US Navy Secretary Richard Spencer resigned. He left with a scandal, slamming the door loudly. When the head of the Pentagon, Mark Esper, by order of President Trump, demanded that he resign from his post, he left an official statement in the secretariat of the military department, in which, addressing the supreme commander in chief, he wrote: “The rule of law is what divided us.” In addition, Spencer was not too lazy to send his statement to several newspapers and television channels.
The mainstream press regarded the incident as yet another proof of the “chaos in the White House” and the “unpredictability” of the 45th US president. But the influential Republican congressmen praised the position of the head of state, who went into conflict with his own minister for the sake of convicted by the military court of the "fur seal" foreman Eddie Gallagher. What is this Gallagher affair, which has embroiled the supreme commander-in-chief and senior military leader? And what does it mean for the internal political struggle in Washington?
Eddie Gallagher enlisted in the Navy in 1999, successfully passed the Navy SEAL exam, and has since participated in mission trips to Afghanistan and Iraq eight times. For his service, he was awarded several awards, including three medals "For Achievements" and two bronze stars with the sign "V" (a distinctive sign for valor). By the time he was arrested at the Camp Pendleton base in 2018, he served as the chief foreman and worked as an instructor in the training center for the recruits of the “fur seals” corps. He was charged with ten charges under five counts, the main of which was the murder of a captive militant IG * in Iraq in 2017. The criminal case also included materials on previous complaints against Gallagher, which have been received since 2010.
According to the prosecution, Elder Gallagher arrived with a group of military specialists in Northern Iraq to participate in the battle for Mosul. Initially, the task of the group was to provide tactical advice to the Iraqi army units. However, in fact, no army of Iraq at that time was almost gone in the vicinity of Mosul. She once again ran away. The militants of the terrorist caliphate fought American units and various volunteer groups, some of which operated under the leadership of Iranian al-Quds instructors. Shiite volunteers and their Persian patrons had special accounts with fighters of the “Islamic State”, abruptly implicated in interfaith hatred. The assault on the city turned into a well-organized mess, so Gallagher and his subordinates were directly involved in the hostilities.
During the sweeping of one of the neighborhoods, the seals discovered an abandoned jihadist hospital. Among his patients, who were left without medical supervision, was a militant whom the special forces disarmed and killed after a short interrogation. Gallagher hit the prisoner with a knife, after which he took a photo against the background of the body and sent it to his comrade from a neighboring platoon, endowing the image with the caption: “This is a good story, I figured it out with my hunting knife.” During the trial, some co-workers of the foreman said that during the 2017 business trip he “became interested in playing the war game”. In particular, the infantrymen, whom Gallagher covered as a sniper, reported that he had become "illegible, reckless, and bloodthirsty." According to other evidence, he often fired militarily unjustified shots, killed or wounded several civilians, and also liked to shoot machine guns at the walls of houses for no apparent reason.
It would seem that the matter was clear. Once, Eddie Gallagher was a good soldier, but the terrible reality of the war did its vile deed - he turned into a monster, hungry for blood.
In the end, he reached the murder of a wounded prisoner, and even boasted of it, acting against his background, as if it were a hunting trophy.
War crime was evident. The foreman was threatened with the deprivation of rank and all awards, as well as a decent term in prison. But here in business there was an unexpected turn. One of the witnesses in the case, a unit doctor, Corey Scott, stated that it was not the foreman who killed the prisoner, but he himself, having closed his endotracheal tube. He did this for reasons of “military mercy,” since Shiite militias and two Iraqi officers who arrived in the liberated area of the city intended to torture the wounded.
Gallagher did use the knife during interrogation, but not this led to the death of the gunman. Soon there was confirmation of the doctor’s words - a recording from the pit of one of the commandos, on the basis of which the accusation of murder was dropped from the defendant.
By that time, Republican congressmen began to speak in defense of the foreman. They were led by Rep. Dan Cranshaw, a veteran of the hot spots himself.
During the parliamentary investigation, gross violations in Gallagher’s detention were revealed - the accused was denied medical assistance, constantly deprived of walks and, in addition, kept in the same multi-cell cell with people convicted of sex crimes. And then another seventeen congressmen joined Cranshaw, who sent a collective letter to the Minister of Defense and the President.
The media became interested in the circumstances of the case. Great work has been done by Navy Times correspondent Karl Prine. He was able to find such facts that the previously slender picture of the crime began to crumble before our eyes. And then something very strange happened. Lawyers found that the chief prosecutor in the case, Commander Christopher Tsaplak, sent them and Praine an email with a web beacon on him to monitor the actions of both the official and unofficial defenders of the arrested foreman. The military prosecutor justified his behavior by striving to find those responsible for the leak of information on the case, the materials of which were classified. But the violation was too serious to be released on the brakes. Gallagher was released on bail before the trial, and Tsaplak was removed from the process.
Confidence in the prosecution was completely undermined. The jury found the "fur seal" guilty of only one point - photographing against the background of the corpse of the enemy. He was sentenced to four months in prison, which he had already served in pre-trial detention. In July 2019, the veteran was released, but he was demoted, all awards were taken away and deprived of the right to wear the “fur seal” badge, the so-called trident pin.
The Gallagher family and his lawyers knew what to do to get the president's attention.
