Biden Tolerated Traitors -- Trump Pardoned Heroes

 As I’ve written repeatedly in this space, President Obama not only honored traitors at the White House but also pardoned those who would betray our nation’s secrets. Yet the Obama-Biden administration, while asking our young soldiers to make split-second life-and-death battlefield decisions hampered by absurd rules of engagement, had no qualms about zapping terrorists from the sky via drone-launched missiles, risking the lives of nearby civilians and killing an American citizen. During it all,  Joe Biden was silent. 

Biden hasn’t said much then or now about Obama’s pardon of the treasonous Chelsea Manning or Obama’s trading of five Taliban terrorists for the traitor Bowe Bergdahl, whose parents were welcomed to the Rose Garden and who was praised by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice a having “served with distinction”  Manning betrayed our nation’s secrets and Biden was silent when he/she was pardoned. Bergdahl betrayed his fellow soldiers on the battlefield and Biden decried neither the trade nor Bergdahl’s subsequent lack of punishment.

Yet Biden took the time to condemn in a tweet President Trump’s pardon of three genuine American war heroes who put their lives on the line to protect our freedoms, our national security interests and Joe Biden’s big mouth.

Biden’s tweet prompted a damning response from former New York Police Department Commissioner Bernard Kerik:

Former NYPD commissioner Bernard Kerik let him have it.

“You and your administration set free a traitor, a terrorist, and a member of the military that stole and leaked classified information. You allowed a US ambassador and three Americans to be slaughtered in Benghazi, and sold arms to Mexico, later used to kill a federal agent,” Kerik tweeted.

He continued, “Your comments concerning President Trump’s pardons demonstrates either your ignorance or just plain stupidity. Prosecutors in the Gallagher case were found by a US Navy judge to have engaged in unethical and criminal conduct. Witnesses lied!”

“Gallagher’s only conviction was taking a photo with the dead terrorist, as did 10 of his teammates, including his supervisor, yet none of them were charged!

Kerik concluded, “The fact that you would criticize the president for taking this action after you and your administration set free killers and traitors, demonstrates why you should never step foot in the oval office.”

In a statement released by the White House late Friday, President Trump ordered the full pardon of three American heroes,  starting with former Army lieutenant Cliff Lawrence, who was serving a 19-year sentence after being found guilty of the murder of two civilians he believed were part of a group that had ambushed another unit.. A full pardon was also granted to Major Mathew L. Golsteyn,  an Army Special Forces officer who was facing murder charges for killing an unarmed Afghan he believed was a Taliban bombmaker. He also reversed the demotion of Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL acquitted of murder but convicted of a lesser offense of posing with a corpse in a high-profile war crimes case over the summer.

One would think that in war the duty of a soldier is to kill the enemy before he kills you or your fellow soldiers. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are different in that the enemy doesn’t usually obey the rules of war, like wearing uniforms and rank insignia, and there are no “front lines” per se, only improvised explosive devices and sniper fire from second-floor windows or civilians used as human shields.

That is where Mathew Golsteyn found himself in 2010 when the Green Beret killed a Taliban bombmaker who had killed two Marines.

If the bombmaker had been targeted with a drone strike, would that have been murder? Yet killing suspected terrorists and those who made war on America and its allies from high altitude was an official policy of the Obama administration, most notably resulting in the death of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the 16-year-old son of terrorist leader Anwar al-Awlaki

Biden is not above exploiting the sacrifice of our young men and women who put themselves in harm’s way on our behalf. He’s done it before and gotten them killed in the process. Biden’s service in an administration that gave us the criminal negligence and incompetence of Benghazi provides an example of why he should not be trusted with the nation’s security.

As author and attorney David Shestoksas points out in his review of Betrayed: The Shocking The Shocking True Story of Extortion 17 as told by a Navy SEAL's Father, Biden betrayed the heroes that killed Bin Laden to further his political ambitions”:

On May 1, 2011, Aaron Carson Vaughn, member of America’s elite special operations force, Seal Team VI, called his father, Billy Vaughn and exclaimed:

“Dad, we got him!”

 The elder Vaughn asked:  “Got who, son?”

Aaron Vaughn replied:  “Who do you think? Go turn on the TV.”

On television shortly thereafter, President Obama declared to the nation that Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind of the deadly attacks of September 11, 2001 was dead.

Vice-President Joe Biden, at an awards banquet on May 3, 2001, remarked:

“Admiral James Stavridis … can tell you more about … the incredible, the phenomenal, the just almost unbelievable capacity of his Navy SEALs and what they did last Sunday… I’d be remiss also if I didn’t say an extra word about the incredible events, extraordinary events of this past Sunday.  As Vice President of the United States, as an American, I was in absolute awe of the capacity and dedication of the entire team, both the intelligence community, the CIA, the SEALs.” (emphasis added)

Less than a day after Biden’s remarks Aaron Vaughn called his mother Karen:

“There’s chatter and all of our lives are in danger including yours, Mom.”

On August 6, 2011, in the Tangi River Valley of Afghanistan, Aaron Vaughn and 30 other Americans, including 15 members of SEAL Team VI were killed when their fifty year old helicopter, designated Extortion 17, was hit by a rocket propelled grenade.

Joe Biden’s loose lips got members of Seal Team 6 targeted for revenge and killed in an Afghan mission known as Extortion 17. As Investor’s Business Daily recounted on May 28, 2013:

Extortion 17 was the call sign of a special operations mission in Afghanistan on Aug. 6, 2011, that responded to an Army Ranger unit engaged in a firefight with the Taliban and in need of backup.

The Chinook helicopter carrying the rescue team was shot down by a Taliban-owned rocket-propelled grenade over the Wardak Province on Aug. 6, 2011, killing 38, including 30 Americans and 15 members of Navy SEAL Team 6, the unit that killed Osama bin Laden just three months prior.

The shoot-down was described at the time as a "lucky shot," but the families of the dead SEALs believe that, like Benghazi, it was a pre-planned operation of revenge facilitated by a government that put them in harm's way without adequate support and with a bull's-eye painted on their backs.

Then on May 3, Vice President Joe Biden got up to speak at a dinner at Washington's Ritz Carlton Hotel marking the 50th anniversary of the Atlantic Council to spill the beans about Adm. James Stavridis and "the incredible, the phenomenal, the just almost unbelievable capacity of his Navy SEALs and what they did last Sunday."

From that moment, the families believe, the Taliban looked for an opportunity for revenge, and a government

The RPG that felled the SEALs may have just been a random act of war. The Taliban could have just gotten lucky. Or they could have been plotting and waiting for revenge, looking for helicopters that might be carrying more SEALs on another mission, a big bulls eye painted on their backs by a Vice President who forgot that loose lips can sink ships, and they can also get Navy SEALs killed.

You are the one not fit to command our troops, Joe Biden. Trump is the commander-in-chief and pardons are part of the rule of law of an attack on it, especially if they involve real American heroes, not traitors like Bergdahl and Manning.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/11/biden_tolerated_traitors__trump_pardoned_heroes.html