To fight with toughness
Trump is a big fan of torture, provided it’s the US doing it.
Trump has held the same views about war crimes and torture for years — and being commander in chief has not changed him. He believes that previous presidents have been far too eager to send Americans to war, but that once they’ve been deployed, these soldiers should be free to treat enemies brutally.
- Trump’s views on this subject flared up again last week. He clashed with Pentagon brass when he cleared three soldiers who have been accused or convicted of war crimes.
- Pentagon leaders had privately argued that the president’s intervention in these cases would undercut the code of military justice.
Trump has told advisers that the U.S. military became too politically correct under President Obama and that he wanted to unleash them to fight with “toughness,” without these burdensome rules of engagement.
More like the Nazis for instance, or Stalin’s troops.
- Trump’s immutable views on this subject have put him at odds with Pentagon leadership more than once. From the outset, Trump disagreed with former Defense Secretary James Mattis over the effectiveness of waterboarding.
- Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, captured the widespread concerns in a tweet earlier this year: “Absent evidence of innocence or injustice the wholesale pardon of US servicemembers accused of war crimes signals our troops and allies that we don’t take the Law of Armed Conflict seriously. Bad message. Bad precedent. Abdication of moral responsibility. Risk to us.”
Behind the scenes: Sources close to Trump say the man who most closely reflects the president’s views on warfighting is “Fox & Friends” host and veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars Pete Hegseth.
- Hegseth advocated vigorously for these soldiers accused of war crimes. He did so on television and in private conversations with Trump. Hegseth was so closely read in on Trump’s plans that, as the NYT pointed out, he previewed them the week before Trump’s announcement.
- Hegseth told the “Fox & Friends” audience that he’d talked to Trump and that “the president looks at it through that lens, a simple one, and important one … the benefit of the doubt should go to the guys pulling the trigger.”
What could go wrong?
He can’t “clear” them: they committed war crimes. He canceled their punishment because he likes war crimes and the people who commit them.
…and when American soldiers find themselves choking on their own genitals they’ll know who to thank…
When I was a young 18-year-old National Servicemen conscript into the Australian Army (pre-Vietnam) we were taught to treat prisoners according to International Law, if for no better reason that if we didn’t it would quickly get to the other side, and they would treat our POWs accordingly.
In 1942, there was what amounted to a kamikaze raid on Sydney Harbour by Japanese midget submarines. This was intended to panic the city’s population and demoralise it. The bodies of the submariners were recovered, and given funerals with full military honours. (Highly criticised by various non-combatant observers.) But Australian POWs in Japanese camps reported that the manner of their captors improved as a result. Not much, but every bit helped.
Not that Captain Bonespurs would be capable of understanding such subtlety.