So what is all this foolish and destructive tough guy bluster really about – some sort of psychic compensation for tiny . . . bone spurs?
War Crimes? Phooey. We have been held back by those pesky Geneva Conventions far too long – MAGA!
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Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
I have 3 still active duty friends (2 06s and an 05), and not only are each of them are (privately) livid and each of them says their Commands are (privately) livid as well.
To quote one of them, “its hard to lead effectively when your troops think the CIC is a F***ing Ass****”
SMFH
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Oh my God! This is unthinkable! The outrage! The horror, the horror!
Having grown up in a military family then worked most of my life in the defense industry I have noticed that it is almost impossible to communicate to other civilians what it means to say that the military is a vast and efficient killing machine. Many think they can grasp it intellectually, but they can’t, really.
The part that’s hard to grasp is that whatever you may imagine the military to be philosophically, it remains fundamentally an insane enterprise. No amount of training or patriotism or USCMJ can ever sanitize that fact. Not in the least.
It’s like a mortician’s table. You can keep it shiny clean, but it remains a grisly thing.
I’m OK with that, and I’m OK with the Commander in Chief pardoning anyone under him he wishes, for any reason he wishes, or for no reason at all. I doubt it will affect the only thing that matters — military readiness. That it might do so is just a theory, an hypotheses, a hook for indignation, for those so inclined. But in theory, too, the pardons might actually improve readiness, given the nature of the beast.
In any case, I’m not much inclined to second guess the president on this issue. We gave him the job. He’s entitled to perform it as he sees fit.
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You can nurse whatever opinions you want.
I too have an opinion . . . Decent people think murdering civilians, even in a war zone, is a cowardly, despicable and criminal act. It is very clear that the fellow in question was a monster even to the point where his comrades in arms tinkered with his gun sights to try to save innocent lives. That Trump chose to glorify such a person is yet another way he has shown his disrespect for the overwhelming majority who serve honorably in dangerous situations. In short, it is more evidence of how truly disgusting he is and how deplorable his remaining supporters truly are.
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RE: “I too have an opinion”
So it would seem; a presumptious one. I’ll look elsewhere for ideas on what “decent people think.”
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You mean presumptuous? Another word you do not know the meaning of? My low opinion of this psychopath seems to be shared by his comrades and by his chain of command right up through the former Secretary of the Navy. Is their opinion also “presumptious?” Are they not “decent people?”
What is extra laughable is how you manage to portray yourself as some sort of Christian believer and as a spiritual and moral person while supporting Trump and now supporting war crimes.
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RE: “What is extra laughable is how you manage to portray yourself as some sort of Christian believer and as a spiritual and moral person while supporting Trump and now supporting war crimes.”
Even more laughable is how you manage to portray youself as representing “decent people.”
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Since you get almost everything bass ackwards, I will take that as a compliment.
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The reason our president is Commander in Chief of the military is to make sure that we have civilian control of the armed forces.
We don’t expect the president to mount a horse and lead the troops into battle like warrior kings of yesteryear.
Micromanagement of military discipline might not be in the best interest of good order. Gross injustice might merit such attention, but that would be after all other remedies have been exhausted. In two f the three cases, that was not the case. Removing the Trident was being considered by the top SEAL, Admiral Green. The other’s trial hadn’t even taken place.
I don’t think Trump respected the judgements of his military leaders, for reasons that are not clear. And why he decided to tweet to the world about what should be an internal procedure seems to point to a political reason.
Does Trump seem tough by siding with war criminals so long as the victims are Muslims? Considering Trump’s history of populist bigotry and desire for publicity whether outrageous or not, I would say that was the intent.
IMHO, of course.
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RE: “Micromanagement of military discipline might not be in the best interest of good order.”
That’s the theory. Before accepting it, however, we should ask how the Salon article shows that “good order” will be compromised. It doesn’t, leaving the question only to fearful and overheated imaginations.
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Actually, I didn’t read the Salon article. I based it on my 4 years of on a destroyer. The chain of command is pretty strictly adhered to. If a problem gets to the captain, that is sometimes an indication of leadership failures below him.
When a president intervenes it is a very large leap over the chain. Admiral Green, a decorated SEAL himself, not just an admin man, did not get a chance to solve the issue.
SEAL’s are publicity averse for obvious reasons. They are also revered for their professionalism as well as extraordinary skills in combat.
In my opinion, this is a case that shows the glaring lack of good advisors for the president.
