Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), the No. 3 House Republican, argued the amendment “lays out, in a very responsible level of specificity, what is going to be required if we are going to in fact make decisions about troop levels based on conditions on the ground and based on what’s required for our own security, not based on political timelines.”
“There are a lot of institutions, a lot of think tanks, a lot of organizations, that earn a lot of money by pushing economic policies that are in the interest of big Republican donors … the interests of the donors are just not aligned with the interests of the working- and middle-class grassroots voters, and eventually one those two interests has to win out.”
Trump’s indifference, and even hostility, toward military law in the Gallagher case makes it less likely that, in the future, service members will come forward when they witness illicit acts in war. This matters because a defining aspect of the subculture of U.S. special operations forces is its limited oversight, at least compared with regular combat forces. Maintaining respect for U.S. military law within this tight-knit setting demands that operators regulate themselves.