This was a difficult story to read. It demonstrates how the bad guys win if they have Fox News and the president on their side even when the good guys try to thwart them.
“Trump’s Intervention in SEALs Case Tests Pentagon’s Tolerance: Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher’s case pits a Pentagon hierarchy committed to enforcing longstanding rules of combat against a commander in chief with no military experience but a finely honed sense of grievance against authority.” N.Y. Times, subscription $
Gallagher’s crimes even got him ( I won’t say they earned him) a Wikipedia page (right).
Gallagher was acquitted of charge of killing the boy he posed with because “the medic who had been inches away from Chief Gallagher changed his story on the stand after being granted immunity, claiming that he was the one who killed the captive.”
The NY Times reported the following. We can only speculate whether it was Gallagher who did this.
One SEAL sniper told investigators he heard a shot from Chief Gallagher’s position, then saw a schoolgirl in a flower-print hijab crumple to the ground. Another sniper reported hearing a shot from Chief Gallagher’s position, then seeing a man carrying a water jug fall, a red blotch spreading on his back. Neither episode was investigated and the fate of the civilians remains unknown.
The NY Times also reports that
SEALs said they started firing warning shots to keep pedestrians out of range. One SEAL told investigators he tried to damage the chief’s rifle to make it less accurate.
I’ve excerpted the quotes in the Times article from the president and Edward Gallagher.
Gallagher:
September 2017, charged with nearly a dozen counts including murder and locked in the brig in San Diego to await his trial. He denied the charges and called those reporting him liars who could not meet his high standards, referring to them repeatedly in public as “the mean girls” and saying they sought to get rid of him.
Trump:
“We’re going to take care of our warriors and I will always stick up for our great fighters,” Mr. Trump told a rally in Florida as he depicted the military hierarchy as part of “the deep state” he vowed to dismantle. “People can sit there in air-conditioned offices and complain, but you know what? It doesn’t matter to me whatsoever.”
Gallagher:
Months before deploying, he sent a text to the SEAL master chief making assignments, saying he was “down to go” to any spot, no matter how awful, so long as “there is for sure action and work to be done. We don’t care about living conditions. We just want to kill as many people as possible.”
Before deployment, he commissioned a friend and former SEAL to make him a custom hunting knife and a hatchet, he vowed in a text: “I’ll try and dig that knife or hatchet on someone’s skull!”
When he heard on the radio that Iraqi soldiers had captured an Islamic State fighter he radioed “No one touch him. He’s mine.”
(After he killed the boy) “Stop worrying about it; they do a lot worse to us.”
A week later, Chief Gallagher sent a friend a text with a photo of himself with a knife in one hand, holding the captive up by the hair with the other. “Good story behind this, got him with my hunting knife.”
Trump:
.
Gallagher on Fox
Gallagher: In an interview with Mr. Hegseth this past week. “He keeps stepping in and doing the right thing. I want to let him know the rest of the SEAL community is not about this right now. They all respect the president.”
Trump:
Trump (reported in The Hill)
"I stuck up for three great warriors against the deep state," Trump said at a rally in Sunrise, Fla. "And you know what I’m talking about."
The president was referring to a pardon he announced last week for Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher and grants of executive clemency for Army Maj. Mathew Golsteyn and Army Lt. Clint Lorance. The decision came despite senior Pentagon officials raising concerns about Trump intervening in the military justice system and eventually led to the ouster of the Navy secretary.
"I had so many people say, 'Sir, I don’t think you should do that,'" Trump said Tuesday. "People have to be able to fight. These are great warriors. They can’t think ... if they made a mistake they were putting them in jail for 25 years."
"I will always stick up for our great fighters," he continued. "People can sit there in air-conditioned offices and complain, but you know what, doesn’t matter to me whatsoever."
Psychopathy is not a formal diagnosis. However it is one of those terms which in common usage is understood by everyone. Here’s how Wikipedia defines it.
Psychopathy is traditionally a personality disorder characterized by persistent antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, and bold, disinhibited, and egotistical traits.[1][2][3] It is sometimes considered synonymous with sociopathy. Different conceptions of psychopathy have been used throughout history that are only partly overlapping and may sometimes be contradictory.[4]
Although no psychiatric or psychological organization has sanctioned a diagnosis titled "psychopathy", assessments of psychopathic characteristics are widely used in criminal justicesettings in some nations and may have important consequences for individuals. The study of psychopathy is an active field of research, and the term is also used by the general public, popular press, and in fictional portrayals.[11][12] While the term is often employed in common usage along with "crazy", "insane", and "mentally ill", there is a categorical difference between psychosis and psychopathy.[13]
What constitutes antisocial behavior is somewhat open to definition. It is defined by social convention and norms. However let’s just take the following and from what we know about Trump and Gallagher ask ourselves whether they demonstrate these traits. I think is easy to see their impaired empathy, lack of remorse for hurting others, boldness, lack of inhibitions, and egotism.
In my opinion both are psychopaths. One is the the President of the United States. The other has become a Fox TV personality who is allowed to proudly keep his SEAL trident.
Some of Trump’s supporters shrug off his narcissism. Many of them find it engaging. They even don’t mind his lies and fractured way of speaking.
Bring on the clowns:
Speaking with the Times, Chris Shumake, a former sniper who served with Gallagher, Trump has turned the administration of justice into a national spectacle that is hurting the military.
“It’s blown up bigger than any of us could have ever expected, and turned into a national clown show that put a bad light on the teams,” Mr. Shumakeexplained. “He’s trying to show he has the troops’ backs, but he’s saying he doesn’t trust any of the troops or their leaders to make the right decisions.” REFERENCE
If Trump supporters want to accept that we have a circus clown for a president this would be fine. Unfortunately Trump isn’t Bozo (who was real), we could say he’s Pennywise, but he is fictional, so it is better to say he’s like John Wayne Gacy in his Pogo the Clown costume. Trump is a killer clown.