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A simple answer. An E-5 does something warranting non-judicial punishment of some kind, up to and including courts-martial. He (or she) is found guilty of the charges and is punished accordingly. The offender then writes to President Trump, claims to be a voter/supporter and requests intervention. The chain-of-command is completely left out and Trump grants a pardon of some type. And then it continues with the next sailor and the next and the next. Military justice no longer exists and the idea of good order and discipline is lost.
Pretty simple really. And because of Trump’s actions, could very well happen.
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Funny you should mention the Geneva Conventions, because the concept behind them shows why Trump is right on this.
The Geneva Conventions are not one-sided laws, they are a bargain. Basically, the bargain is that if you act as proper soldiers(where a recognizable uniform, answer to a chain of command, and segregate yourselves for civilians) you are entitled to certain protections in battle and if captured. Our enemies today do none of those things, and we are not obligated by the Geneva Conventions to do anything with them.We can boil captives on oil if we want to. We don’t, but the laws of war do not protect the terrorists we fight. We can summarily execute combatants who are not in uniform or who shelter among civilians at will.
Our enemies use human shields and disguises as civilians to get close enough to kill our troops. If our troops are captured, they will not receive reciprocal humane treatment.
If civilians get killed approaching our troops, that is not our fault, it is the fault of those who use human shields and civilians as warhead delivery systems.
If there is fault, it is that of past Presidents who got us into these wars and endless occupations. Our soldiers should never be put into the position of having to decide whether to let a kid who might be carrying a bomb get close enough to kill them.
Combat is bad enough, there is no excuse for putting our soldiers in these no-win situations, and if Trump pardons soldiers who are judged to have made a bad choice by second guessers who helped put them at risk, good for him.
And those who second guess them and the President, need to spend some time at one of those check points and wonder for themselves if that teenage girl is just a little fat or has a bomb wrapped around her.
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That all sounds so logical except for the parts that weren’t .
Chain of command is very important to good order and discipline. Gallagher’s actions were an affront to his fellow SEAL’s, not to mention a lack of professionalism that Special Forces pride themselves on. Plus unit cohesion is critical in the missions that SEAL’s execute, and if confidence is lost in a fellow member things can go wrong.
Admiral Green, top SEAL if you will, was not an admin man. He was a decorated SEAL himself.
Now our endless wars that the idiot neo-cons got us into have taken a toll on our soldiers. Yet we have an all volunteer force, not conscripts. There is a certain expectation that 20 years of war will create problems. But this is known by all. And Special Forces volunteers know exactly what is expected of them. They are screened physically and psychologically to see if they are able to handle this type of combat. Most can’t.
Occupation and resultant insurgencies are almost impossible to win. But professionalism will do better than savagery.
I think Trump did what it did to score political points. Who cares about Muslims? A big selling point at rallies.
IMHO
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RE: “Chain of command is very important to good order and discipline.”
True. A main reason for that is the rank and file tends to act stupid. In practice, however, too much “good order and discipline” can degrade readiness.
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@John and Don
“Rank and file tends to act stupid”.
“…philosophers and second guessers…” (LOL, the “second guesser in chief is Trump, a draft dodger who hasn’t a clue what it means to be a soldier having suckled at daddy’s banking nipple most of his life. IMHO)
And you know that from your experiences serving in the military?
The discipline is handled by soldiers and sailors who are peers or immediate command. Charges are brought by those who are also dodging bullets. When it goes up the ladder, as in the case of Admiral Green, it is often handled by those who have been there too. FYI, Admiral Green is a decorated SEAL himself.
Is the military perfect? Of course not. But it is much better than when I was in in the 60’s and 70’s filled with conscripts.
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RE: “Charges are brought by those who are also dodging bullets.”
I know how the process works. I also know that it can work badly and to the detriment of readiness.
The puzzle for you is to show that the pardons really are a threat to order and discipline. Not theoretically, based on logic, not emotionally, based on experience or other people’s opinions, but as a practical matter in this instance.
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No puzzle.
If your chief disciplines you for misconduct and you go to the captain and he says no big deal you’re off the hook, the chief is going to look a bit diminished in authority. You’ve bypassed the chief, the division officer, the department head and the XO. The captain has also disrupted the good order and discipline by interfering with the chain of command.
If the Chief was wrong, there was an appeal process through the chain, but you bypassed all that.
Same here. Trump stripped the command authority of those under him. he also set a benchmark for what he thinks is professional behavior for the SEALS…or any combat soldier for that matter.
In the military it is considered bad leadership to berate or otherwise undercut a leader in front of his men. What Trump did is very much the same. And to make it even worse, he did it with one of the most elite forces in the world. A force whose very lives are dependent upon professionalism and respect for command in their ranks.
