Navy SEALs Were Warned Against Reporting Their Chief for War Crimes

[brooklynite]

Source: New York Times

Stabbing a defenseless teenage captive to death. Picking off a school-age girl and an old man from a sniper’s roost. Indiscriminately spraying neighborhoods with rockets and machine-gun fire.

Navy SEAL commandos from Team 7’s Alpha Platoon said they had seen their highly decorated platoon chief commit shocking acts in Iraq. And they had spoken up, repeatedly. But their frustration grew as months passed and they saw no sign of official action.

Tired of being brushed off, seven members of the platoon called a private meeting with their troop commander in March 2018 at Naval Base Coronado near San Diego. According to a confidential Navy criminal investigation report obtained by The New York Times, they gave him the bloody details and asked for a formal investigation.

But instead of launching an investigation that day, the troop commander and his senior enlisted aide — both longtime comrades of the accused platoon leader, Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher — warned the seven platoon members that speaking out could cost them and others their careers, according to the report.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/us/navy-seals-crimes-of-war.html

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Corruption. Murderer who likes killing & enjoys being above law. What American values has Gallagher?

[rkleinberger]

19. Trump's and the Republican Party Values! Many in the military are scary Trump supporters.

[Firestorm49]

2. Amazing. Sick, but amazing in its arrogance.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Prosecutors allege a Navy SEAL killed a wounded ISIS fighter with a hunting knife and held his head

Prosecutors allege a Navy SEAL killed a wounded ISIS fighter with a hunting knife and held his head for photos

Paul Szoldra, Task & Purpose Nov. 15, 2018, 12:11 PM

NAVAL BASE SAN DIEGO — Navy SEAL Chief Edward "Eddie" Gallagher allegedly texted a photo of himself holding up a dead ISIS fighter's head in one hand while holding a knife in the other and boasted that he "got him with my hunting knife," government lawyers said Wednesday.

. . .

Gallagher, a 19-year veteran of the Navy, has been charged with four counts of violating military law, the most serious of which is premeditated murder. On or about May 3, 2017, according to the charge sheet, Gallagher allegedly murdered a wounded ISIS fighter by stabbing him in the neck and body with a knife.

. . .

The Iraqis called in an airstrike on a building and then subsequently captured a wounded ISIS fighter, who Warpinski approximated to be about 15 years old. After the fighter was taken prisoner — and briefly interviewed by an Iraqi journalist— he was turned over to the SEALs at their compound and medics began treating him, including Gallagher.

Gallagher briefly left as other SEALs began to help with medical treatment of the fighter, who was having trouble breathing and was apparently hit with shrapnel in the left leg. But one other SEAL medic, C.S. (witnesses were reduced to initials in the proceedings to shield them from potentially being placed on so-called "ISIS kill lists" ), told NCIS he believed he had just stabilized the fighter before Gallagher "walked up without saying anything at all" and started stabbing him.

More:
https://www.businessinsider.com/seal-allegedly-texted-photos-holding-isis-fighters-head-2018-11



Ka Bar knife (twintiger007/Flickr)
NOVEMBER 16, 2018 LAURA WIDENER

Navy SEAL accused of ISIS execution allegedly sent pic: ‘I got him with my hunting knife’

. . .

Several members of SEAL Team 7 Alpha Platoon were providing medical treatment to a teenaged ISIS fighter who suffered a leg injury from shrapnel derived from a nearby airstrike. Iraqi forces had captured the fighter, then turned him over to the SEAL team.

Gallagher wasn’t present as the other SEALs treated the fighter. However, once the fighter was stabilized, Gallagher allegedly “walked up without saying anything at all” and began to stab the fighter, according to alleged claims from his teammates.

. . .

Three SEAL members claim to have witnessed the killing. One said the act left him in “complete disbelief.” Another “couldn’t believe what had happened,” saying the fighter “was just a brainwashed kid,” according to T&P.

Shortly after, they claim Gallagher allegedly posed for photos with the fighter’s body, cradling the fighter’s head in one hand and holding his knife in the other hand. He reportedly completed a re-enlistment ceremony in a similar pose, according to the claims.

. . .

https://americanmilitarynews.com/2018/11/navy-seal-accused-of-isis-execution-allegedly-sent-pic-i-got-him-with-my-hunting-knife/

[Historic NY]

9. He look a little too happy..

[PatSeg]

14. Yeah, much too happy

He rather reminds me of the big game hunters who pose with their trophies, grinning ear to ear. Disgusting.

[LiberalFighter]

4. Court Martial is not enough

All three and any others involved in the cover up should be in front of a firing squad.

[Karadeniz]

5. Things won't change without publicity and the perp and those covering for him are tried

and punished.

[barbtries]

6. murderers

in our name.

creating future terrorists, ensuring endless war.

i never thought this would happen in my lifetime. i was so naive.

[Evolve Dammit]

10. Right on the money Barb. And the majority of Americans are OK with that.

And a minority of us are not OK with that, because we see the bigger picture.

