Jeffrey Evangelos of Friendship served four terms in the Maine House, from 2012-2022, where he was a leading advocate for criminal justice reforms, Native American sovereignty and civil rights and liberties. He served three terms on the Judiciary Committee.

As Graham Platner’s supporters bend themselves into pretzels defending what would be indefensible if a Republican had stated what Platner has been blathering on social media over a long period of years, I’ve come to wonder what would be the breaking point for his collapse.

The breaking point is Blackwater, now Constellis, the private military contractor that works for the CIA and the U.S. military. The very Blackwater that committed various war crimes in Iraq, including the Nisour Square Massacre, killing women and children, in 2007, at a time when Platner was in Iraq serving for the Marines.

He should have known. After Platner served his country for eight years in the military, he left the service in 2016. By his own admission, in 2018, he says he became bored. And what does Graham Platner do when he becomes bored besides his social media madness? He joined Blackwater, the war crime company, whose four employees were found guilty in U.S. courts of first-degree murder and manslaughter for their roles in killing innocent civilians in the Nisour Massacre, only to be pardoned by President Trump in 2020.

Platner should have known that joining Blackwater would be the defining moment in determining his fitness to serve and his poor judgement. Yet besides his vacuous excuse that he was bored, he hasn’t been able to pile up the same compulsive lies that have characterized his campaign on his other racist and homophobic assaults. 

Instead, in a tape released by Platner himself, Platner disparages the military service and his role in it. But let’s be clear here, this is not Vietnam and there is no draft. Platner joined the Marines on his own volition. He then joined a mercenary army for a six-figure salary, because he was bored?

It’s well known that the Iraq War was wrapped in lies; there were no weapons of mass destruction. Even George Bush admitted it. But rather than take responsibility for his military adventures, including his association with the war criminals Blackwater, he says this, in defining his campaign for the U.S. Senate, in describing his opponents and the military: “To know that it’s coming from the same political establishment that frankly made me go fight these wars in the first place is like doubly infuriating. It’s like you made me go, like … I volunteered to go do this stuff, you sent us off, you took advantage of us, you took advantage of our patriotism.”

Nobody made you go, Mr. Platner. You joined. There is no draft. You joined knowing full well that the Iraq War was shrouded in lies at a cost of 200,000 innocent civilians and 500,000 Iraqis. Then you decided to double down and went to work for a mercenary army, Blackwater, as recently as 2018, whose employees were guilty of war crimes. You should have known this, Mr. Platner. This information should have informed your decision regarding joining this mercenary army. 

But it’s as if it never happened. Platner excuses Blackwater away. He was bored, he says, blames others, a collective denial of responsibility, as he hypnotizes himself and his supporters. It reminds me of what Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter said in his acceptance speech in 2005 critiquing the Iraq War and U.S. foreign policy. The same goes for the terror perpetuated by Blackwater, Platner’s former employer.

Said Pinter: “It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”