The Value of a Life

I had intended to write this a couple weeks ago but the San Bernardino terrorist attack captured everybody’s attention first. The day before in Olongapo City a Filipino judge issued the sentence and verdict of US Marine Lance Corporal Jacob Scott Pemberton in the murder trial of a transgender prostitute named Jeffrey Laude, who went by the name of Jennifer. Pemberton got shafted. He’s paying for his own actions to be sure, but it’s much more than he deserved.

In October 2014 the USS Pelilieu made a port call at Subic Bay in the Philippines. Lance Corporal Pemberton and three of his shipmates went on liberty into Olongapo City to go bar hopping and look for girls. Pemberton was twenty, not even old enough to legally consume alcohol in the States, but such laws don’t matter here and the US Navy has always had a cavalier attitude about its personnel drinking and shopping for whores.

Pemberton and his friends wound up at a dingy gin joint near the end of Magsaysay Blvd. near the Rizal roundabout called the Ambyance. Several girls hit on the group and Pemberton left the bar with two calling themselves Barbi and Jennifer. Pemberton has been described by his shipmates as a nice kid who had never been in trouble. He was obviously too nice and too naive to be left alone with not one, but two women of the night, but his friends (I use the term loosely) let him go off to have a good time.

Barbi and Jennifer took Pemberton across the street to an adult’s only hotel frequented often by prostitutes. It’s a dirty, run down, classless establishment that makes one wonder why anybody would go there at all unless they were already half drunk. The three got a room while a bellboy watched the hall.

After a while Barbi left and only then as Jennifer disrobed did Pemberton find out she was in reality Jeffrey. Embarrassed and horrified Pemberton yelled at Jeffrey who then slapped him. Pemberton feared Barbi and maybe others had set him up and would be coming back, but as he tried to get dressed Jeffrey tried to slap him again. Pemberton then put him in a headlock and choked him before dragging him into the bathroom where he dropped him on the floor.

Pemberton got dressed and left, and turned himself in at the ship, but claimed Laude was still breathing when he left the hotel. The next morning Laude was found dead with his head in the toilet and a necklace and chain clasp in one hand. He had also been robbed as his wallet and jewelry he was known to be wearing was missing.

A Mexican standoff followed. Philippine officials refused to let the ship leave until Pemberton was handed over. The ship at first refused, but after several days an arrangement was made where Pemberton would remain in US custody in the brig at Camp Crame, a Philippine army base in Manila near the US embassy and the Pelilieu finally sailed.

The situation then took on soap-operatic proportions. A German man named Marc Schulbach, a fat slob of a guy with no brains, showed up claiming Laude was his fiancée. He went to the mortuary complete with a TV news team to record the event, and wept over the casket claiming the whole story was false. Jennifer would never cheat on him, he declared.

After Pemberton was transferred to Camp Crame Schulbach went to Manila, found a way to climb over the wall onto the base and was arrested by the military police. In a show of false bravado he shouted that he was going to kill Pemberton. Then he tried to rough up the MPs while they escorted him off the base. He finally apologized and offered to just go home, but his passport was confiscated by immigrations until deportation proceedings sent him home. Under the deportation law he is banned from ever returning. Nothing has been heard from him over here since, but it has come out that the TV News station had actually flown him to the Philippines and took him to the mortuary in Olongapo to manipulate the event on the stipulation that they be the only ones Schulbach would tell his story to.

As it turns out, Laude was a notorious drug addict, thief and con artist who regularly worked in tandem with Barbi and other transgenders in Olongapo. He also was the primary source of income for his mother and family. But most disgusting of all, his mother had encouraged his lifestyle because of the money he could make. She offered to drop the charges if Pemberton would pay her 100 million pesos, which amounts to over 2.17 million dollars.

The Philippine courts, however, would not, and could not in order for justice to be served, drop the charges. The trial began in March and the verdict and sentencing was announced December 1. Pemberton was found guilty of homicide, but not murder, because intent to murder could not be proven. He was sentenced to six to twelve years minus time served in a Philippine national prison, and ordered to pay the Laude family 4.6 million pesos, about 98,000 dollars, for potential lost income.

Pemberton was to be remanded to the Philippine prison system as a “national” because of a law that states any foreigner sentenced to over three years would be considered as a national and therefore incarcerated in the Philippine prison system. He was ordered to the New Bilibid prison, a deplorable facility used for political prisoners. The US embassy immediately contested the ruling and refused to turn Pemberton over. The Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the Philippines stipulates that in such a case where a US serviceman is involved the United States must approve of the facility where he will be held. After long discussions Pemberton was returned to Camp Crame while negotiations are made for his future imprisonment.

