War Crime

Commander Bone-Spurs, not happy with just restoring the rank of Chief Petty Officer Gallagher, now demands that the Navy not kick Gallagher out of the Seals.

Undoubtedly Bone-Spurs, well known as a horn-dog, got his inspiration from the appearance on Fox News of Gallagher's wife Andrea.  And also from San Diego Congressman Duncan Hunter, another horn-dog who allegedly used campaign funds to help pay for his extramarital affairs.  And of course Breitbart had a lot to do with Bone-Spurs interference in the rocks and shoals of justice.

In Gallagher's court martial the Navy prosecution team was outlawyered by his high paid civilian law firm, expensive but paid for by donations solicited on Breitbart and Fox.

Charges against Gallagher were:

1. Attempted Murder;
2. Premeditated Murder;
3. Aggravated Assault with a Dangerous Weapon (two counts?) on non-combatant;
4. Discharging firearm willfully as to endanger non-combatants;
5. Obstructing Justice (three counts);
6. Wrongfully pose for an unofficial picture with a human casualty;
7. Wrongfully complete reenlistment ceremony next to a human casualty;
8. Wrongfully Operate a drone over a human casualty;
9. Wrongful Use of a Controlled Substance – Tramadol Hydrochloride;
10. Unlawful Possession of a Controlled Substance – Sustanon250

Only convicted of charge number six.  This was after a prosecution witness who had immunity changed his testimony on the stand.  And may have been due to the prosecution's ham-handed efforts to track the leaks of the Judge's gag order, which came to light during the trial.

The other fishy thing is the dropping of the charges regarding use of steroids and opioids.  That would seem to be easy to prove, but apparently it was not.  The steroid use coincides with the reports of his aggressive behavior - not only the alleged killing of the teenage POW, but his indiscriminate and reckless sniper shots, and randomly spraying neighborhoods with machine gun and rocket fire. "Other snipers said they witnessed Gallagher taking at least two militarily pointless shots, shooting and killing an unarmed old man in a white robe as well as a young girl walking with other girls."  And that he "boasted about the large number of people he had killed, claiming he averaged three kills a day over 80 days, including four women."

So he is free now with rank restored.  The American people will foot the bill for his pension.  The American military will have problems for years in the future for Bone-Spurs handling of this.  America's reputation is besmirched.  And some Americans, troops and civilians, will pay with blood because of it.

The Navy should never again let him serve in a Seal Team or in a training role.   IMHO they should assign him to be the senior corpsman in a VD ward of a naval hospital or clinic, preferably a remote one.  And monitor him with frequent drug tests.  But the Navy brass has Bone-Spurs looking over their shoulder on this.  They damn sure don't want to lose funding for a new carrier or some other high end item, as they know that Bone-Spurs has a vindictive streak.  So they'll toe the line.

If we are lucky Gallagher will retire, and stay off of Fox and Breitbart.  But I fear that ain't gonna happen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Gallagher_(Navy_SEAL)

VJ Day

Officially it was 2 September 1945 in a formal setting on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay with the famous photo of Dugout Doug MacArthur lording it over the ceremony.   It was about three weeks earlier on 10 August that the Swiss Embassy in Washington notified US Secretary of State James F Byrnes of Japan's intention to accept unconditional surrender.  There was just one small proviso, that Emperor Hirohito be permitted to remain in place.  Truman accepted.  Actual surrender was acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration just past noon of 15 August in Japan.  Because of time zone differences it was about 11 PM on 14 August in Washington DC.



The photo on the right was taken 19 August with MacArthur on the balcony of Manila City Hall.  Mac and the GIs and Filipinos below him are waiting for the Japanese delegation coming to accept the orders to surrender and return them to Tokyo.  City Hall, one of few buildings left standing, was still pockmarked by bullets from the Battle of Manila six months earlier which had resulted in the death of 1000 American GIs, 16,500+ Japanese, and 100,000 Filipinos. 


That Japanese delegation to Manila had flown from Tokyo to Sata Misaki on the southern tip of Kyushu and from there to Ie Shima , an island just off the western edge of Okinawa.

They flew in two twin-engined Mitsubishi G4M1 aircraft, AKA Bettys.  They had been stripped of all weapons and were painted white with green cross markings instead of the red meatball.   Partway to Ie Shima they were escorted by B-25 Mitchells and P-38 Lightnings, just in case some bushido fanatic tried to stop the peace talks (That was not paranoia on the part of the Americans on Ie Shima.  On 15/16 August on hearing of the surrender Japanese guards murdered over 100 American POWs.  Many Australian and British prisoners of war were murdered at Ranau and Sandakan in Borneo.  Plus at Batu Lintang in Borneo, death orders were proposed to murder some 2,000 POWs and civilian internees but the camp was liberated before they could be carried out.).   From Ie Shima they were put on a Douglas C54 Skymaster to proceed to Manila and meet Mac to accept the surrender orders.

