Is There Any Breaking Point?

There's a problem with the lede in this WaPo piece on the resignation of Navy Secretary Richard Spencer.  It says that CPO Edward Gallagher was "accused" of war crimes.  He was accused of murder, but convicted of war crimes and violating standards of conduct for US servicemen.  He was guilty and Trump pardoned him, in order to keep that part of America that likes its servicemember to desecrate corpses happy.  Let's not forget the other crimes he was accused of:

SEALs from the platoon that Chief Gallagher led during a deployment to Mosul, Iraq, in 2017 told military officials that they saw the chief fatally stab a wounded ISIS captive. Navy investigators said while several SEALs were providing medical aid to the fighter, Chief Gallagher took out a handmade hunting knife and stabbed the captive, a teenager, several times in the neck and torso.

The chief was also accused of firing a sniper rifle at civilians, striking a girl wearing a flower-print hijab as she walked along a riverbank and an old man carrying a water jug. Several SEALs broke the group’s code of silence and testified against Chief Gallagher in a military trial.

For Trump and his Cruelty Caucus, a SEAL who stabs a prisoner to death and shoots unarmed civilians is badass rather than rank cruelty.  Apparently, the members of his team disabled his sniper rifle to keep him from shooting people.  Finally fed up, three of them decided to report his conduct to superiors. 

The Navy can't do anything about Trump's pardon, as the pardon power is largely unchallengeable. They did, however, want Gallagher out of the SEALs and out of the Navy.  Trump pushed back against this, because of course he did.  Killing Muslim children isn't a problem in Trumpistan.  Spencer probably tried to flatter or lie to Trump to distract him from plans to strip Gallagher of his Trident (the SEALs insignia and a BFD). 

Trump's decision to interfere in these - and other cases - greatly undermine the military's tenuous ability to maintain control of troops in war zones.  Savagery is a natural byproduct of war and keeping men who you have trained to kill on task and out of murderous behavior is incredibly difficult. War erases the thin line between civilization and barbarism. Trump wants to erase that line.

When will the military break with him?  I know a majority of the enlisted troops likely love him, but the brass knows how corrosive this shit is. Like McMaster and Kelly and Mattis they seem intent on self-immolation on his pyre.

When will the military stand up to this martinet?