# Trump's distraction du jour. Pardon convicted war criminals over Pentagon objections. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 16, 2019, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-distraction-du-jour-pardon-convicted-war-criminals-over-pentagon-objections/843514 "2019-11-16T00:00:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2019, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-distraction-du-jour-pardon-convicted-war-criminals-over-pentagon-objections/843514/21 "2019-11-21T15:49:49Z")
> [@xenophon41](#): > > I love this tweet from Navy Chief of Information: > [url=“[https://twitter.com/chinfo/status/1195500836673196033?ref\_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet](https://twitter.com/chinfo/status/1195500836673196033?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet)”] > An acknowledgement from a Rear Admiral to POTUS phrased this way has a palpable and barely silent “…asshole” at the end. (Note that E-7 is a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy, universally referred to as “Chief”; Petty Officer First Class is E-6. The lack of the honorific in the tweet is not insignificant.) > > I’m pretty confident President Stupid doesn’t exactly have the military establishment in his corner. It’s also important to remember that lots of the guys in this asshole’s _own unit_ didn’t like what he was doing, and wanted him gone. I think it’s safe to say the number of people in the military pissed off at this pardon is likely higher than that of people who support it. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2019, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-distraction-du-jour-pardon-convicted-war-criminals-over-pentagon-objections/843514/22 "2019-11-21T16:54:13Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > The Navy can and will make assignments as THEY see fit. Can they over rule their Commander in Chief? ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2019, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-distraction-du-jour-pardon-convicted-war-criminals-over-pentagon-objections/843514/23 "2019-11-21T17:19:01Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Can they over rule their Commander in Chief? I don’t think it’s so much of a “can they” situation, as it’s more of a “WTF is this guy doing?” type situation. Typically Presidents’ role as Commander in Chief is being the ultimate expression of the idea that the military is controlled by civilian authority. Congress declares war and appropriates funding, and the President, as the highest civilian officer, is in nominal charge, via the chain of command, starting with the Secretary of Defense, going through the Unified Combatant Commands’ commanders, and on down to the troops. Generally speaking, the President’s role is to be more of a cog in the expression of the will of the people as declared and funded by Congress, and as a reminder to the military that the ultimate power resides in civilian authority. That’s not to say that Presidents can’t/don’t get involved in the decision-making process- stuff like the “Europe First” strategy in WWII was decided at the President/Prime Minister level, not among the generals and admirals themselves. But typically they don’t get involved in stuff like Gallagher’s rank, sentence or court martial- to do so, especially in peacetime implies a pretty dramatic lack of trust in the service in question to police their own activities, as well as a considerable degree of interference on the part of the President. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2019, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-distraction-du-jour-pardon-convicted-war-criminals-over-pentagon-objections/843514/24 "2019-11-21T17:19:59Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Can they over rule their Commander in Chief? Did he actually give them an order? Seems like he sent out a Tweet. And one that doesn’t give an order per se but telling the public some version of what he wants them to think will happen. Given that his own administration has publicly stated his Tweets aren’t formal policy and has backtracked on them several times anyway (and has tried deleting some of them despite record keeping policies), I’d be pretty comfortable disregarding anything on Twitter unless I got something a bit more formal. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-distraction-du-jour-pardon-convicted-war-criminals-over-pentagon-objections/843514/25 "2019-11-22T14:33:51Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > Did he actually give them an order? > > Seems like he sent out a Tweet. And one that doesn’t give an order per se but telling the public some version of what he wants them to think will happen. > > Given that **his own administration has publicly stated his Tweets aren’t formal policy and has backtracked on them several times anyway** (and h **as tried deleting some of them** despite record keeping policies), I’d be pretty comfortable disregarding anything on Twitter unless I got something a bit more formal. This. A tweet is not an official order. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-distraction-du-jour-pardon-convicted-war-criminals-over-pentagon-objections/843514/26 "2019-11-22T14:41:13Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > Did he actually give them an order? > > Seems like he sent out a Tweet. And one that doesn’t give an order per se but telling the public some version of what he wants them to think will happen. > > Given that his own administration has publicly stated his Tweets aren’t formal policy and has backtracked on them several times anyway (and has tried deleting some of them despite record keeping policies), I’d be pretty comfortable disregarding anything on Twitter unless I got something a bit more formal. I think to some degree, even tweets probably count in an informal, knowing the mind of the CinC kind of way, and it’s likely that if that’s not too deranged, the military would try to align themselves with it. But if is too deranged or is something they flat-out don’t like, I suspect they can always fall back on the formal chain of command, and make everyone issue actual orders to do things, for both CYA and documentation purposes, as well as to signify that they’re complying under some degree of duress. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-distraction-du-jour-pardon-convicted-war-criminals-over-pentagon-objections/843514/27 "2019-11-22T14:47:45Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Can they over rule their Commander in Chief? No matter how bad Trump is, or how bad what the people he’s pardomed did is, the military ignoring or overruling their democratically elected boss is many times worse. It’s a coup, basically. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-distraction-du-jour-pardon-convicted-war-criminals-over-pentagon-objections/843514/28 "2019-11-22T14:58:16Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > No matter how bad Trump is, or how bad what the people he’s pardomed did is, the military ignoring or overruling their democratically elected boss is many times worse. It’s a coup, basically. This statement is false. I mean, it is true of the bad stuff Trump has done so far, but if, say, Trump were to order a nuclear launch then a coup would not be many times worse. It would be many times better. Somewhere in between this and an unprovoked nuclear attack there’s something Trump could do that would be the same degree of badness as a coup. Someone with more imagination than I have at the moment can speculate on what that might be. Probably something to do with using the army to subvert democracy. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-distraction-du-jour-pardon-convicted-war-criminals-over-pentagon-objections/843514/29 "2019-11-22T14:59:18Z")
From the CNN article linked in the other thread: Chief Navy spokesman Rear Adm. Charlie Brown told CNN, “The Navy follows the lawful orders of the President. We will do so in case of an order to stop the administrative review of SOC Gallagher’s professional qualification. We are aware of the President’s tweet and we are awaiting further guidance.” Because tweets are not orders. The military is well within its right to ignore tweets. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-distraction-du-jour-pardon-convicted-war-criminals-over-pentagon-objections/843514/30 "2019-11-22T15:30:05Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The ironic thing is that Trump would never make it as a dictator. He lacks the skills; real dictators like Putin or Xi need to outthink and outmaneuver their rivals. Trump’s an idiot; he would have been killed off in a week and replaced by some smarter rival. Not necessarily. It’s not unheard of for a nest of scheming snakes to keep some useless figurehead in power because that way their individual onus is on their managing to cajole the useless figurehead (a trivial task) and finding a way to keep the other snakes from having access to the idiot piñata. Contrast with one of the snakes claiming power, thereby now having to play against ALL the other snakes at once, and directly ; while the other snakes get to worry that now one of the snakes wields a _whole lot_ of direct power and might be bright enough to know exactly who to use it on. A good figurehead (like, say, Louis XIV) is aware of this and can play the snakes against each other to stay in power. But a dumb or ineffectual one (like, say, Yeltsin) can also skate by, utterly oblivious to what’s going on behind their back, just because his non-existence would cause more trouble than his existence. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-distraction-du-jour-pardon-convicted-war-criminals-over-pentagon-objections/843514/31 "2019-11-22T15:48:45Z")
Any word on how this is playing among active service folks? ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-distraction-du-jour-pardon-convicted-war-criminals-over-pentagon-objections/843514/32 "2019-11-22T15:49:58Z")
> [@Typo\_Negative](#): > > Any word on how this is playing among active service folks? Trump supporting active duty folks are saying “So what? Obama pardoned Manning and nobody said anything” ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-distraction-du-jour-pardon-convicted-war-criminals-over-pentagon-objections/843514/33 "2019-11-22T16:33:51Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > The fear that I have - I mean _the_ fear - is the Christian Warrior. I worry about the nexus between Trump’s corruption and the evangelical right wingers in the military, who might start seeing it as ‘their’ military. Onward Christian soldiers! Marching as to war, In the name of Donald Going on before. Trump, the stable genius, Tweets against the foe; Forward into battle, See his Twitter go! ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-distraction-du-jour-pardon-convicted-war-criminals-over-pentagon-objections/843514/34 "2019-11-22T16:43:13Z")