It is a sad story, full of contradiction and hypocrisy. The Philippine government had to take someone to trial in order to show that life is not taken for granted in the Philippines. Unfortunately an American was the pawn in a game designed to show that the Philippines respects law and order. When it comes to prostitution, however, that respect apparently goes out the window. It has always been this way. Prostitution is illegal, and regardless of all the talk about law and order and respect for life, nothing is being done to clamp down on prostitutes and transgenders or their sordid scams taking advantage of unwitting foreigners who fall into their clutches.

While the circumstantial evidence is against Pemberton, he claims he did not kill Laude, and the prosecution was unable to prove that he did. Because of that a murder charge was lowered to homicide with a lesser penalty, but the only thing the prosecution was able to prove was that Pemberton was there and Laude was dead. There was DNA evidence of an unidentified third party, and the chain in Laude’s hand did not belong to Pemberton. The defense argued that this unknown third party might have killed Laude, but the bellboy in the hallway claimed no one else had entered the room that night. Of course, the bellboy could have entered the room that night. It’s hard to imagine that he could not have heard the shouting match going on in the first floor room of this dinky, drafty hotel only a few feet from where he was sitting.

There are too many unanswered questions remaining about what happened that night for Pemberton to have received a penalty as severe as the one given. The judge ruled that the financial demand of Laude’s mother was absurd, but the amount decided on is equally absurd. Pemberton couldn’t pay it in twenty years on a lance corporal’s salary, and he’ll never be able to come up with anything languishing in prison, which in the end ensures that Laude's family will probably never receive anything.

It’s a shame on the US Navy and Marine Corps that as fine of military organizations as they are (they are hands down the world’s best) that they take no better care of their young troops as to let something like this happen. Olongapo isn’t anything near what it was like twenty-five years ago before the US Navy moved out, but wickedness still abounds, and impressionable young men still throw away their honor, character and virtue looking for it.

When the Navy was based here the only advice ever given was be sure to use condoms, which were freely provided at medical facilities. At least at that time all the known “hospitality girls” (prostitution was illegal, therefore according to the Philippine government there were no prostitutes, but there were hospitality girls) had to work in Navy approved bars, and were checked monthly for AIDS. There isn’t even that anymore. There aren’t as many bars or working girls either, but there are transgenders who usually aren’t too hard to identify if you're familiar with the culture. But then you get a half drunk naive kid who knows nothing, who should have been warned, who should have been protected by his shipmates, and Scott Pemberton has thrown away the best years of his life.

Almost already forgotten in the whole sordid affair is Jeffrey Laude, a pathetic little twenty-six year old, living not just as a woman, but a prostitute, pushed into his vice and wicked lifestyle by his own mother, whose only concern in his death was that she be given 100 million pesos, 2.17 million dollars. No, the Philippine court ruled, only 4.6 million, 98,000 dollars. The value of a life. And nobody seems to care.

Oval Office Address

Forced into a corner by his inept analysis of ISIS after a seven year failed diplomacy of nicety and a weak-kneed foreign policy of leading from behind, Obama made a very rare Oval Office address to the nation to calm America's fears about the threat of terrorism. The thirteen minute speech was remarkable for its brevity considering the gravity of the crisis America is facing. The San Bernardino shooting last week, which was clearly a terrorist attack, was the largest act of terror on the American homeland since 9/11.

Obama tried to sound forceful and militaristic, but after seven years of wimpiness he was hard to believe. He tried to sound knowledgeable by referring to his daily intel briefings, but that comment was laughable when you consider White House sources have said he has missed more than half of the briefings, and military analysts have said he puts whatever he doesn't want to hear on the shelf.

The speech actually fulfilled all of my expectations except one. Obama was lacking in anything new as far as substance, he exploited the tragedy once again as a platform for gun control, and he defended Islam. The one thing I anticipated he might have added but didn't was climate change.

He started immediately to dissect the two shooters from ISIS by saying there was no evidence of orders from ISIS or Al Qaeda directing this attack. He did identify it as an act of terror, but as always he missed the point. ISIS has openly called for "lone wolf" attacks in America. Now it is coming out from his father that Syed Farook was greatly influenced by ISIS. He didn't need specific orders, he had a general order from the Islamic terrorist group that he was following and that his wife had sworn allegiance to.

The question being asked is if he was "radicalized" by his wife or the other way around. Interesting how terminology shows up and is used. This term "radicalized" hasn't been in the common usage about terror until last week and now it's the most thrown about word all over the media. We hear about "radical Islam" all the time, but now apparently for someone to be a radical Muslim they must first become radicalized. The term itself is an attempt to draw attention away from the truth about Islam. As I've stated before, and what even the most conservative politicians and pundits don't seem to understand, is that there is no such thing as radical Islam. There is Islam by the Koran, which is what we are seeing carried out by Jihadists, and there is moderate Islam that does not live by the brutal force of the Koran. But I digress.

