Pardoning war criminals is a bad way to honor Memorial Day
How are you spending
Memorial Day? Ordinary people may attend parades, host cookouts, or take the
long weekend to visit loved ones.
Donald Trump, on the
other hand, may pardon a few war criminals.
The president
recently requested the files of several accused
and convicted U.S. war criminals, a possible step toward expedited pardons for
individuals who’ve done unspeakable things.
There’s SEAL chief
Edward Gallagher, who senselessly shot to death a teenage girl and an elderly man
in Iraq. Gallagher also brutally stabbed a wounded 15-year-old to death — and
then posed for photos with the body, which he texted to friends.
Trump also requested
the files of Nicholas Slatten, a Blackwater contractor convicted of shooting
dozens of Iraqi civilians in the notorious 2007 Nisour Square massacre, and of
Mathew Golsteyn, who confessed to murdering an unarmed Afghan captive U.S.
soldiers had released.
Trump has already pardoned Michael Behenna, who took an unarmed Iraqi captive into the desert, stripped him naked, and shot him in the head and chest. Behenna was supposed to be returning the man to his home village.
The president may
present these pardons as a show of patriotism — his own Rambo-worshiping way of
“supporting the troops.” But several veterans have objected, pointing out that
many soldiers do their best to uphold the laws of war even under considerable
stress.
“They should treat the
civilians as they would neighbors,” combat veteran Waitman Wade Beorn recalled telling
his platoon in Iraq, arguing that the cues commanders set make all the
difference. Beorn, a Holocaust scholar, warned that one could draw some dark
(if inexact) parallels between Trump’s cues and Hitler’s.
During the Nazi
invasion of the Soviet Union, he wrote, “soldiers were literally told that they
would not be tried for behavior that would be a crime anywhere else in Europe.”
Similarly, “when Trump champions war criminals as brave patriots … he seems to
push for a climate that condones unethical and criminal behavior.”
Trump’s recent moves
are plainly calibrated to encourage war crimes, not prosecute them.
Gary Solis, a retired
military judge and Vietnam veteran, complained Trump was undermining the
entire military justice system. “These are all extremely complicated cases that
have gone through a careful system of consideration. A freewheeling pardon
undermines that whole system.”
That’s likely the
point. The truth is that Trump is pandering to the most atavistic segment of
his base. It echoes the Vietnam years, when war supporters turned William
Calley, convicted for his role in butchering hundreds of villagers at My
Lai, into a folk hero.
Today, Gallagher’s
cause is celebrated on “Fox and Friends,” the
president’s favorite TV show, and Trump has praised Gallagher “in honor of his
past service.”
Trump’s recent moves
are plainly calibrated to encourage war crimes, not prosecute them. But
glorifying serial killer-type behavior most service members would find
appalling is a strange way to honor them — particularly when some have
taken enormous risks to stop massacres like these.
For instance, seven of
Gallagher’s own men reported him repeatedly, even after being warned by superiors it would hurt
their careers. Behenna’s fellow soldiers, apparently disturbed by his behavior,
testified against him as well.
At My Lai, Army helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson landed his chopper in between marauding U.S. troops and cowering civilians, training his guns on his own comrades and forcing an end to the massacre.
At My Lai, Army helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson landed his chopper in between marauding U.S. troops and cowering civilians, training his guns on his own comrades and forcing an end to the massacre.
Honoring these heroes
would be more fitting, particularly in the present climate. Recent reports have
documented alarming rates of U.S.-inflicted civilian casualties in
Somalia, Syria and Afghanistan.
In the latter case, Trump’s extremist national security adviser John Bolton made brutish threats to get the International Criminal Court to back off investigating U.S. abuses.
In the latter case, Trump’s extremist national security adviser John Bolton made brutish threats to get the International Criminal Court to back off investigating U.S. abuses.
Meanwhile, egged on by
Bolton, Trump is considering sending 120,000 or more troops into
another purposeless bloodbath in the Middle East. And he’s made no plans to
fill the 45,000 or so vacant VA jobs backlogging
veterans’ health care.
Under these
circumstances, do we suppose the troops — or loved ones who’ve lost them — will
take a few pardons for war criminals as a compliment? I don’t know. But the
real lesson may be that the worst war criminals wear suits, not fatigues.
Happy Memorial Day.
Peter Certo is
the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) editorial manager.