Last week, the President pardoned two Army officers convicted in controversial war crimes cases, and reinstated SEAL Eddie Gallagher to his prior rank—Even though us mere mortals in Big Army would get bad paper discharged on his drug charge alone.
Trump decided he didn’t like the idea of American warfighters catching charges just for “doing their jobs and keeping their men safe.” But is that what really happened? We take a look at the case of former 1LT Clint Lorance, freshly pardoned for second-degree murder from his order to kill unarmed Afghanis in 2012.
We go through the facts of the case, some of his and his platoon’s statements, and try to get to the bottom of what happened there and how it impacted the men under his command. Using this as a case study we try to break down the nature of deploying in counter-insurgency operations, the complexities of the modern battlefield and how US Soldiers are expected to act. We also examine what these pardons mean for the Forever Wars in general and Trump’s seeming affection for total war on the civilian population. Matt also adds in some of his personal experience.
Do you think Lorance deserves that pardon? Do you think soldiers who kill “unlawfully” should get a pass because war is hard, or are we a “nation of laws” and should all troops be subjected to UCMJ?
Before you answer, remember the Empire always comes home.
Thanks for listening, we appreciate you taking the time to check us out and hope you found some value in this and every other show.
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Links
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/25/us/jailed-ex-army-officer-has-support-but-not-from-his-platoon.html
http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2008863,00.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/25/us/jailed-ex-army-officer-has-support-but-not-from-his-platoon.html
School Mass Shooting paper we didn’t get to!
https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=278100090106069007097086018103095076096012041014091091022030024078000120122089093064039025063115053046114001075086110112118082122074062093047126011002073093111004042080110115066088119064119115077067010078105098009101003003104101097075115015103116&EXT=pdf