,
11 tweets,
4 min read
Read on Twitter
Pete Buttigieg, Liz Cheney, and Joni Ernst were all asked this morning to comment on the proposed pardons of alleged & convicted war criminals. Worth checking out their responses: 
Also, several good pieces & threads about this in the last few weeks (@ExumAM, @glennkirschner2, Lawrence Nicholson & J Kael Weston, @monacharenEPPC, @ShayKhatiri, @JVLast, @MaxBoot, @PostOpinions, etc). Some arguments are stronger than others.
The weakest argument is the notion that pardons will unleash a wave of bad behavior. That unintentionally demeans the men & women who enlist in our all-volunteer military, and the NCOs and officers who instill good order & discipline and exercise good judgment 99.9% of the time.
Fear of imprisonment or a dishonorable discharge is not what keeps our troops from committing illegal and unethical acts. The military excels at taking American youth from all different backgrounds and instilling in them a sense of honor, purpose, discipline, and selflessness.
Our troops are not following these cases to see what they may be able to get away with in the future. The fact that we have so few bad apples in a force as large as ours is a testament to the professionalism of our military and to the character of the young Americans who enlist.
Other arguments are stronger: pardons would undermine our military’s credibility at home — widening the civil-military divide — and abroad, hampering our ability to build trust & confidence and work with host nation forces, governments, and populations.
But I think the strongest is what Buttigieg was getting at. Vets of all generations must fight back against the idea of “veterans as victims.” It’s of course important to raise awareness of PTSD, the veteran suicide epidemic, challenges finding a civilian job, VA healthcare, etc
Yet veterans must guard against the idea that we need/want any pity. Mattis put it best, in 2014: “I would just say there is one misperception of our veterans and that is they are somehow damaged goods. I don’t buy it. If we tell our veterans enough that this is what is wrong...”
“...with them they may actually start believing it. While victimhood in America is exalted I don’t think our veterans should join those ranks.” Mattis’ remarks were controversial to some, but every vet I know couldn’t have agreed more with his message — if not his exact words.
If there’s one thing all vets do well, it’s policing our own. Striving to live up to the example of the best among us — our fallen, whom we honor every day but especially this weekend — leads us to be hyper critical of each other. That’s why “stolen valor” is a cardinal sin.
So it’s no surprise most veterans are outraged by the potential pardons. Pardoning the worst among us fuels the narrative that those of us who saw combat must have been broken by it. We’re not victims, and the perpetrators of war crimes don’t deserve pity. They deserve judgment.