[stillcool]

7. the making of another...

cabinet member.

[Initech]

8. Corruption *ALWAYS* starts at the top.

If this guy was the ultimate corrupt boss, who was working under him or above him? Follow the trail.

[JohnnyRingo]

11. We created him.

Military training changed after the Vietnam War. Up to that point, in all wars, 90% of the killing was done by 10% of the soldiers. Most just did what they had to do to survive and go back home because killing isn't a natural instinct. With the disaster of the '60s draft, the Pentagon knew they had to do more in the future with fewer soldiers. The answer was to mold them into killing machines that don't hesitate for a second to end the conflict.

Beginning by taking only volunteers, they knew they were halfway to a more efficient army with a higher kill ratio because the enlistees wanted to be there. More intense training and sorting out the psychologically callous for special forces created an army that the world has never seen through history. It's also the most expensive.

Sometimes one of those killing machines go offline. They lose touch with the real world and require a reboot or worse. Unfortunately, that faulted unit is connected to his comrades in the brotherhood and that makes punishment a dicey proposition. Morale is the biggest asset of an effective army.

Anyway, it's the ingrained brotherhood of the soldier that is now forming a protective wall around this particular defected unit. It would be like turning in a blood family member.

[JI7]

12. then how about those soldiers who reported him and tried to do something ?

[JohnnyRingo]

16. I believe they all stand near the edge of a mental cliff.

Particularly in special forces. Most don't go over the edge, but they have to hang their toes over it to attain force multiplication.

They still know right from wrong, but it's hard to turn on a brother, even if you know he's sick beyond rehabilitation as may be the case here. It's possible he was also just an unlikeable fuck. I'm sure there were a lot of unreported war crimes like this in our desert wars.

[trc]

21. What do you base this information on?

I would very much like to read the research that backs up your numbers and conclusions.

[JohnnyRingo]

22. I've been a history buff of WWII all my life

Because it was an amazing era of mechanized warfare. Indeed, technology took incredible advances during those long 5 or 6 years from biplanes and horse drawn cannon to nuclear ordinance. Necessity is not the mother of invention, war is.

The fact that during that conflict 10% of the soldiers on both sides did 90% of the killing has been well documented. I've since done research into the Gulf Wars and how recruitment changed to make for a leaner more effective fighting force. The Pentagon relies more now on psychologists than Sgt Carter to craft soldiers into machines that kill without hesitation. While the goal is 100% kill force, that isn't possible, but it's much higher now.


Studies of combat activity during the Napoleonic and Civil Wars revealed striking statistics. Given the ability of the men, their proximity to the enemy, and the capacity of their weapons, the number of enemy soldiers hit should have been well over 50 percent, resulting in a killing rate of hundreds per minute. Instead, however, the hit rate was only one or two per minute. And a similar phenomenon occurred during World War I: according to British Lieutenant George Roupell, the only way he could get his men to stop firing into the air was by drawing his sword, walking down the trench, "beating [them] on the backside and ... telling them to fire low". World War II fire rates were also remarkably low: historian and US Army Brigadier General S.L.A. Marshall reported that, during battle, the firing rate was a mere 15 to 20 percent; in other words, out of every hundred men engaged in a firefight, only fifteen to twenty actually used their weapons. And in Vietnam, for every enemy soldier killed, more than fifty thousand bullets were fired.

What these studies have taught the military is that in order to get soldiers to shoot to kill, to actively participate in violence, the soldiers must be sufficiently desensitized to the act of killing. In other words, they have to learn not to feel -- and not to feel responsible -- for their actions. They must be taught to override their own conscience. yet these studies also demonstrate that even in the face of immediate danger, in situations of extreme violence, most people are averse to killing. In other words, as Marshall concludes, "the vast majority of combatants throughout history, at the moment of truth when they could and should kill the enemy, have found themselves to be 'conscientious objectors'".
https://www.historynet.com/men-against-fire-how-many-soldiers-actually-fired-their-weapons-at-the-enemy-during-the-vietnam-war.htm

S.L.A. Marshall did a study on the firing rates of soldiers in World War II. He found that the ratio of rounds fired vs. hits was low; he also noted that the majority of soldiers were not aiming to hit their targets.[6] This was a problem for the US military and its allies during World War II. New training implements were developed and hit rates improved. The changes were small, but effective. First, instead of shooting at bull's-eye type targets, the United States Army switched to silhouette targets that mimic an average human. Training also switched from 300 yard slow fire testing to rapid fire testing with different time and distance intervals from 20 to 300 yards. With these two changes, hitting targets became a reaction that was almost automatic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killology

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

13. Another Trump pardon in the works?

[robbob]

15. Maybe Clint Eastwood can make him a hero in a movie...

“American Slasher”. Winning hearts and minds around the globe.

[SunSeeker]

17. K & R for exposure.

[itsrobert]

18. My congressman is defending this dirtbag

Send Hunter and Gallagher to jail.

[randr]

20. GI's in Nam dealt with this problem in a more practical way

I think the term was fragging.