The icing on the cake is that he did it for votes from those who think savage behavior on the front lines is acceptable because the enemy is also savage and Muslim.
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RE: “No puzzle.”
Hypothetically, you mean. You are resorting to theory, because you have no facts to support your contentions.
A lot of Trump criticism is exactly like that — all imaginary, nothing real.
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“ The puzzle for you is to show that the pardons really are a threat to order and discipline“
What do you mean I have no facts? I experienced it for 4 years.
Pardons may not affect order in the military depending on circumstances. But Trump did not even allow the military to go through procedures. Or appeals.
I know what I am talking about. In my opinion which is based on experience as both an E-3 and a couple of years later as leading PO in CIC.
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RE: “What do you mean I have no facts? I experienced it for 4 years.”
You were in Gallager’s squad?
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Was I in Gallagher’s group?
If that is the criteria for an opinion based on my experience with military procedures, that has to be the silliest supposition yet.
Military life is not just another form of civilian employment. The chain of command is critical to good order and discipline. If that breaks down then there is no military. It’s just another job.
That’s not to say that such is perfect and mistakes are made that cost lives. But this is not one of those cases. This is about a lapse of discipline and professionalism in an elite force that prides itself on such. They were handling it correctly and within the unit.
You are not seeing it from a military point of view.
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RE: “if Trump pardons soldiers who are judged to have made a bad choice by second guessers who helped put them at risk, good for him.”
Exactly. The problem is the second-guessers, the theoreticians, the philosophers.
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@Roberts
“The problem is the second-guessers, the theoreticians, the philosophers.”
You mean like his comrades in arms who blew the whistle on his MANY heinous crimes? Those second guessers, theoreticians, and philosophers?
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RE: “You mean like his comrades in arms who blew the whistle on his MANY heinous crimes?”
Do you happen to know the whistle blowers did the right thing, or are you just guessing?
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I am “guessing” that the military knows what it is doing and that Trump does not.
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That’s not worth much.
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“That’s not worth much”
Maybe so, but it is worth a lot more than your pretending that the President meddling in military discipline is not disruptive to order and discipline. It OBVIOUSLY is on its face. And especially so when the President is a known to be a clueless jackass and draft dodger.
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RE: “it is worth a lot more than your pretending that the President meddling in military discipline is not disruptive to order and discipline.”
I’ve never said that. I’ve said there is no evidence related to the pardons that the pardons are disruptive to good order and discipline. Just theorizing by armchair philosophers who think they know more than they do.
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So your rules of engagement, your team leader, your CO and even the Secretary of the Navy orders you to not murder civilians but the President singles you out for glory for doing so but you need evidence that such Presidential meddling is disruptive?
Uh, no you don’t. You are just unable to accept ANY criticism of Dear Leader. It is a known psychological problem for people who have been conned. Admitting having been conned is admitting a personal failure so they simply cannot do it. Your reaction to numerous Trump outrages provides evidence for this phenomenon.
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So now the chain of command in special forces are only second guessers, theoreticians and philosophers?I am sure the admirals and generals assigned would disagree with that thought.
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RE: “So now the chain of command in special forces are only second guessers, theoreticians and philosophers?”
Didn’t say that. The author of the Salon article that heads this discussion fits the bill, though.
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You may not have said it, but many in those positions have come out against Trump’s actions and for the reason stated. Your statement implies that ANYONE who is saying the move is bad for good order and discipline falls into the category your set forth.
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“ “He’s interfering with the chain of command, which is trying to police its own ranks,” said Peter D. Feaver, a specialist on civilian-military relations at Duke University and former aide to President George W. Bush. “They’re trying to clean up their act and in the middle of it the president parachutes in — and not from information from his own commanders but from news talking heads who are clearly gaming the system.”
Chris Shumake, a former sniper who served in Chief Gallagher’s platoon, said in an interview that he was troubled by the impact the president’s intervention could have on the SEALs.
“It’s blown up bigger than any of us could have ever expected, and turned into a national clown show that put a bad light on the teams,” said Mr. Shumake, speaking publicly for the first time. “He’s trying to show he has the troops’ backs, but he’s saying he doesn’t trust any of the troops or their leaders to make the right decisions.”
2 points of view that pretty much sum up what I have been saying.
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@Tabor
You have a rich and scary fantasy life.
But your fantasies do not justify the actions of the psychopath that Trump is trying to glorify.
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58,000 US
600,000 NVA
200,000 VC
1,600,000 W&C**
Women & Children
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