Posted on 11/27/2019 1:40:55 PM PST by jazusamo
In an op-ed published by the Military Times, Sean Gallagher, brother of Navy SEAL Edward "Eddie" Gallagher, blasted politicians and military leaders who say President Trump's interventions in preventing more punitive action against his brother were wrong.
Gallagher criticized "military attorneys, indignant Pentagon officials and your typical Washington establishment types" for being hypocritical when it came to good order and discipline.
"Their views were mainly the same. The presidents actions were a moral hazard ! What message will it send our troops? What of good order and discipline? I have one question for these people: Where in the hell were you the past year and a half?" Gallagher asked.
Gallagher was referring to the conduct of the military prosecutors, who his brother's defense team accused of "misconduct by NCIS personnel in the investigation and presentation of charges."
The Navy's first lead prosecutor was removed from the case after admitting to emailing a tracking beacon to defense attorneys, paralegals, and reporters in order to find the source of leaks to the media. The Navy's team was also accused of manipulating witness statements to NCIS agents and trying to cover it up.
"Preach to me again the dangers of moral hazards?" Gallagher wrote.
Gallagher then offered some perspective for members of the military and said his family will continue to vote for politicians who "actually support our warfighters":
That flag on your uniform, and the Constitution you swear to protect, also protects you. No one, not even members of your own military, can deny you your rights, especially the right to due process and a jury of your peers.
It is the only thing that saved my brother form a lifetime of unjust imprisonment.
It also guarantees civilian control of the military. So while the brass rails about moral hazards and pontificates about good order, the Gallagher family will continue to cast our ballots for those who actually support our warfighters and not some other agenda.
"President Trump was right to intervene on Eddies case, and that should terrify every person wearing a uniform," he concluded.
Trump pushed back against Navy leaders to allow Gallagher to retire with his rank and Navy SEAL Trident. Gallagher was initially demoted by the Navy before Trump reversed its decision. Defense Secretary Mark Esper asked for former Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer's resignation "after losing trust and confidence in him regarding his lack of candor over conversations with the White House."
You are a mindless political bigot and totally ignorant moron. You have no clue what you are talking about.
Rather then continue proving yourself the stupidest person on this website, I suggest you stick to what you know rather then prove yourself a greater ass-clown here.
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My only regret about your comments is that I didn’t post them myself!
Especially after keeping HRC out of the White House...That alone was enough for me...The pardons were icing on the DJT cake...
Eddie posed with a dead terrorist, and the liberals go apesh!t when President Trump pardoned him. Obama pardoned a mentally ill person (confused gendered person) who was a spy.
The family should have stayed out of it. Chief Gallagher was lucky to get out with his rank and his retirement in control. He failed to follow the orders of his superiors, failed as a supervising NCO by allowing himself to be displayed as as much an animal as our enemies, and he has placed further taken prisoners to possible atrocities.
As for the glinks that were accomplished by the legal system, none of that had anything to do with the charges that were finalized. So having his brother getting into the works when he was lawfully found guilty of the act he did, it should be an embarrassment to the military being thrown by a media that soaks up every little scrap they can and elevates it to do harm to them.
rwood
Meanwhile, Hillary Criminal and her staff were breezily committing 600 or so felonies putting classified material in an unsecure environment. Then we have the FBI submitting criminally fraudulent FISA applications with the intent of spying on a political campaign. After that more crimes were committed covering up those felonies.
You are so quick to condemn Eddie. And so silent on the real criminals here. I’ll buy you a clue: it ain’t Eddie. POTUS is striking an important blow at the Deep State via his defense of an enlisted sailor. It’s that simple.
You I will be glad to answer to. The rest offered their opinion. You just tossed out insults.
I am a medically retired senior NCO from Vietnam to Desert Storm. Was in both. I retired in 1995 and was asked to come back in 1998 to teach terrorist, tactics. and weapons until my force medical retirement in 2012.
I forgot more about this field than most have ever learned considering I was in it for over 40 years as a 3POX7 for the Air Force, with secondary of a 750X5, and a DoD designation of 96B from which I retired for the second time.
As for being mindless, I think you might want to consider you appear to have no experience in the requirements and expectations of a senior NCO in a downrange sortie. Gallagher made a couple of major mistakes and he will never pay for them because Trump, in his inexperience, will allow him to. Gallagher stands a real chance at getting personnel compromised and after he is collecting his paychecks at the higher rank he displayed a failure to earn and keep, others may have to pay.
So you just jump on people when you seem to have no idea of the possible aftermath of what Gallagher did. I’ve been there when decisions like this require thought and restraint. He didn’t apply either. You should consider the other way than him.
rwood
There is a military expression, Shinola flows downhill. The perfumed Princes in the Military will destroy an underling’s career in a New York second it it helps their’s. I seen this happen, so POTUS was one hundred percent right in this.Kudos to him. Admiral Perry famously said “Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead.” That’s our pres.
“Rather then scream idiot ignorant dogma LEARN something”
You might want to understand what he was found guilty of. He was found guilty failing to follow the orders he received by ignoring article 3 of the Geneva Convention by being photographed with a dead 17 year old ISIS fighter, holding him by the hair, and brandishing a knife at him.
