Saturday, July 23, 2022

The Dishonorable 'Mad Dog'

Anyone who observed the Mattis Mutiny under Trump knew that the "Mad Dog" was a rat.

How much a rat?

A whole lot of rat.

...We landed in Afghanistan on February 12, 2007. Before long the First was involved in a complex ambush near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, on March 4, 2007. We were attacked by a suicide car-bomb, waves of Taliban fighters on both sides of the road, a sniper, and a mob that placed an obstacle to trap us in an ambush kill box. We  successfully counterattacked, killed the Taliban terrorists, avoided civilian casualties, and returned to base within 20 minutes, where we learned of the Taliban’s swift information operations campaign that was already underway, accusing us of mass-murdering Afghan civilians. The Taliban’s version of events went out within 20 minutes through the BBC followed by countless others. Ultimately, the president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, condemned our actions and the Army generals kicked us out of Afghanistan within five days. Crushing the Taliban in battle morphed into a PR victory for the extremists in the media and a weakening of the allied forces in country. Due process went right out the window.

Ironically, Mattis was assigned as the convening authority by the commandant of the Marine Corps in August 2007, to be responsible for the investigation and a Court of Inquiry into our March 4 battle. Mattis received the results of my polygraph test and the sworn testimony of all the Marines involved in the firefight, confirming that on that morning no Marines said they killed any civilians or saw any civilians killed. 

Unlike Lejeune’s comments of “cultivating a deep abiding love of Country and Corps in the hearts of your Marines and that the key to combat effectiveness is unity and esprit that characterizes itself in complete irrevocable mutual trust,” Mattis unleashed an unprecedented 45 criminal investigators and four prosecuting attorneys against the seven Marines falsely accused by the Taliban of mass murder....

In typical US Prosecutor fashion, ......

 ...Mattis’ prosecution team found perceived vulnerabilities in the Marine commandos and commenced “ethnic targeting” of two Hispanic Marines. Mad Dog’s prosecutors continuously interrogated one of them, and the government manufactured a statement from him that our fire was out of control during the March 4 ambush. The prosecution then threatened to deport the Marine’s mother back to Mexico unless he signed the statement. That Marine testified he was coerced into signing the prosecution’s false statement. Another Hispanic Marine also testified he was repeatedly threatened by the prosecution to take a polygraph, which was not a legal order, but the prosecution ordered him to anyway....

"We'll screw the shit out of your family member unless you falsely confess!!"  Gee.  Where have we heard that before?

And how does that comport with 'fair, impartial, justice'?

Mad Dog, indeed.  We'd use the term 'distemper,' as in mentally diseased. 

By the way, all the Marines were acquitted of the charges.

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