They became frequent guests on the air of the conservative Fox News channel. As it turned out later, the owner of the White House already knew about the case and ordered the Ministry of Justice to consider the possibility of including the convicted military on the pardon list. But this was at a time when the defendant was facing a serious sentence. In the summer of 2019, Trump demanded a review of the Gallagher case. There was a formal reason for that. The jury verdict spoke of a demotion of one rank (from the chief foreman to first-class foreman), and the management of the “fur seals” corps completely demoted the serviceman, thereby depriving him of his pension and all the benefits of war veterans.
At a meeting with the head of naval operations, Admiral John Richardson, the head of state ordered a review of the case. However, Richardson was soon assigned to another job, and Admiral Michael Gilday took up the matter.
He partially reinstated Gallagher in the rank, but was in no hurry to return the rewards to him. He sent the issue of wearing the trident to a special commission (it is called the “Supervisory Board of the Trident”), where he seemed to be buried forever.
In November, Trump filed a signature list to pardon several military personnel convicted of military offenses. The president inquired about the fate of Gallagher and was furious that he had not yet been returned the seal of the seal. He took a smartphone and wrote on Twitter that the foreman will be fully restored to the rank and that "the fleet will NOT take his trident from the warrior."
Fleet Secretary Spencer might have obeyed, but the UN Human Rights Committee condemned the pardon of the US military and the reinstatement of Sergeant Gallagher in rank. Committee spokesman Rupert Colville called the decision of the US president "sending a very alarming signal" and violating international humanitarian standards. After these words were quoted by the media, there was a big uproar in the press.
Trump, of course, was deeply indifferent to the opinion of a United Nations official. Moreover, the opinion of mainstream media. Richard Spencer hesitated. He first stated that he did not consider the Twitter post an official order. And then - what will restore in the rank of Gallagher only after a direct written order from the White House.
However, the minister was not limited to stoic disagreement with the "unpredictable president."
He took up the well-known hardware business - upholstering rooms in the Pentagon and the White House. Through “informal conversations” with colleagues, he constantly threatened that he would resign if the president did not change his mind. At the same time, he never once discussed the issue with his immediate superior, the head of the Ministry of Defense, Mark Esper. Finally, he appeared before Trump and asked him to uphold the authority of the “Trident Council” in relation to Gallagher, promising to do “everything as it should”, that is, restore the foreman in the rank and return him the seal’s badge, but by decision of the council and after a few months. To this he received a decisive answer: "No, we are done with this."
After that, Spencer did not go to the Pentagon to write a letter of resignation, but to the Canadian Halifax at the international summit on security, where as if nothing had happened he claimed that he had never threatened his dismissal.
And here the cup of patience of the Minister of Defense was already overfilled. He called the head of the fleet to him and demanded to leave the military department. And only then did Richard Spencer talk about the "rule of law."
This is how the whole story looks like. To summarize, at least three important conclusions can be drawn.
First, the United States continues to insist that its military personnel are not subject to foreign or international courts. And in their own jurisdictions, they are inclined to forgive them for “incidents” in which US citizens did not suffer. Under Donald Trump, this position has become even more rigid and fundamental. Barack Obama tried to change the rules for joining the battle of the US military, especially in areas saturated with civilians. The 45th president sharply criticized these, as he called them, “deadly standards” (deadly, of course, for US Army soldiers), and substantially changed them, and so much so that in the “foreign missions” the American infantrymen and pilots - not to mention special forces - received much greater freedom of action than even under Bush Jr. What they say about this at the UN or in any human rights organization, the Trump administration is completely indifferent.
Secondly, Donald Trump has once again demonstrated that in a fundamental dispute between a high-ranking general (let alone a civilian minister!) And a simple soldier, he will most likely side with the latter. And by this, of course, he pleases his “nuclear” electorate. He is on the side of the foreman, a simple man, and not the minister. In addition, the owner of the White House demonstrates that he is “his own” for the lower ranks of all law enforcement agencies and with extreme rigidity reacts to the disobedience or self-will of their top managers. In the current difficult political situation, this is especially important.
After all, it was precisely the high-ranking bureaucrats of the FBI, the CIA, the Ministry of Justice and other "special" departments that had been fronting him from the first day of his presidency.
Not to mention the fact that some representatives of the generals are flirting with the idea of disobeying the “wrong president”. Maybe in a specific situation with Elder Gallagher, Trump was legally wrong, but he was absolutely right politically. The lower-level security forces are not only voters, but also those who ultimately decide the outcome of the confrontation between the rebel president and his enemies, if the situation begins to develop according to an unpredictable scenario.
Finally, thirdly, after the first stage of the open hearings in Congress on impeachment, Donald Trump clearly gained confidence in his abilities. His word is law. If the next minister needs to be fired to confirm this simple fact, he will not hesitate. And the Republican Party today fully supports it. The restoration of Petty Officer Gallagher in the rank and status of the “fur seal” shows conservative lawmakers that they have not in vain rallied around the president. It is worth mentioning that the most influential congressman who signed the letter in defense of violating the law of the foreman was Jim Jordan, the most fierce defender of Trump in the House of Representatives.
As for war crimes proper, this is a very complex and painful issue, especially when it comes not to high-ranking politicians and bureaucrats, but to soldiers operating on the ground in the difficult situation of a modern conflict. The United States strictly adheres to the principle of absolute sovereignty in this matter. That is, judges suspected of such crimes can only be in the United States. And if any country objects to this, it risks incurring severe retaliation from the overseas superpower.
Trump, of course, did not bring anything new to this concept. He simply supplemented it with an important detail - that in any such case the foreman is more important than the minister.
* “Islamic State” (IG) - the organization was recognized as terrorist by decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of December 29, 2014.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.