Trump is trying to destroy the CHAIN OF COMMAND. He would love nothing more than to head up the military WITHOUT the chain of command.
The USA military does not operate on the whims of dictators and Donald J. Trump did not follow the Chain of Command. He drops "legal orders" on the heads of Generals and Commanders and they feel compelled to act on them.
His decision making in the past few months has to be held to scrutiny. He has interrupted the CHAIN OF COMMAND in Syria and nearly destroyed a secret operation that brought the end of Bagdadi. In doing so he abandoned long held allies in the Middle East in the Kurds. He basically turned the Turks loose to kill at will for an expansionist plan into northern Syria when it was no threat to Turkey.
There are only a few things that enter into Trump's decision making; money, cost, popular opinion, including DEMANDS OF HIS BASE and Russia's demands for relief from the USA military. All of those factors are NOT FACTORS, they are not SUFFICIENT indicators of decisions to change assignments of the USA military.
THE ONLY FACTOR THAT ENTERS INTO THE COMMAND STRUCTURE IN THE USA IS IT'S NATIONAL SECURITY AND CONDITIONS ON THE GROUND. Conditions on the ground have to be moral and lawful in the eyes of the commanders.
Now, he is directly assaulting the CHAIN OF COMMAND in riding roughshod over the Joint Chiefs, the Special Forces, Generals and Commanders. It has to stop. He can't simply decide he is going to pardon American soldiers brought to justice by their peers. It is not proper procedure without bringing everyone else along and he does not have that support.
There are morals and ethics involved in the USA military. It is not just bombs and guns. Amerian soldiers are thinking people that understand the brevity of international standards of war. When those standards are violated there needs to be a trial to levy judgment. Levied judgment in the case of war crimes requires punitive measures.
The USA military command cannot look the other way when the Commander and Chief allows an understanding that he does not consider war crimes a serious offense. That is what is happening here. There can be no weak links in the chain. Trump is the weakest link among them and he has the most power to bring peril to the USA and it's military. Someone has to set him straight or call it what is and act on it.
November 24, 2019
By Leo Shan III
President Donald Trump’s decision (click here) to grant clemency to three service members accused of war crimes amounts to “an insult to our entire system of military justice” and military order, according to the Senate’s top Democrat on defense issues.
In a scathing floor speech Thursday, Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Jack Reed, D-R.I., blasted the moves as sending a “damaging” message not just to the troops involved in those judicial proceedings, but to the rest of the armed forces as well.
“(His) disregard risks undermining the confidence of our service members in the rule of law, especially those courageous enough to bring allegations of war crimes to light and testify against their teammates,” said Reed, an Army veteran who served as an infantry officer in the 1970s....
