Trump pardons Slatten, convicted of 1st degree murder

Did you get that from the defense brief?

"According to the government’s evidence, at approximately noon on Sunday, Sept. 16, 2007, several Blackwater security contractors, including Slatten and his former co-defendants, opened fire in and around Nisur Square, a busy traffic circle in the heart of Baghdad.

When they stopped shooting, 14 Iraqi civilians were dead. Those killed included 10 men, two women, and two boys, ages 9 and 11. At least another 17 victims were injured. According to the evidence, Slatten was the first to fire, without provocation, killing Ahmed Haithem Ahmed Al Rubia’y, an aspiring doctor, who was driving his mother to an appointment."

 

There is nothing unreasonable about pardoning the Biden four.

 

Wahataboutism is really all they have, it's all they have ever had.
But really we all know they would defend disgusting people like this no matter what, just so long as they were RW, they can do no wrong.
I suspect we are only seeing the beginning of the RW filth and scum the loser trump will pardon.

 

I read both the prosecution side and about the incident itself and the investigation afterwards and the defense side.

They did fire first because a vehicle was coming at them on the wrong side of the road and didn't respond to signals to stop or warning fire. Then all hell broke loose, and afterwards the FBI couldn't match bullets that killed the civilians to the Blackwater weapons. There were also some strong political overtones to this whole thing as well.

You've got men whose job it was to protect a State Dept convoy in about the most dangerous place on earth at the time, a car coming at you that won't stop even after warning fire, people dressed in Iraqi police uniforms firing at you, a bomb or mortar goes off, Iraqis firing wildly as they always do, an Iraqi government that would never blame the civilian deaths on their own people, and the bullets that killed the civilians can't be matched to the Blackwater weapons, and cartridge cases all over the place that didn't come from the Blackwater weapons.

None of that creates "reasonable doubt"?

 

Your entire post is false and is nothing more than an emotional reaction. This pardon is more than reasonable.

 

The evidence presented was compelling enough to result in a guilty verdict.

"The Blackwater case has taken a complicated path since the killings at Baghdad's Nisoor Square in September 2007, when the men, former veterans working as contractors for the State Department, opened fire at the crowded traffic circle.

Prosecutors asserted the heavily armed Blackwater convoy launched an unprovoked attack using sniper fire, machine guns and grenade launchers. Defense lawyers argued their clients returned fire after being ambushed by Iraqi insurgents.

They were convicted in 2014 after a months-long trial in Washington's federal court, and each man defiantly asserted his innocence at a sentencing hearing the following year."

Trump's pardon follows a pattern.

Navy Seal pardoned of war crimes by Trump described by colleagues as 'freaking evil'
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/27/eddie-gallagher-trump-navy-seal-iraq

He has a thing for war criminals.

 

The thing about war is that its impossible to determine who is killing for war and who is killing for fun. Surely both occurr to some extent on all sides.

Modern warfare largely consists of insurgents and infiltrators. 'Soldiers' making themselves out to be civilians to increase their odds of a successful ambush and/or retreat is commonplace.

I won't claim to know whether Slatten's victims were murdered or bystander casualties or enemy combatants trying to conceal themselves, but we have to maintain a balance between the hearts and minds of the locals and the morale of our own forces. And given that I believe its better that a hundred guilty go free than one innocent be falsely imprissonned, I think this was a reasonable pardon.

We really should pull all our troops out of these sorts of engagements. But until we do, punishing them for making the wrong call or shooting the wrong insurgent in an impossibly chaotic environment is not the path to victory, should one even exist at all.

 

These guys were mercenaries with a reputation for recklessly lethal behavior.

"Blackwater contractors were notorious in Baghdad at the time and frequently accused of firing shots at the slightest pretext, including to clear their way in traffic. The shooting in the traffic circle stood out for the number killed, but was far from an isolated event in Iraq at the time."

