MintPress News Topic: "Trump Pardoning War Crimes, Prosecuting Whistleblowers" by Alexander Rubinstein

By -
May 29th, 2019

"What is the message to the soldiers and to the world if blatant war criminals are pardoned, while Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange are severely persecuted for exposing war crimes?"
-- Gerry Condon, Veterans for Peace 


WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has already made clear his soft spot for war criminals, having brought one – Elliot Abrams – into his administration. Then, earlier this month, Trump pardoned Army First Lieutenant Michael Behenna. Now, reports indicate Trump is just getting started.
And while Trump appears to be making moves to pardon more war criminals, those who have exposed war crimes, including whistleblower Chelsea Manning and journalist Julian Assange, are charged with contempt of court and espionage.
Lieutenant Behenna was sentenced to 15 years behind bars in 2009 for shooting a man to death who had been stripped naked and interrogated in connection with a roadside bomb.

The American Civil Liberties Union wrote:
This pardon is a presidential endorsement of a murder that violated the military’s own code of justice.
Military leaders, including Trump as commander-in-chief, should prevent war crimes — not endorse or excuse them.”

More pardons on tap

Undeterred by such sharp rebukes, Trump is reportedly preparing to pardon a handful of other war criminals. That’s according to two U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to the New York Times.
Among those slated for pardon is Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL accused of stabbing a “defenseless” and wounded teenager receiving medical treatment. He and his platoon then took photos of themselves standing over the corpse. Gallagher is also accused by fellow SEAL snipers of shooting a teenage girl wearing a flower-print hijab from a sniper’s nest while she was walking with her friends. They also say he shot an unarmed old man.
Gallagher is set to stand trial “in the coming weeks.”
Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump
In honor of his past service to our Country, Navy Seal will soon be moved to less restrictive confinement while he awaits his day in court. Process should move quickly! @foxandfriends @RepRalphNorman
90.9K
8:14 AM - Mar 30, 2019
Twitter Ads info and privacy
29.1K people are talking about this
The New York Times’ sources say that Trump put in expedited requests for the “paperwork needed to pardon the troops” around Memorial Day.
An Army Green Beret — Maj. Mathew L. Golsteyn, who has yet to face trial over the killing of an unarmed Afghan man in 2010 — is also reportedly being floated for a pardon, as are a group of Marines who urinated on the corpse of a dead Taliban fighter and then posted a video of it to YouTube.
A private security contractor with Blackwater who was found guilty of shooting “dozens of unarmed Iraqis” may also be pardoned.
Gerry Condon, president of Veterans for Peace, told MintPress News:
This sends absolutely the wrong message to the troops — it invites them to become cold-blooded murderers.”
“We are not talking about a confusing combat situation here — this is not the ‘fog of war.’ We are talking about the pre-meditated stabbing murder of an unarmed prisoner and the sniper rifle murders of random civilians.”
Delivering pardons to these men sends a clear message that American soldiers are above the law, experts argue. “It 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,” retired military judge Gary Solis told the Times.

Justice upside down

Trump’s not-so-subtle wink to troops wondering what they may be able to get away with comes alongside his crackdown on those who would — or have — exposed such crimes. Chelsea Manning blew the whistle on the U.S. military’s extrajudicial killings by leaking drone footage of pilots gunning down civilians and journalists in the infamous “Collateral Murder” video. Meanwhile, Julian Assange, who published the video, is charged with 17 counts of espionage by the United States in a case that could ultimately see him put to death.
One wonders the substantive difference between the potential execution of Assange and the executions for which Trump plans to dole out pardons.
Condon added:
What is the message to the soldiers and to the world if blatant war criminals are pardoned, while Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange are severely persecuted for exposing war crimes?”
Condon said that Manning and Assange should be pardoned, but cautioned that “pardoning” denotes a crime and said they committed none. “They should have their charges dismissed and be let go.”

Alexander Rubinstein is a staff writer for MintPress News based in Washington, DC. He reports on police, prisons and protests in the United States and the United States’ policing of the world. He previously reported for RT and Sputnik News.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"MSM Already Using Capitol Hill Riot To Call For More Internet Censorship" by Caitlin Johnstone

By -
Image
  MSM Already Using Capitol Hill Riot To Call For More Internet Censorship The United States received a very small  taste of its own medicine  today as rioting Trump fanatics temporarily  forced their way into the nation’s Capitol building , and now the whole nation is freaking out. I am being generous when I say that America was given a very small taste of its own medicine; unlike the horrific coups and violent uprisings the US routinely orchestrates in noncompliant nations around the world, this one stood exactly zero chance of seizing control of the government, and only  one person was killed . I am also being generous when I say the rioters “forced their way” in; DC  chose not to increase its police presence  in preparation for the protests despite knowing that they were planned, and there’s  footage  of what appears to be cops actively letting them through a police barricade. There was  some fighting  between police and protesters, but contrasted with the  unceasing barrage of pol
Read more

The Deforestation Process

By -
Image
  The Deforestation Process Deforestation is too often reduced to what’s most conspicuous. But deforestation is complex and a lot more than raising beef cattle or growing soybeans. To begin with, despite all the biodiversity especially of plant life, rain forest soil isn’t very fertile. Nope, it’s actually very oxalic. Oxalic soils are acidic. Acidic soils are full of iron, bauxite and other minerals.  So not only are trees in the forest chopped down for their precious hardwood, the soils these trees grow in are mined for minerals including aluminum, zinc, copper, manganese, gold and iron. Do you know where the aluminum in your water bottle came from? What’s one of most electricity intensive things to do? Convert bauxite into aluminum. It’s an electrostatic process to remove oxygen from the alumina (Al2O3). This electricity is also one of the largest costs of producing aluminum. So that’s why hydroelectricity is often used to reduce the costs of refining bauxite to alumina to aluminum.
Read more

Reporter Uncovers History-Changing Manson Family Connections to CIA and Hollywood

By -
Image
Reporter Uncovers History-Changing Manson Family Connections to CIA and Hollywood By  John Vibes The crimes of the Manson family resulted in one of the most famous murder trials in history, but new research has come to light that could totally change the history of the case. Much of what was believed to be true about the Manson murders and the cult that carried them out comes from a narrative that was spun by prosecutor Vince Bugliosi, both during the trial and in his book  Helter Skelter — the best selling true crime novel of all time. Nothing about the murders made any sense. There was a strange cult of hippies that were killing celebrities for apparently no reason, and the young people carrying out the crimes seemed to be under the spell of a charismatic lunatic and failed musician named Charles Manson. Bugliosi created a narrative that Manson and his followers had no personal motive in the killings, but were attempting to instigate a race war by framing the Black Pant
Read more