Obama made some striking statements. He said we have been at war with terrorists since 9/11, something he has refused to admit until now. He said that complicated events like flying into the twin towers have been reduced and the terrorist threat has evolved to simpler acts such as mass shootings. Then he referenced the Ft. Hood shooting, which up until just a few days ago had been classified as "work place violence." Remember his first comment about the San Bernardino shooting last week also suggested it may have been work place violence. I just saw, however, a comment from Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) that the government has relented and awarded the victims of Ft. Hood purple hearts and benefits. It's a great victory for our troops, but it makes me wonder since this apparently just happened, if Obama didn't approve it just so he could make the comment in his speech.

Obama called terrorism a cancer and said many people have asked if there is a cure. He answered that the threat is real and we will destroy ISIS (or ISIL as he insists on calling it). He said we will prevail by being "strong and smart." Interesting that he has finally gone beyond containing and degrading to call for terrorism's total destruction. However, his comment about being "smart" gives it away. He's told us for years that we need smart diplomacy, in other words, his plan to bring about peace by the strength of his nice personality. It hasn't worked, and considering Obama the comment "strong and smart" is contradictory.

The president then gave a four point strategy to defeat terrorism: 1, The military will continue to take out ISIS leaders, 2, We will continue to give training and equipment to Iraqi ground forces, 3, We will continue to work with allies to prevent ISIS plots, and work with Turkey to seal its border with Syria, and 4, American leadership will produce a cease fire among the Syrian forces in order to concentrate on ISIS. He once again referred to his 65 nation coalition, which at best exists only on paper, and said we need to review how we do background checks on visas.

Unless he has some plan to ratchet up the first three points, his strategy is nothing different than what he's already doing, which because of it's weak implementation is accomplishing little. It is ironic, however, that he would tell Turkey to seal their border when he refuses to do anything about our own. As for the fourth point, Putin has been thumbing his nose in Obama's face for months, and the Russians are the primary force in Syria right now. What makes Obama think he's going to have any influence on how operations in Syria are going to be conducted? Nobody is listening to him.

Obama then regurgitated his anti-gun garbage and blamed the Republican led Congress for not doing more to make it harder for people to purchase guns. He ignored the fact that many Democrats are also opposed to his attacks on the Second Amendment. He wants stronger screening for those coming into the country without a visa. Say that again? You mean like the refugees? I thought they were already being thoroughly vetted by the strictest requirements ever. And why do you have to strengthen that anyway? A foreign national without a visa can't legally purchase a gun in the United States now.

Obama took the last half of his speech to tell us what we cannot do in the War on Terror. He does not want to be drawn into another long protracted war on the ground. I think everybody agrees with that, which means go in there and bomb ISIS into oblivion. Right now 80% of all sorties we are flying are coming back with unexpended ordnance because Obama won't let them drop anything if there's the danger of one civilian being injured. You want to get serious about taking ISIS out remove the restrictions. This is another Vietnam scenario.

Further, he said, we should not turn against one another by defining this as a war of America against Islam. That's what ISIS wants, he said. No, I rather think what Obama said is what ISIS wants. If we finally wake up and realize that Islam has already declared war against the United States and we go after the terrorists wherever they are hiding including mosques and homes, we will absolutely destroy them. That's what ISIS is afraid of, and based on Muslim loving Obama's comments, he's probably afraid of it too.

He then suggested we need to enlist Muslim communities and Muslim leaders to join us in this battle. Fat chance. If he really believes that's possible he is the biggest ignoramus on earth. Actually I don't think he really believes that. He's doing all he can to defend Islam and prevent its expansion from being hindered.

He then told us that we must reject discrimination against Muslim communities, which begs the question: When and where have Americans ever discriminated on a large national or even local scale against Muslims? There is no evidence of any anti-Islamic movement or prejudice anywhere in America. In fact, we have been remarkably tolerant of Islam considering the attacks Muslims have made against America.

No, this performance was not calming or assuring. Rather, it was an insult to our intelligence. Obama has failed to understand the severity of the crisis we are in, has either failed or refused to recognize the enemy we are facing, has failed or deliberately refused to recognize the Islamic ideology we are at war with, and blindly refuses to admit that his policies have been wrong all along, and are the cause of this mess. At least he finally admitted this is a War on Terror and not just an overseas contingency problem, but he refused to link terrorism to Islam.

This address may well go down as the capstone of Obama's disastrous foreign policy.