SEALs Who Caught High-Profile Terrorist Now Face Court-Martial

The military is throwing the book at three terrorist-hunting Navy SEALs who captured one of the most wanted in Iraq.

It seems one of the commandos may have punched Ahmed Hashim Abed, who intelligence reports said planned the bloody ambush of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah, Iraq, five years ago.

Instead of plaudits, three SEALs face court-martial in January. And conservatives are expressing outrage to HUMAN EVENTS.

Abed, whom the U.S. command designated "Objective Amber," was nabbed in darkness Sept. 3 by a platoon of commandos from SEAL Team 10, based in Norfolk.

The next few hours proved a bit comical. The SEALS took him to an Iraqi police station to enter the country's judicial system. But when the higher-ups were notified, they told the sailors to get him back. He was too valuable. After hours of negotiations, the Iraqis gave him back and Abed ended up in a cell inside the U.S.-secured Green Zone.

Sometime along the way Abed alleged he was punched and showed a bloody lip to prove it.

The military is hypersensitive to any charge of prisoner abuse or any hint of a coverup. A SEAL officer immediately notified the chain of command. Next thing the SEAL platoon knew, they were writing out statements and being investigated by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS).

The SEALs were sent packing back to Norfolk. They will be arraigned next Monday and face separate special courts-martial. The case was first reported Tuesday by FoxNews.com.

Three other SEALs -- two officers and an enlisted man -- in the unit have given statements as witnesses. According to one statement obtained by Fox, the SEAL told investigators he looked in on the detainee and did not see any injuries.

The charges were brought by the commander of the special operations component of U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla.

Matthew McCabe, special operations petty officer second class (SO-2). Offenses: dereliction of performance of duty for willfully failing to safeguard a detainee; making false official statement; and assault.

Jonathan Keefe, SO-2. Dereliction of performance of duty and making false official statement.

Julio Huertas, SO-1. Dereliction of duty; making false statement and impediment of an investigation.

The March 2004 Fallujah atrocity was a turning point in the war. Insurgents ambushed four Blackwater agents, all former commandoes. They died in a hale of gunfire and grenades. Insurgents then burned the bodies and dragged them through town. Two were hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River, for the world media to see.

The gruesome picture was a wake up call to the U.S. military. It now knew it faced a vicious enemy able to spring attacks throughout the country.

Conservative bloggers are ridiculing the military for filing criminal charges against three brave warriors.

Elaine Donnelly, who heads the Center for Military Readiness and fights against a political corrected armed forces, said she is appalled.

“This prosecution is a disturbing vision of the demoralizing legal entanglements that our soldiers will face in the future if they capture murderous enemies in a war zone," she told HUMAN EVENTS. "Now that the Obama Administration has decided to play along with terrorists who demand an undeserved show-trial in New York City, terrorists know exactly how to exploit for their own benefit military regulations as well as civilian law. The prosecuting authorities’ thoughtless lack of judgment in this case reminds me of the canary in the coal mine, an unmistakable sign of dangers to come."

It would be only a guess, of course, but I would think they would be reluctant to have him exposed in any other environment, other than one which they can totally control, so to get the maximum intelligence out of him. I think it would diminish their ability to do that, if he were to be brought into this kind of thing.

As I said, just a guess on my part...

Well, here's my guess. NCIS and the prosecutors know their witness will make a terrible witness, not just from credibility but from his physical presence. The prosecutors have a bit of experience with Iraqi and Afghani witnesses who are not credible and blow their cases. Two examples are :
witnesses in the Article 32 of Justin Sharatt from the Haditha incident
and witnesses in the Court of Inquiry for the MARSOC incident in early 2007. In this case the witnesses were so unbelievably stupid and huge liars, I don't know how the members on that panel kept from LOLing.

So if the prosecution doesn't want the witness to testify about his claims of being punched, I start wondering why. Could it be they just want to win their case? Again, I get back to my question, what is the point of this trial? I can imagine why the Navy SEALS want it.....they weren't going to take this "nonjudicial" punishment on the hush-hush. What's the point of publicly going after these Navy SEALS who nabbed a terrorist that masterminded the killings of these contractors in Fallujah?

If you remember, the military launched an attack on Fallujah just 4 days after the four were killed. In November, it was a full-out battle....the biggest and baddest since Iraq was invaded. So this incident launched an attack and a horrific battle in Fallujah, but now the military wants to prosecute the men who might have punched the guy responsible.

Please. It stinks to high heaven.

I think my knowledge of the military's rules for treatment of prisoners shows it is more likely that I did than you.

Several times over the course of this thread, you've given ambiguous, plausibly deniable responses about ostensible combat experience when confronted, while at the same time trying to leave the impression you've seen combat.

I've seen this many times on the interwebz - it almost always means that the perpetrator (the perpetrator being you in this particular case) is full of s***.