Ie Shima or Ie Island, known as Iejima to the Japanese, is a very tiny island of about 23 square kilometers or less than nine square miles.  At that time it had one of the largest airfields in the Pacific.  Which is why it was selected for the changeover.  It is where Pulitzer Prize winning war correspondent Ernie Pyle, was killed by machine gun fire when he was covering the 77th Division liberation of the island and airfield. Every April there is a memorial service there for him.

 It's a beautiful place today. Covered in gardens of vegetables and flowers.  Every April, in addition to the Ernie Pyle memorial, the island hosts the Iejima Island Lily Festival featuring acreage that looks like gigantic carpets of snow white lilys.

https://www.okinawanderer.com/2013/04/18th-iejima-island-lily-festival-set-for-two-week-run/


At MacArthur's dog and pony show on the 2nd (i.e. the formal surrender ceremony), the Japanese delegation was led by Mamoru Shigemitsu, Minister of Foreign Affairs and General Yoshijirō Umezu Chief of the IJA General Staff.  Mac's staff had specified all the details of the ceremony.  So was it a slap in the face to Admiral Nimitz that Admiral Soemu Toyoda, Chief of the IJN General Staff was not among them?  Some thought so at the time.  Both Shigemitsu and Umezu were later convicted at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal.  Umezu certainly deserved it for his time in China as CG of the Japanese 1st Army and later CinC of the Kwantung Army.  Umezu died in prison four years after the surrender.  Shigemitsu, known as Shiggy to the American press, got a raw deal and never should have been convicted.  He had opposed militarism his entire career in the diplomatic corps, had opposed the war, and he had "argued that the success of the proposed Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere depended on the equal treatment of China and other Asian nations with Japan."  It was Stalin that wanted him on trial.  He had been ambassador in Moscow in 1938, so he must have stepped on some toes there during the Japanese/Soviet border conflicts.  Despite depositions from both American and British diplomats about Shigemitsu's opposition to the war, MacArthur caved to the Soviets.  Or maybe it was Truman?   But Shiggy was released from prison in 1950 he eventually went into politics becoming a member of the Diet in 1952 and Deputy Prime Minister in 1954.

"We do not torture"

You don't say?

To me the saddest part about this hot mess is that we pretty much all knew all of this all along. We knew what was going on, or, at least, that something fairly awful was going on, and didn't care enough to make a fuss about knowing the details or care enough to stop it. Seydlitz discussed this all here four years ago; the real crimes here were committed by We the People. We knew all of this, and we knew that the whole nonsense about how this was "protecting us" and "fighting terrorism" was nonsense ginned up by people many of whom wanted to see just how far the American People were willing to go into the darkness if distracted enough by fear and foolishness.

And if there was ever any doubt of that distance this report clarifies that there really are no limits to the fear and inertia of the American Public. Provided I can spin a scary enough story, provided I can puff even the thinnest smokescreen imaginable, I can do anything. I can torture. I can kill. I can commit the sorts of war crimes that the Arsenal of Democracy executed people for in the Forties.

And I can do it in all-but-plain-view because the huge unmoving slorg of Public Opinion will be utterly unarsed enough to even bother to ask questions, to so much as slip a letter of reprimand in my 201 File.

Execute me?

Don't make me fucking laugh.

And make no mistake; without punishment this will happen again. And again There's always a good reason for breaking the laws. Smoking guns become mushroom clouds. Not fighting them there means fighting them here. They hate our freedoms. They're coming to kill us.

But then you find that if you cut down the laws to get at the devil, when you catch him you'll find that there is nowhere for you to shelter from the broad highway of evil you've opened up, the laws all being flat.

Update: The always-eloquent Charlie Pierce has more. And worse. And much, much more and much, much worse.

"I no longer take seriously anyone, in or out of government, who talks about "the debate" over whether the United States tortured people. The only debate left is the debate over whether or not it will remain the policy of this nation to torture people, or to outsource the job of torturing people, or to otherwise commit moral and national suicide by euphemism.

Anyone who still believes there's a "debate" over whether or not the United States, using techniques previously used by the Japanese Imperial Army, the Gestapo, the North Korean People's Army, and the KGB, tortured people is an idiot and a coward and I have no time for them. Not any more. Debate's over. We became what they think we are. And worse. This is not debatable and, alas, it is anything but a surprise."

Former Guantanamo Prisoner Speaks Out

Chris Hayes on his news show "Up", Saturday and Sunday mornings on MSNBC, really stepped into it earlier today. He interviewed a former prisoner of the US prison at Guantanamo.

Apparently, something has changed here at blogger so that I cannot bring you the video here at this site.

You must see this, and spread it around as much as you can. My hope is that it will go viral.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/45996572#45996572

Americans are one of the most propagandized of any people in the world. We have a major newspaper asking its readers how much truth they need to reveal to its readers, let alone making any attempt to actually do that.

We have a comedian running in South Carolina ( Where the heck is Publius on this? Your country, your readers need you more than ever! ) exposing the fraud and lies of our Democracy.

It takes a foreign court to do the job that the US legal system, with notable exceptions, has failed to do.

http://articles.boston.com/2012-01-13/news/30624630_1_guantanamo-bay-spanish-judge-probe

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