Trump Defends Green Beret Who Killed Unarmed Afghan
President Trump came under fire after tweeting on Saturday about Maj. Mathew Golsteyn, a former Green Beret who is on trial for killing an unarmed Afghan man in 2010.
Trump tweeted, “The case of Major Mathew Golsteyn is now under review
at the White House. Mathew is a highly decorated Green Beret who is
being tried for killing a Taliban bombmaker. We train our boys to be
killing machines, then prosecute them when they kill!” Trump’s tweet
came after a segment on Fox News went over the case.
Golsteyn admitted to killing a suspected Taliban bomb maker in a CIA
polygraph when he was applying for a job with the intelligence agency in
2011. In the CIA interview, Golsteyn said he buried the Afghan man’s
remains and later dug them up and burned them.
The Army initially dismissed the case, but it was re-opened in 2016
after Golsteyn again admitted to killing the man in an interview with
Fox News.
In May, Trump pardoned a former Army lieutenant who was convicted of killing an unarmed Iraqi man in 2009.
Some of the outrage over Trump’s tweet was not about him potentially
pardoning a suspected war criminal, but instead focused on Trump using
the term “killing machines.”
Bill Kristol responded to Trump’s tweet and said, ” ‘We train our boys to be killing machines.’ No we don’t. And it’s beyond disgusting that an American president would say this about our military. Shouldn’t senior military leaders set the record straight?”
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