You do not deliberately kill civilians or prisoners!

"Lieutenant 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.

Chief 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.

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

-------------

Someone asked me today what I thought of these pardons.  This is a tough one because war is inherently violent and violence means killing people as well as the destruction of mere things.

Situations on an active battlefield are often ambiguous and peoples' blood is up in the heat of battle.  Are enemy wounded often killed in the midst of an ongoing action?  Yes they are and to think that will change is to betray ignorance of what it is to fight.  Soldiers are not policemen.  They exist to kill people and destroy things in pursuit of their country or movement's policy.  If you cannot cope with that reality, then you should campaign endlessly for universal disarmament and an end to nations. 

To take some of the edge off the savagery of war, the West developed  codes of rules, customs and laws that attempt to impose limits on the  conduct of war.  These have often been violated.  Winston Churchill wrote in "The River War"  of the way the completely victorious Anglo-Egyptian Army left the Mahdi Army's wounded to die on the battlefield at Omdurman.  There were thousands of them.  "Dead men don't bite" was the spirit of the day.  The crimes of the Imperial Japanese Army in WW2 were too numerous to need recounting.  This in spite of Japan having adhered to the various Geneva Conventions.  I have always been strongly opposed to the Strategic Air Power doctrines of various air forces.  These concepts were originated by Douhet, Trenchard, Curtis Lemay and many others  They can be summarized as advocating bombing civilian populations until they force their governments to surrender.

For the ground forces soldier the basic law of war both international and national is that you do not kill or injure prisoners in your possession so long as they accept their status and you do not deliberately harm civilians so long as they do not take up arms against you.  Do you shell towns that you have to attack even though the towns may contain civilians?  You do.  There seems to be no way to avoid that.

To that end UCMJ is very clear.  It is quite well established in US military law that this law will be applied, and I support that policy.  In addition to the immorality of of killing the helpless it is true that soldiers who are allowed to kill or maim unarmed people quickly become unmanageable as individuals or as a force.

Any officer with combat experience knows that.  pl

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/16/us/trump-pardon-military.html

Comments

[turcopolier]

Poul

You don't get this whole thing about the Geneva Conventions and UCMJ do you? Too bad. If you had served under me and acted as your "inner savage" dictated you would have been damned sorry.

[turcopolier]

Terence Gore

Ah! Another one with a compelling "inner savage." It is because of people like you and Poul that we have laws to restrain weaklings who want to murder.

[The Twisted Genius]

I can't stand by and let my friend fight this one alone. The essence of being a soldier is the discipline and self-discipline inherent in the calling. You do not deliberately kill civilians or prisoners! There is no Talmudic quibbling about this. Just because Trump felt it necessary, for God knows what reason, to excuse this kind of behavior should not compel even his most ardent supporters to follow his lead on this. Think, people. Your willingness to excuse a little self-indulgent murder among the troops is insulting to the profession of arms.

A note. I haven't been commenting lately because I am fully engaged in a one man house renovation project. I can't afford to be drawn into debates and discussions if I want to complete these projects by the Holidays. There have been some compelling discussions here lately and I've been sorely tempted, but I must keep my eye on the prize.

[Terence Gore]

I'm not sure it is an inner savage. "weakling" is probably appropriate as it applies to me.

[Leith]

The top Navy Seal, Rear Admiral Green, is going to throw Gallagher out of the Seals. Will they send him to McMurdo Station or some other remote post? Or maybe sea duty on a destroyer where his medical training can be used to screen crewmates for gonorrhea?

Or probably he'll get out and become a poster boy for wannabee war criminals.

[Mark Arnest]

It seems that few of the people commenting on this post have read to the final two sentences, in particular, "soldiers who are allowed to kill or maim unarmed people quickly become unmanageable as individuals or as a force." Whatever our views are of the behavior in question, however widespread it may be in warfare, however unscrupulously our enemies may encourage it, and whatever doubts we have about how we as individuals would react in the same circumstances, the fact remains that pardoning this behavior can only be detrimental to OUR military.

Nor should we neglect the propaganda value that these pardons have.

[elaine]

I haven't really followed Gallagher's case. Today via snail mail I received
this message from the "Uniformed Services League", whoever they are, stating
in conjunction with the Lt Clint Lorance case: " Nine soldiers in his platoon who were originally being prosecuted for murder along with Lt Lorance, had the charges against them dropped, in return for them testifying
against their own Lieutenant. Is that fair?" Also bear in mind Lorance had
only been assigned to this combat group for a very short amount of time.

[turcopolier]

elaine

Wimpy, wet League of Women Voters and PTA crap. When you are in command, you are responsible. Period.