> [@Typo\_Negative](#): > > Any word on how this is playing among active service folks? No sure so much about the Navy guy but the Lt. who blew up that village and then lied about it had my buddies in the army fairly pissed. Most of them were in afghanistan at the same time he was and they really hate being told that only if they were bigger heros and shot first the the men under their command that died would still be alive today. Of course they are Captains and Majors now so I’m sure that counts as deep state or something. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-distraction-du-jour-pardon-convicted-war-criminals-over-pentagon-objections/843514/35 "2019-11-22T17:07:22Z")
My take on this whole sordid affair is classic mob loyalty manipulation. By Trump pardoning these miscreants he is basically saying to them, “I know you are a killer who doesn’t follow the rules. I saved your ass, you owe me. So someday I will expect you to follow my bidding, wherever that takes us. Wherever that takes us.” He’s building his own little mobster army. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-distraction-du-jour-pardon-convicted-war-criminals-over-pentagon-objections/843514/36 "2019-11-22T17:55:21Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > He’s building his own little mobster army. I read that at first as “lobster army” which would have been far more interesting. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-distraction-du-jour-pardon-convicted-war-criminals-over-pentagon-objections/843514/37 "2019-11-22T17:59:51Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > My take on this whole sordid affair is classic mob loyalty manipulation. By Trump pardoning these miscreants he is basically saying to them, “I know you are a killer who doesn’t follow the rules. I saved your ass, you owe me. So someday I will expect you to follow my bidding, wherever that takes us. Wherever that takes us.” > > He’s building his own little mobster army. Exactly that, except that he’s not communicating directly to these former soldiers; rather, he’s using them as examples to communicate to the masses, both in and out of the military. Trump is saying “I don’t play by rules,” which is why he identifies with these individuals, as they apparently don’t play by rules either. People like Trump aim to destroy the rules because the rules - be they the UMCJ or the USC or state laws - constrain him, and the rules define what’s legal, what’s constitutional, what’s normal. Authoritarians like Trump don’t want those things defined by texts; he wants to be the one to define what the rules are, what the laws are. What if, a few years from now, there’s not just a Bill Barr as an AG but many more Bill Barrs as deputies, and as prosecutors in district after district all over the land? What if there are military generals who are of a like mind, working not for the country but for the president’s agenda, and who accept that they can become beneficiaries of gross corruption in exchange for being an enforcer? Over time, when state bureaucracy is corrupted, it simply ignores the law. It also over time becomes self aware and realizes that the moment they lose political power, they may lose their freedom, so the incentive is high to rub out opponents. These things take time. The destruction of the state, the demolition of its institutions, occur over decades, as they have been, but Trump is an accelerator, as he’s the first president to openly and unabashedly attempted to exploit the cracks in the system. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-distraction-du-jour-pardon-convicted-war-criminals-over-pentagon-objections/843514/38 "2019-11-22T18:15:42Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > I read that at first as “lobster army” which would have been far more interesting. [lobster henchman]I will pinch you SO HARD![/lobster henchman] ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-distraction-du-jour-pardon-convicted-war-criminals-over-pentagon-objections/843514/39 "2019-11-22T18:22:40Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > [lobster henchman]I will pinch you SO HARD![/lobster henchman] 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-distraction-du-jour-pardon-convicted-war-criminals-over-pentagon-objections/843514/40 "2019-11-22T18:27:10Z")
I made my brother laugh by saying that Trump’s strategy is to point at the sky and yell “LOOK! A UFO!”. He (my brother) now refers to everything Trump tweets and says as “the latest sighting”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-distraction-du-jour-pardon-convicted-war-criminals-over-pentagon-objections/843514.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-distraction-du-jour-pardon-convicted-war-criminals-over-pentagon-objections/843514.md?page=3)