating on the corpse of a dead Taliban fighter.

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“These are all extremely complicated cases that have gone through a careful system of consideration,” Gary Solis, a retired military judge and armor officer who served in Vietnam, told the Times. “A freewheeling pardon undermines that whole system.”

Solis warned that pardoning servicemembers accused or convicted of war crimes “raises the prospect in the minds of the troops that says, ‘Whatever we do, if we can get the folks back home behind us, maybe we can get let off.'”

The news on Saturday came after Trump, earlier this month, pardoned former Army 1st Lt. Michael Behenna, who was convicted of murdering an Iraqi prisoner in 2008. As Common Dreamsreported at the time, human rights advocates decried that decision as “a presidential endorsement of a murder that violated the military’s own code of justice.”

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The Times report—on which the White House and Justice Department declined to comment—was met with similar condemnation.

The Atlantic‘s Adam Serwer, who spoke out againstTrump’s pardon of Behenna, tweeted, “This incentivizes the commission of war crimes by our opponents and allies, and in doing so puts U.S. servicemembers at greater risk.”

Adam Serwer

✔@AdamSerwer

Gonna say this again—this incentivizes the commission of war crimes by our opponents and allies, and in doing so puts US servicemembers at greater risk. Trump May Be Preparing Pardons for Servicemen Accused of War Crimes …

13.8K

2:43 PM - May 18, 2019

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Trump Shows Signs He Will Pardon Servicemen Accused or Convicted of War Crimes

Military officials received expedited requests for paperwork needed to pardon several military members on or around Memorial Day.

nytimes.com

6,446 people are talking about this

Human Rights Watch executive director Ken Roth said, “Think of the horrible message that sends to would-be war criminals around the world.”

Kenneth Roth

✔@KenRoth

Trump is threatening to pardon US military members accused or convicted of killing civilians and other war crimes. Think of the horrible message that sends to would-be war criminals around the world. Trump May Be Preparing Pardons for Servicemen Accused of War Crimes

51

3:10 PM - May 18, 2019

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Trump Shows Signs He Will Pardon Servicemen Accused or Convicted of War Crimes

Military officials received expedited requests for paperwork needed to pardon several military members on or around Memorial Day.

nytimes.com

55 people are talking about this

Murtaza Mohammad Hussain, a reporter at The Intercept, denounced Trump’s expected move as “a huge injustice to those whose lives they destroyed and a message that America will tolerate war crimes.”

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Murtaza Mohammad Hussain

✔@MazMHussain

Trump is getting ready to pardon some of America’s most horrifying recent war criminals. A huge injustice to those whose lives they destroyed and a message that America will tolerate war crimes: Trump May Be Preparing Pardons for Servicemen Accused of War Crimes …

427

3:12 PM - May 18, 2019

350 people are talking about this

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Their criticism was echoed by others, including journalist Ryan Devereaux, who suggested that “if you were to make a list of ‘top notorious U.S. war crimes of the post-9/11 era’ it would look a lot like the president’s pardoning plans.”

Ryan Devereaux

✔@rdevro

If you were to make a list of “top notorious U.S. war crimes of the post-9/11 era” it would look a lot like the president’s pardoning plans — literal murderers’ row Trump May Be Preparing Pardons for Servicemen Accused of War Crimes …

71

3:15 PM - May 18, 2019

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Trump Shows Signs He Will Pardon Servicemen Accused or Convicted of War Crimes

Military officials received expedited requests for paperwork needed to pardon several military members on or around Memorial Day.

nytimes.com

51 people are talking about this

Jodi Jacobson

✔@jljacobson

Who pardons war criminals? DICTATORS. What is the signal you give by doing this? No amount of violence whether at home or abroad will be punished; no one will be held accountable. Trump May Be Preparing Pardons for Servicemen Accused of War Crimes …

23

2:14 PM - May 18, 2019

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Trump May Be Preparing Pardons for Servicemen Accused of War Crimes

Military officials received expedited requests for paperwork needed to pardon several military members on or around Memorial Day.

nytimes.com

18 people are talking about this

Scott Tobias
‘Unfathomable evil’: Trump’s proposed plan to pardon war criminals provokes massive backlash

 

[Unknown Poster]

Please #Trumpset what message does it send when the president is looking to pardon war criminals who were turned in by members of their own unit?