The evidence was considered in a court of law. Your generic defense invoking the notion of an "impossibly chaotic environment" was examined and rejected.

 

And your generic "mercenaries" description and "reputation" are 100% irrelevant.

 

Which is false and based on nothing more than your opinion and emotional reaction.

 

They were convicted in a court of law. 71 witnesses (more witnesses than Giuliani) testified. They were guilty.

 

Opinions are one thing, making broad stroke claims that call for the operation of the mind is another.

Looking past your emotional reaction, the circumstances surrounding the conviction and his actions prior to the incident, make this pardon reasonable. If you disagree, perhaps you can come up with a rational argument.

 

I never understood this critique of a pardon. Almost by definition they are guilty under the law.

 

In that specific case, a pardon is a pat on the head and saying to them: "Be good now, don't kill innocent women and children anymore now do yah!" and be sent back to work for Blackwater...

 

As a skeptic of everything I don't witness firsthand, I don't really know whether the pardonees willfully murdered non-belligerent women and children, or not. Hopefully there was mitigation of some kind (self defense, defense of others, fog of war, human error), but again, I don't know and don't understand people who claim to know without having observed the act or seen the evidence for themselves.

 

Because some people dont deserve it, and pardons shouldnt be passed out because someone kisses your ass.

 

Two words for you, Beau Bergdahl.

 

It was unacceptable, like many things Clinton did.

But now, 30 years later, a President can pardon four murderers, members of a private militia who machine-gunned children and 12 other innocent people, and hope to be supported by his unshakeable base... of which you are a part.

 

Their reputation is backed up by documented instances of reckless actions unnecessarily endangering the lives of Iraqi civilians by using their weapons to clear traffic for their sake which is 100% relevant. I pointed out that they are mercenaries to distinguish them from US soldiers.

Show me where there is evidence of an exhaustive review of the incident in question by the DOJ or the WH.

 

The facts of this case never warranted any charge of first degree murder, and had the charge not been politically magnified, this pardon would have likely not been given.

But all this REEEEEE about Blackwater is simply frustration because Trump didn't do enough war for them to REEEEEE about otherwise.

It's also great "shilldar." Legitimate U.S. voters simply do not care about this to the degree it is being shilled.

 

So you are equating pardoning murderers with someone convicted on a drug charge? Yes, I have a problem with that.

 

I am fundamentally against hiring mercenaries, period. they have no honor, no dignity, because it's war for profit, and that's just wrong. A mercenary killed will not be buried with military honors, etc.

 

Their reputation is not evidence. We don’t try people on reputation; we try them on evidence.

I don’t know what review of this case was done or by who. But I do know that there has been exhaustive research and writing - both scientific and by lay people - on the effects of combat, extreme stress, reaction and perception in combat. People who have never experienced this or who have never researched it in depth are not in a position to judge.

 

I see. So killing innocent civilians without provocation is OK because "war is hell." Got it.

https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/...here-s-the-story-of-their-victims-98361413971

 

Why are you posting quotes without providing the link? However, thanks to Google, I think I found it here,

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/...-contractors-in-deadly-iraq-shooting/2491787/

And here you quote the article again, with no reference to your source,

The article that you appear to have obtained these quotes from is a bit more balanced than your selection of quotes here in these two posts.

For example, here's the very next paragraph after the one you quote immediately above,

"Armed militants opposed to the U.S. presence in Iraq frequently deployed vehicle bombs next to Western and Iraqi motorcades in traffic, making the ubiquitous armed guards accompanying most dignitaries extra jittery — and in Blackwater's case, insistent about not allowing other vehicles near them."

The reason these guys were there, the reason that they had left the Green Zone was because another escort team had just had a car bomb explode as they were providing support to transport State Department personnel.

Yeah, by all means, let's make sure we lock up Nick F'g Slatten for life, while Dick F'g Cheney relaxes next to a fire in a Wyoming Chateau, and W maybe decides to make another painting.