publications<\/a> on Indigenous worldview<\/p>\n\u201cDonald J. Trump has pardoned these four Blackwater convicted murderers because of what it represents for the people who follow and support him; MAGA sees itself as above the law. With extra judicial killings at the hands of rogue police or private citizens, violence is currency in their conspiracy filled economy. At this American empire\u2019s highest point of technological innovation and communication we are also at our lowest in terms of human compassion and empathy; the very same people fighting to abolish a woman\u2019s right to have an abortion are willing to kill in order to protect the right to own guns. With the 2020 election lost and the days dragging until the imposter in chief has to leave office, he has sent innocent people to the death chamber, pardoned known and convicted criminals and stolen tens of millions from his supporters as he lies about a stolen election. Perhaps Donald Trump and Erik Prince are forming a private extra security force to protect him from the seething masses as they awake from the long slumber? Perhaps it is something far more sinister \u2026? Though I do believe in rehabilitation and restorative justice I condemn the choice to pardon these four Blackwater contractors, and former service members; the pardon condones their actions and that is yet another heinous crime committed by number 45.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Miles Megaciph, a veteran of the USMC 1992-1999 and an independent rapper, father and husband<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
+++<\/p>\n
The targeting and killing of civilians in war is not an aberration within the scope of the unbridled adventurism and imperialism of U.S. foreign policy; it is a manifestation of it. These pardons are emblematic of U.S. impunity from the consequences of this malignant and unsustainable policy. They are another tragic outcome of Trump\u2019s sadism and sociopathy. The pardons continue America\u2019s long history of colonial violence and dehumanization and extermination of people it sees as \u201cthe other,\u201d particularly brown and black lives, at home and abroad. If justice cannot even be upheld in the rare instances when U.S. war criminals are held accountable for their atrocities, then the U.S. is sending the message to the rest of the world is that it truly believes it is above the law. That it has a license to kill whomever it wants, wherever and whenever it chooses, regardless of the circumstances. This message put American lives at serious risk, civilians and soldiers alike, across the globe. If anything could put U.S. national security in jeopardy and be a rallying cry and recruiting tool for international terrorists, the Blackwater pardons would be it.<\/p>\n
Lastly, the constitutional pardon power of the president is not the problem here, as many have argued, some vehemently. It is a fundamental democratic instrument to check the judicial branch and rectify cases of extreme injustice when employed as the framers of the Constitution intended. The problem, rather, is unchecked centralized power and abuse of power, which Donald Trump was permitted to have by his apologists, enablers and supporters. The Constitution provides for mechanisms to remove such as a president. However, these mechanisms were largely ignored or scoffed at over the past four years. In recent personal correspondence, Reed Camacho Kinney, author of Ideology of Decentralized Civilization,<\/em> shared his thoughts on the consequences of this type of power: \u201cThe situation is outrageous. [Trump\u2019s] sadism has no bounds and is the only act that amuses him. He surrounds himself with no less oafish orgs that spur his destruction of America on, for their respective, perceived advantages. The only purpose of centralized power beyond the control of the people is the rupture of the lives of the less powerful, a pathological aberration disguised in human bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n\nThis post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photograph Source: MaxMercy \u2013 CC BY-SA 3.0 The U.S.-led war on Iraq, which formally began in March 2003 but essentially started more than a decade earlier with frequent\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,266,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4682"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4682"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4683,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4682\/revisions\/4683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}