Graham Platner has traversed a long and unlikely road to become the Democratic nominee for the US Senate in Maine. Can he beat longtime GOP incumbent Susan Collins and live up to the promise of his firebrand populist campaign?
What allegations do you have that he personally committed a war crime? Who did he torture? What innocent civilians did he murder in cold blood?
And I’m going to need better than “he was a US military soldier who served in Iraq, therefore he is automatically guilty of war crimes.” Did he serve at Abu Ghraib prison? Yes, but that was years after the torture came to light, and there has never been any allegation that he was directly involved in the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners. He was ordered to guard prisoners at a place where years prior some evil shit happened. For this you slander him as a war criminal.
Your definition of “war criminal” is so expansive that almost any US veteran would be disqualified. Fine if you want to take that stance, but that’s far from the standard of even most progressive American voters. If you have such extreme views, fine. There’s no way I can say your views are objectively wrong. There’s no objective way to set the dial on individual moral culpability and military service. But one thing that can be said is your views are wildly out of step with the American electorate. Most folks do not see having served in uniform in Iraq or Afghanistan as disqualifying. If you polled asking people, “does merely having served in Iraq mean someone is a war criminal?” Less than 10% would say yes. It’s a fringe viewpoint, and it’s not really one we should be basing our electoral strategy on.
What allegations do you have that he personally committed a war crime? Who did he torture? What innocent civilians did he murder in cold blood?
And I’m going to need better than “he was a US military soldier who served in Iraq, therefore he is automatically guilty of war crimes.” Did he serve at Abu Ghraib prison? Yes, but that was years after the torture came to light, and there has never been any allegation that he was directly involved in the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners. He was ordered to guard prisoners at a place where years prior some evil shit happened. For this you slander him as a war criminal.
Your definition of “war criminal” is so expansive that almost any US veteran would be disqualified. Fine if you want to take that stance, but that’s far from the standard of even most progressive American voters. If you have such extreme views, fine. There’s no way I can say your views are objectively wrong. There’s no objective way to set the dial on individual moral culpability and military service. But one thing that can be said is your views are wildly out of step with the American electorate. Most folks do not see having served in uniform in Iraq or Afghanistan as disqualifying. If you polled asking people, “does merely having served in Iraq mean someone is a war criminal?” Less than 10% would say yes. It’s a fringe viewpoint, and it’s not really one we should be basing our electoral strategy on.