[upstater]

Colonel, you said "Soldiers are not policemen. They exist to kill people and destroy things in pursuit of their country or movement's policy. If you cannot cope with that reality, then you should campaign endlessly for universal disarmament and an end to nations."

Criminals should be vigoursly prosecuted!

That says it all about the past 70 years, doesn't it? How do we campaign for peace in the Facebook (tm) period? How much does it cost us? Time to quit, isn't it?

My roads are potholed, my disabled son will outlive my support, my daughter's killer is on community leave after killing 2 people 6 years ago, the economy benefits the 0.01%, the wounded are left unhealed and the dead unhonored.

Enough!

[Ulenspiegel]

"My understanding is that chivalry was not invented by priests or lawyers. My understanding is that chivalry was invented by combat hardened knights telling the younger knights "shape up, we are better than that."

But this only applied for enemy knights. Non noble fighters were often killed or maimed.

The Swiss peasants were IMHO the first who told their enemies on a regular base that there would be no POWs, they lost money but avoided issues of soldiers leaving their units with captured noble men.

[Christian J Chuba]

I find Chief Gallagher's case interesting because it involves the handling of a prisoner and it was so heavily championed by FOX. My account of the medic's testimony was wrong, here is the excerpt from the article below. If Gallagher went from giving medical aid to a prisoner, to then stabbing him and then later posing with his corpse, he is a broken man. His active service days should be over.

"He [the medic] plugged the detainee’s breathing tube with his thumb so that he wouldn’t fall into the hands of the Iraqi security forces lingering nearby. ... shortly before ... he and Gallagher and other SEALs had toiled for nearly 20 minutes stabilizing the sedated detainee, to the point that he seemed to be breathing normally through a tube inserted to clear his airway.

Gallagher inexplicably stabbed the prisoner below his collarbone before stomping off, Scott said, but the boy would’ve survived that."
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/06/21/legal-bombshell-explodes-on-seal-war-crimes-trial/

[elaine]

Colonel, Are you saying the quote I referenced from a group called "Uniformed Services League" stating that 9 members of Lt Lorance's platoon were all originally also charged with murder & their charges were dropped in return for them testifying against Clint Lorance is "Wimpy, League of Woman Voters & PTA crap"?

I respectfully disagree. It sounds like an Obama era railroad job to me. BTW, this advocacy group states it's headed by LTC Dennis Gillem & lists it's address as Freedom Center, PO Box 820, Stuarts Draft, VA 24477-0820

They also say, "Retired military officers are invited to join their advisory board." I'm not filling out their survey or sending them any $
as I make small contributions to United American Patriots to help raise
$$$ for legal defence of military members in need of advocacy. I try to
be discerning & not wimpy. I've noted most of the causes are for Sgts not
officers. I despise the Lt Calley types who wantonly take civilian life.

I'm assuming your "Wimpy, wet, etc" analysis was directed to my 1st comment & not my second, however it's cool with me & take it as a refreshing change as most ppl accuse me of being too conservative & hard core. Thank you for allowing me to comment.

[turcopolier]

Elaine

That is exactly what I mean. I will tell you again that a commander (including unpopular infantry platoon leaders) are absolutely responsible for what their command and the soldiers in it do or do not do. It does not seem to be contested that like Lt Calley he ordered the killing of unarmend civilians and participated in that activity. The fact that some of his men may also be guilty and were not prosecuted is irrelevant. You want to be "nice" about this? If so, you want an army of murderers.

[turcopolier]

All
I get calls from people who want to talk about CPO Gallegher. some of them get down to his acquittal on murder and attempted murder charges.

"A general court-martial is the highest court level. It consists of a military judge, trial counsel (prosecutor), defense counsel, and a minimum of five officers sitting as a panel of court-martial members. An enlisted accused may request a court composed of at least one-third enlisted personnel. An accused may also request trial by judge alone.

In a general court-martial, the maximum punishment is that set for each offense under the Manual for Courts-Martial (MCM), and may include death for certain offenses, confinement, a dishonorable or bad conduct discharge for enlisted personnel, a dismissal for officers, or a number of other forms of punishment. A general court-martial is the only forum that may adjudge a sentence to death.

Before a case goes to a general court-martial, a pretrial investigation under Article 32 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice must be conducted, unless waived by the accused; this is the equivalent to a civilian grand jury process. An accused before a general court-martial is entitled to free legal representation by military defense counsel, and can also retain civilian counsel at his or her expense."

A third of the jurors were other Navy enlisted men. IMO that is probably why Gallegher was acquitted on the murder and attempted murder charges. That composition exists to keep officers from scapegoating or railroading enlisted people. The nasty truth is that most senior officers and senior DoD civilians do not care much about enlisted people and never did. That has nothing to do with Obama. He has a lot on his his conscience but not that.