In June, 2017 Army
Green Beret Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar—part of a U.S, anti-terrorism team that
included Navy SEALs and Marine Raiders—was taken to a local clinic in Bamako,
Mali where he was declared dead, apparently of asphyxiation. Melgar’s superiors
at a base in Germany were immediately suspicious, and ordered that physical
evidence be preserved, sending a CID team to investigate. The Pentagon initially attempted to cover-up
the death, with two Navy SEALs who were “persons of interest” in the death “transferred”
out of the country. Two months later the media reported the suspicious
circumstances of Melgar’s death, and questions relating to it have since led to
charges against four soldiers for felony murder, involuntary manslaughter,
conspiracy, obstruction of justice, hazing and burglary.
One of the accused
soldiers, Navy SEAL Adam Mathews, reached a plea deal in exchange for his
testimony. According to the Military
Times, the four soldiers had been out drinking well into the wee hours of
the morning while Mathews—who had only just arrived in Mali 24 hours earlier—was
harangued by the others about “slights” supposedly inflicted on them by the
Hispanic Melgar, and decided to join them in a “hazing” exercise to “teach him
a lesson.” After receiving a grudging “OK, let me go back to sleep” from his uncharged Green Beret superior, Mathews,
as a party to the all-white troop, testified that a sledgehammer was used to
batter down the door in the room Melgar was sleeping in, and then:
(Navy SEAL Tony) DeDolph jumped on Melgar,
locked him in a chokehold on the bed while Matthews grabbed Melgar’s legs and
the Raiders began to duct tape the legs, the Washington Post reported. During
all of this, they noticed that Melgar had stopped breathing. They tried to
revive him, Matthews said. “He remained unresponsive, so we laid him back down
and I began rescue breaths while the tape was cut off of him,” Matthews said,
according to the Post. “His chest rose and fell from my rescue breaths, and
during one of the breaths, I saw red-tinted spittle come out of his mouth and
hit me in the face,” Matthews said, according to the Post. They used a
defibrillator and cut open his throat in an emergency procedure to establish an
airway. Instead of calling an ambulance, they took him to a nearby clinic,
where Melgar was pronounced dead. The four defendants then decided that the two
SEALs would tell investigators what happened but not mentioned the Raiders’
involvement, according to the Post.
The evidence that Melgar was suffering from internal
bleeding suggests that something more happened here than what Mathews admitted
to. Military judge Navy Capt. Michael Luken appeared incredulous at the
justification given for the act, asking “What I’m trying to understand is how
was this a deficiency?” concerning the “last straw” being an “incident” where
Melgar allegedly drove past the Marines on the way to a function at the French
embassy. Since Mathews was not in the country when this occurred, he was
something less than convincing even in justifying his own involvement. Supposedly
there were other “incidents” that “annoyed” the others, and Melgar had
allegedly complained about prostitutes being brought into the housing units,
and Melgar’s wife testified that her husband had spoken about the “immaturity” he
had encountered.
If all of this
sounds vaguely familiar, it should be. Its contours are right out of the 1992
film A Few Good Men, where a Hispanic
Marine was “hazed” because he just didn’t “fit in,” and died as a result of the
actions of two Marines who had been “ordered” by their direct superior to “teach”
their fellow Marine “a lesson” on becoming a “good soldier.” Except for one
thing: the SEALs and Marines accused in the Melgar’s death were not acting on
the “orders” of a superior, but on their own initiative, which somehow makes it
even worse. This suggests some justification of the contention that they were “immature,”
but also one suspects that their action was also motivated by their belief that
Melgar didn’t “fit in” their special clique for “ethnic” reasons, fueling
mutual animosity. As in the film, the victim was completely at the mercy of extrajudicial
“punishment” by forces that were blatantly biased against him. That this
occurred during Donald Trump’s watch only heightens the sense that
anti-Hispanic bigotry had much to do with this, since to most Hispanics are not "real Americans" despite their indigenous heritage.
This isn’t the
only recent story that suggests that Hispanics are given short shrift in the
meting out of “justice” in this society. In the most recent running of the
Kentucky Derby, the apparent winner, Maximum Security, was disqualified for
allegedly “interfering” with other horses, principally by “drifting” outside
his apparent “lane” on the final turn. This was the first such disqualification
in Derby history. Many saw it as a “ticky-tack” offense, one that often occurs
in horse races; but at least two jockeys complained after the race, and upon
further “review,” the three race stewards ruled for disqualification, which
they subsequently “upheld” within hours of an appeal by the owners, Gary and
Mary West, who have since filed suit in federal court to have their horse’s
victory reinstated. One thing that is interesting about the alleged infraction is
that so much attention has been paid to it that horse racing “experts” have
acted as if this is an “uncommon” occurrence when it is not, and because of
this, one must ask why this incident is being treated differently than others
just as “egregious.”
The stewards’ ruling
thus has a suspicious aspect to it, as does that of the Horse Racing Commission,
which decided to suspended Maximum Security’s jockey for 15 racing days in an
effort to “minimize” further disrepute upon the original decision. The commission
claimed that the jockey failed to “controI his mount and make the proper effort
to maintain a straight course, thereby causing interference with several rivals
that resulted in the disqualification of his mount." The jockey was even accused
by another as riding like a “drunk driver.” The insults aside, the attorney for
the jockey said that “his unsupported and unsupportable suspension" would
be appealed.
Out the 20 horses
that ran the Derby—considered by many as too crowded a field to start with when
other races run 14—there was only one Hispanic jockey, Luis Saez. Guess who was
Maximum Security’s rider?
No comments:
Post a Comment