The actual charge of murder was thrown out due to lack of evidence and that cleared him of everything except the disregard of the GC. Please read the following article so you can get a better understanding of Art. 3 of the GC, the Humanitarian Law. And note that this is taught to all military members. He ignored it.
http://www.worldlii.org/int/journals/ISILYBIHRL/2001/11.html
rwood
‘.....the navy brass was going to further prosecute Gallagher out of embarrassment.’
That possibility is there. But if he hadn’t had a picture of himself like he did, there would be no charges at all. But this charge had nothing to do with the others and he made it easy to understand by supplying it so the gaining prosecutors had a solid case. And he admitted he was wrong and had embarrassed the Navy and the SEALs by staging the picture.
rwood
I have one thing to say does ISIS abide by the GC oh HELL NO!!! They torture, meme, behead, GIVE ME A DAMN BREAK, ISIS are animals AND they do not deserve GC or rules of engagement!!!
The IG complaint cited is even more chilling. Some heads need to roll.
“In my very humble opinion as a Nam combat veteran, if this was the only thing Trump did in his entire 8-year presidency, it would have been enough to make him one of the greatest in history.”
Nicely put and thanks also for your service! If Trump really wants to tweak the Left, he should give him some type of award for posing with the ISIS corpse...because HUMILIATION is one of the few concepts that they actually do understand.
“I have one thing to say does ISIS abide by the GC oh HELL NO!!! They torture, meme, behead, GIVE ME A DAMN BREAK, ISIS are animals AND they do not deserve GC or rules of engagement!!!”
I was going to make the same point. The Geneva Convention applies to CONVENTIONAL WARFARE, where it is presumed that the people you are fighting are uniformed soldiers forced into combat by their country they are a citizen of.
When you look at it that way, then Geneva makes sense, you treat those combatants humanely, alive or dead. This is NOT a conventional war...so sorry, no Geneva Convention here.
Thankfully Trump is able to understand that.
I think the prosecutors acted in worse fashion than Gallagher. They tried to illegally prosecute him for the crimes he was charged -and acquitted- Which were all the major charges.
The moral hazard here is on prosecutorial misconduct - and getting away with it.
Does the Geneva conventions protection apply to non-uniformed soldiers conducting murder & espionage? Seriously, does it?
Navy SEAL Edward "Eddie" Gallagher, a true patriot, made a mistake IMHO, of posing for a picture with the "trophy"...the back story got out of hand as today's news often does. President Trump did what a President should do for his warriors...America is blessed to have such a caring Commander In Chief...
“He failed to follow the orders of his superiors, failed as a supervising NCO by allowing himself to be displayed as as much an animal as our enemies, and he has placed further taken prisoners to possible atrocities.”
You mean like those same “superiors” and their “superiors’ failed to obey the CINC?
And you ignore that his Courts Martial was conducted like the Schiff impeachment.
“The moral hazard here is on prosecutorial misconduct - and getting away with it.”
If they were proven wrong for what they did while investigating and trying to convict the other charges to include murdering the ISIS fighter, then they should be prosecuted themselves. But Gallagher was, no question, guilty of violating the Geneva Convention and should be sentenced for his crime. He is a senior NCO and has been briefed and schooled on that, and briefed and school his troops the same but he knowingly violated it.
Just because Trump pardoned him for the “sentence,” doesn’t relieve him of his crime of dereliction of duty. And the additional MEB, which is required, will probably force him out of the career field and possibly find him unfit for commanding which for a Navy Chief, especially the SEAL career field, is about as bad as it can go administratively. But they kept him out of prison as a favor to him. And he knows this as he simulated tossing his anchors as he was walking out of court and, if you can trust the news media, has already put in his retirement papers.
rwood
“You mean like those same superiors and their superiors failed to obey the CINC?
And you ignore that his Courts Martial was conducted like the Schiff impeachment.”
Trying to compare anything to a travesty like the impeachment hearings, or any other one, is not consistent. Probably the major difference here is that the impeachment hearing has nothing but witness opinions. The court-martial had photographs. Picture worth a thousand words.
As for the other thing, if you are referring to the other people in the chain concerning insubordination then you are correct in that it is their act of willfully disobeying an order of one’s superior not doing what they are expected to do. But that is their decision just like Gallagher’s. And it is my understanding that three others in superior positions are also being investigated and may reach the same fate as Gallagher possibly worse.
rwood
“Does the Geneva conventions protection apply to non-uniformed soldiers conducting murder & espionage? Seriously, does it?”
Please define non-uniformed soldiers. If you are asking about civilian employees of the military, as they are not soldiers, then yes it does while acting in representation of the US government and the laws of armed conflict, DoDD 5100.77, comes into application. If you can get to the site, it can explain a lot on this particular scenario.
And that can answer your question, I seriously hope.
rwood
I agree, but want to say that the reason I feel it is ill advised is not the effect the pictures have on people, but the existence of a politically correct environment where bureaucratic people (both in and out of the military) might get wind of pictures like that and feel compelled to make an issue out of it.
I don’t understand why someone would need to take pictures of a corpse (you would think if you saw enough of it, you wouldn’t need images because the sight might reside in your head where you might not want it to appear) but I have never been in combat either, and I can on some level understand that there is something terrible and engrossing about it that affects people in ways that don’t make sense outside of a combat situation.
The context is so beyond our ken (those who have never experienced it) that we have to maintain leeway for those who have, IMO.
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