Do you agree with these US Navy officials' reaction on Trump's decision?

I have mixed feelings there.

I was on the victim end of a situation during my Navy time. I was summoned a few days later to the XO’s office. He made crap sound really threatening, and told me if I promised to never mention the incident, I would not have to face charges for my “participation”.
I know of similar situations which happened with others.

Because of my first hand knowledge, I can see how easily victim and victimizer can be switched in public accounts.

Due to that, I feel like trusting that my president might have some inside info we, the public, don’t know.
Then too, I have known some total f#+$& ups in the military who have no business carrying weapons or supervising other people, and it takes some doing to get rid of them.

I trust the officers in charge of the investigation and the Navy officials’ conviction in this case.

I don’t know the actual details, and I agree with @Patty_Melt ‘s point that a military case can be turned inside out and/or upside down before it comes up for investigation by uninvolved people, let alone public media about it.

However I don’t share @Patty_Melt‘s confidence in Trump and think it’s unlikely he has some great insight that the Navy officials lack.

Also, to me, it seems like this is Trump trying to play for political appeal to the part of the public that likes the idea of American soldiers being allowed to kill whoever they want in the Middle East.

And if that’s the case, then yes I’d agree with the Secretary of the Navy, and the Admiral in charge of Navy Seals.

Those are professional men who value their integrity and reputations and the chain of command, and yet may be willing to resign over this? Compared to Trump?

Don’t we try to avoid doing horrible shit so when the tables are turned people think twice about doing horrible shit to us? Isis probably doesn’t give a fuck. But Iran might. If we ever end up in that quagmire there will certainly be U.S. soldiers captured. But I guess, fuck it, at least we can’t claim the moral high-ground anymore.

But this is typical Trump.. Pick a thing that will get the base hard and cause a distraction from his bigger problems. At least he didn’t go with blatant racism this time. Maybe he is becoming Presidential.

The question boils down to whether or not you trust Trump’s judgement over that of ANY naval officer on naval matters or frankly ANYTHING else.

Military discipline is being thrown out the window by the draft dodger who went to a military academy cuz’ he couldn’t cut it at a decent high school.

Trump belittles sound military policy and judgment. And now he excuses war crimes.

I tend to agree with @Patty_Melt. The military is an odd place, especially when it comes to military justice. It gets political and some of the players are definitely not playing fair. It is all people and people bring their own biases. I don’t have enough details on the story to make an informed decision as to whether or not Trump should have intervened. I would typically say that when it comes to expelling someone with extensive training from the military, it is not done lightly. But that doesn’t always hold true. By reading the article, it looks like they made all sorts of accusations against this guy but in the end only had proof of one…posing with a dead kid in a picture. That alone does not seem enough to expel him from the navy. He was demoted and Trump reversed that which I question. That is usually a non-judicial punishment and really should not be something the Commander-in-Chief would be a part of. I don’t know the SEAL, I don’t know the people in his command, I don’t know the history they had together, I don’t know how Trump got involved in the first place.
As a rule, unless there was some extenuating circumstances, as the POTUS I would not interfere in the nuts and bolts decisions of my military chain of command. It sets an ugly precedent.

I too find it odd that he is involved. I’m wondering if an appeal was made either through family, or a civilian attorney.
I just don’t think there is enough known publicly for us to judge.

I have seen a chaplain get involved in things sometimes.

This is the officer in command that took responsibility for his subordinates mistake, if I recall. For that reason, he is innocent of wrongdoing, but someone had to pay for that picture and the life taken. In the end it feels like Trump is saying an incident in action is not worth ruining a lifelong record of service. I tend to agree.

@KNOWITALL Where do you get that idea? If you read the article it was Gallagher who was accused of committing war crimes himself.

“Chief Gallagher, who counts Mr. Trump as one of his most vocal supporters, was accused of shooting civilians, murdering a captive Islamic State fighter with a hunting knife in Iraq, and threatening to kill SEALs who reported him, among other misconduct. His court-martial ended in acquittal on those charges.