It makes it seem as America will give a pass to all war crimes and war criminals in the future...the perfect stage to set up illegal wars.

Bannon, Miller, and Bolton have to be the masterminds behind this crap.

THIS ADMINISTRATION IS PURE EVIL!

 

[88m3]

already pardoned one with more on the way

smh

 

[Strapped]

Gallagher is viewed as a patriot to cheeto's base & they want him to go on with his life , we can be angry but cheeto is the potus

 

[jj23]

Imagine if Germany had pardoned their war criminals. The US is sending the message that in war anything goes.

 

[ADevilYouKhow]

This is who Trump is at his core

 

[Poetical Poltergeist]

Trump likes people who don't get honorably discharged.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

This needs to be a BIG deal. This is fukking evil as hell.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

By the way, in case anyone doubts he's guilty, here's what I posted in the original thread:

Before the 2017 deployment, Chief Gallagher ordered a hatchet and a hunting knife, both handmade by a SEAL veteran named Andrew Arrabito with whom he had served, text messages show. Hatchets have become an unofficial SEAL symbol, and some operators carry and use them on deployments. Chief Gallagher told Mr. Arrabito in a text message shortly after arriving in Iraq, “I’ll try and dig that knife or hatchet on someone’s skull!”

On the morning of May 4, 2017, Iraqi troops brought in an Islamic State fighter who had been wounded in the leg in battle, SEALs told investigators, and Chief Gallagher responded over the radio with words to the effect of “he’s mine.” The SEALs estimated that the captive was about 15 years old. A video clip shows the youth struggling to speak, but SEAL medics told investigators that his wounds had not appeared life-threatening.

A medic was treating the youth on the ground when Chief Gallagher walked up without a word and stabbed the wounded teenager several times in the neck and once in the chest with his hunting knife, killing him, two SEAL witnesses said.

Minutes after the death, Chief Gallagher and his commanding officer, Lieutenant Portier, gathered some nearby SEALs for a re-enlistment ceremony, snapping photos of the platoon standing over the body.

A week later, records show, Chief Gallagher texted a picture of the dead captive to a fellow SEAL in California, saying, “Good story behind this, got him with my hunting knife.”

That sequence ends him for sure.

You run into anyone who disputes the account in the slightest, just show them that sequence.

He premeditated the desire.
There are receipts that the kid was brought in by someone else.
There are witnesses to the murder.
He posed for the celebratory pictures.
And he's got his own words bragging after the fact.

It's over. All his defenders can't juelz their way past that one.

 

[Akata Man Bromo]

 

[Strapped]

Gallagher has been found not guilty justice system is trash . Trial was just a show

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Gallagher has been found not guilty justice system is trash . Trial was just a show

I don't know what was involved but defense managed to turn a witness something crazy. Got him to claim, under total immunity, that he didn't see any blood after Gallagher stabbed the kid and that he was actually the one who killed the kid by pressing down his trachea with his thumb.

Weird bullshyt story that he had never said anything about in any of his previous testimony, and he STILL admitted that Gallagher had stabbed the kid, which Gallagher himself had admitted in a message, yet somehow Gallagher was found not guilty of stabbing too.

 

[jj23]

Wow. He got off?

Wow.

The moral high ground had been gone for a while, but Trump and his cronies just backed an 18 wheeler over it.

And all in time for the 4th of July

Woohaaa.

 

[Meta Reign]

Fukking infuriating!!

 

[ADevilYouKhow]

Fukking infuriating!!

That’s your man! That’s your man!