J.M. Phelps wrote in a Feb. 20 WorldNetDaily article:
An Army veteran who was granted a presidential pardon in 2020 is now actively working to secure the release of a fellow soldier, convinced that the life sentence imposed on him is unwarranted.
Nicholas Slatten, a former Army sergeant and Blackwater contractor, was a member of Raven 23, a tactical support team assigned to protect a U.S. diplomat in Baghdad, Iraq. Following the tragic Nisour Square incident on Sept. 16, 2007, numerous false allegations by the U.S. government against Slatten and his fellow team members emerged.
Despite several unsuccessful attempts to convict Slatten on criminal charges in the years that followed, he was eventually found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison in 2019. However, he received a pardon from President Donald Trump in December 2020.
Interesting how Phelps buries the fact that Slatten was convicted of murder as something of an afterthought. In fact, Slatten and three others — all of whom were employees of Blackwater, despite Phelps’ attempt to blur the line between military and civilian employment — were convicted of killing 14 unarmed civilians in 2007 in Iraq, Phelps never states that pertinent fact; instead, he dismisses thouse deaths as merely an “incident” that was “tragic” and links to his own commentary about it at the right-wing Daily Caller.
Phelps also censored the fact that the pardowns of Slatten and the others by Trump were controversial, with one report stating that “Witnesses described how the American men ambushed the civilians unprovoked, firing on Baghdad’s Nisour Square with heavy gunfire and grenade launchers,” adding that “The pardons could damage the United States’ reputation abroad, as they undo the significance of the convictions, which had demonstrated that U.S. military contractors could be held accountable if they conducted criminal actions.”
Slatten is advocating for a soldier named Robert Bales, who left his base in Afghanistan in what has been described as “a manic and impaired state,” and he killed 16 civilians while in “a confused and berserk state.” Phelps let Slatten spin away the murders, excusing them because Bales was suffering from PTSD:
“The narrative that the mainstream media has is that he was accused of leaving the wire, leaving his Army post, at night and attacking two villages that were near the base, killing as many as 16 men, women and children,” Slatten said. “Bales went in and carried out what he thought was a pre-emptive strike against Taliban fighters who had previously wounded U.S. service members and were planning another attack, and it’s been called a massacre, right? Even Bales didn’t deny what happened.”
And yet, Slatten said, “Even before the facts of the case were investigated or charges were filed, President Obama publicly condemned Bales and said that the death penalty was not off the table.” In Slatten’s view, that undermined Bales’ right to a fair trial: “What does that do for your jury and the talking heads of the news media? He had no chance.” Bales was subsequently sentenced to life without parole on Aug. 23, 2013.
However, Slatten argued, “The truth behind the entire matter goes a lot deeper.”
What the prevailing narrative fails to say is that Bales had completed three combat tours before this event, during which he was exposed to at least 10 improvised explosive device (IED) blasts and the brutal realities of war.
“By the end of his second tour,” Slatten said, “it was so severe that he had to go to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) counseling and traumatic brain injury (TBI) therapy, and he was prescribed medication for both.” At this point, Slatten insists there should have been a full stop and reassessment of the case. “Because of these diagnoses,” Slatten explained, “he was technically nondeployable, but they deployed him anyway – and that’s where he ended up getting into trouble.”
Neither Slatten nor Phelps expressed an ounce of regret for the 16 dead Afghan civilians. Instead, Phelps continued to justify the murders by claiming that “DNA from five of the witnesses against Bales had been found on IEDs used against Americans.”
Phelps has sought to excuse defiance of military orders on vaccines. Now it looks like he’s trying to excuse murder as well.