But the Navy ultimately demoted the chief, who was convicted of one charge: bringing discredit to the armed forces by posing for photos with the teenage captive’s dead body.”

He was acquitted of all the charges but one and demoted. It is not the President’s job to micro-manage military discipline and undermine the military chain of command.

I know we all bring our own biases to these questions and I do my own but I would not think the heads of the Navy would be threatening to resign if they did not think this was a serious breach of protocol.

@janbb I couldnt open it.
My version was what was originally reported, unless its a different situation, but I dont think it is. Many stood up for him, and said he is taking the fall intentionally.

As Commander In Chief, Trump likely has the authority and possibly more info than anyone else, so I’m fine with it.

@janbb I think the key in that entire article is in what you cited…he was accused of a bunch, and acquitted. That seems really odd to me. Those are some pretty stiff charges to make against someone when you don’t have enough evidence to go on to get a conviction. Especially charges like threatening to kill SEALS who reported him. If that were a true charge there would be SEALs to confirm it. Some of the others might be hard to have evidence on, but that one smacks of multiple “victims” of the threats. So why was he acquitted?
Now, having your picture taken with a teenage captive’s dead body isn’t a good thing, but it certainly isn’t up to par with the others. It almost sounds, to me, like the command wanted to screw this guy over, charged him with everything under the sun, and then when none of it stuck took the only action they could to do something to him. A demotion is probably appropriate if the picture was of him posing with the dead bodies, not just pictures of the dead bodies that he happened to be in.

It is of course Trump’s right to rescind the decision of anyone in the armed forces. But if high ranking line officers are willing to jettison their careers over decisions of the fool, there is more than ample reason to once again, suspect the worse regarding the fool’s judgement.

@stanleybmanly I agree with that.

I causes me to question the reasoning of someone who might so easily chuck a career.
How good is THEIR judgement? You don’t get a do-over on a thing like that.

@Patty_Melt I doubt it’s easily. To me, it shows the strength of their conviction.

@Patty Melt You were in the Navy. Which of the 2 men would you say was better vetted in order make his rank, the fool or the admiral? Can you imagine the fool subjected to a fitness report?

There is another aspect of this that hasn’t been addressed. We have looked at Gallagher’s acts of which he was accused and held accountable for, and we have discussed whether or not Trump should have intervened. But no one has really looked at this from the aspect of whether these leaders should actually threaten their superior or not. Like it or not, Trump is a CNC. He is the head on the horse and there is none higher. This is the military. Junior officers don’t get to dictate to their superiors what is to be done and they don’t get to threaten action if the superior doesn’t change his order. These officers are way out of line from the aspect of military discipline. If they don’t like serving under Trump they have every right to resign their commission or retire or however they want to exit. But they do not have the right to countermand an order.

That is exactly what these officers said they will do. They have taken the only protest available—their threatened resignations. Their resignations will just be lost among the logjam of embarrassments defining the fool’s administration.

Say what, if your officer asks you to shoot civilians you can’t countermand an order?

@stanleybmanly There is a big difference between resigning and threatening to resign if your commanding officer doesn’t change his mind. One case is a personal choice, the other is called mutiny.

@mazingerz88 You can refuse an unlawful order. But also recognize that when you do that you may be brought up on charges for refusing to obey an order and you will have to prove that it was unlawful. But that is an entirely different issue. What is the unlawful order these gentlemen are trying to refuse?

Well, the Secretary of the Navy was fired today by the head of the Defense Department. I imagine we’ll never know the whole ins and outs of what went on.

The Scty of the Navy was fired, mostly because he went behind the Sct’y of Defenses back to broker a deal with the White House. See, Trump’s interference has broken down discipline and protocol at the highest level.

The Sect’y of Defense describes it as “Trump forced my hand”.

Chaos reigns!

So he probably should have just resigned first than making any declaration at all. As a civilian he could then talk all he want about trump.

It seems that it was a case of “I resign” with a reply of “You cannot resign—you’re fired”