BTW, I never mentioned my military experience, my combat experience or my experience in handling EPOWs. However, now that you, without any solicitation, chose to make it an issue, if you're willing to put your FR account where your mouth is, I can, beyond any shadow of a doubt, prove that I have, in fact, experience in all of the above. I'm also willing to bet that you WON'T verify in any way that you have any battlefield experience or any experience in handling EPOWS. You'll find some excuse for weaseling out of doing so. I've been through this.

You're claiming others here haven't served in battle, while holding your seemingly nonexistent combat experience as credibility for the argument that these REAL combat vets should be court martialed.

Okay then, put your FR account where your mouth is, I'll do the same. I've pinged a moderator to make it fair.

In leiu of that, please cease the charade.

You were saying ...

Well, here's my guess. NCIS and the prosecutors know their witness will make a terrible witness, not just from credibility but from his physical presence.

I think a lot of details will come out during the legal proceedings, so we're going on limited information here and that makes deductions notoriously suspect.

HOWEVER, it's clear from the news report that it's not the detainee making the charge, but a guard that is making the charge. So, I imagine that they won't have to have the detainee testify at all...

The source said the allegations began when a master-at-arms sailor assigned to guard Abed told a SEAL platoon commander that one of the operators had punched Abed in the stomach.

And quit tap dancing. It's more than obvious you haven't seen a day of combat in your entire life.

Let's try it this way: Who here advocates soldiers disobeying orders and violating regulations by mistreating prisoners? Anyone? Anyone here read AR 190–8/ OPNAVINST 3461.6, especially Chapter 5-1.a.(3)?

"The CI will be especially protected against all acts of violence, insults, public curiosity, bodily injury, reprisals of any kind, sexual attack such as rape, forced prostitution, or any form of indecent assault."

I'll say it again. I don't give a damn about these insurgents. I care about the honor of our military and the good order within it, which includes obeying orders. IF the charges are true, it was probably quite satisfying to give him a smack, but that is irrelevant.

They are not required to prove their innocence, numbskull

Thanks for the correction, but the insult was not called for.

And they shouldn't have been charged criminally--or even at captain's mast--in any event. Even if the charges were true, an oral counseling would have been more than sufficient.

Depending on the level, a Captain's Mast is a slap on the wrist. I have seen punishment elevated from an administrative slap on the wrist to a court martial through the resistance of the soldier. He was guilty as hell and went to jail for what was a very minor offense. You take your chances when refusing administrative punishment, kind of like doubling-down on a bet.

There have been two accounts of how the claims of “abuse” came to be known.

One - Abed told the Iraqi’s he had been punched after the Navy SEALS handed him over.
Two - a master-at-arms sailor assigned to guard Abed told a SEAL platoon commander that one of the operators had punched Abed in the stomach.

So it’s not clear how the allegations came to light. Did the master at arms witness it? Did the master at arms hear it from Abed when he wasn’t in the room? Did the Iraqis tell the master at arms, and then he turned in the allegation?

It’s not clear. What does seem clear is that you selected a detail, a minor point, to make your point on why the “detainee” aka terrorist just may not not need to testify while totally ignoring the larger point of the post. Why wouldn’t they want Abed to testify, and why is this going to trial?

The incident of the slaughter and mutilation of the four contractors in Fallujah launched an attack and then a full scale battle where many Marines were injured or killed. Now the military wants to prosecute the captors of this man because he might have been punched?

It does not pass the smell test. It is not logical. There is something else at play here.

You were saying ...

It’s not clear. What does seem clear is that you selected a detail, a minor point, to make your point on why the “detainee” aka terrorist just may not not need to testify while totally ignoring the larger point of the post. Why wouldn’t they want Abed to testify, and why is this going to trial?

On the contrary, that would be a major point.

But, as I said, much information will be missing now from news reports that will only come out in trial. That's to be expected.

However, when something is reported, then it's significant. And this was reported. So, in answer to your question of how they could have a trial without the detainee testifying -- that would happen according to the news report of this other person reporting it. That's one example that we've been given from the news report, and not something speculative.

And in answer to your question as to why the military might not want the detainee to testify -- as I said earlier, it would be to totally control his environment and to make him understand that he's totally under the control of the military, in order to get good intelligence out of him over the long run.

If you were in combat as you say you were and you had been captured by these animals how do you think you would of been treated.

Let's see the argument here: They are animals with abysmally low standards of prisoner treatment, so our military should lower its very high standards of prisoner treatment. Do I have that right?

You were saying ...

I guess I'm not getting through to you on this matter. If you don't understand what I am trying to say I give up trying.

Well, no matter what is going on or what are the circumstances, secret trials and/or keeping the names of the people charged secret is not the way that we ought to do things in this society.

So, no..., you won't be getting through to me on that particular item...

I agree with the other poster that I have no confidence that you ever served in combat or even in the military. And if you did you probably flew a desk. As I stated earlier the US Military adheres to the articles of war and the geneva convention and you can see clearly from the state run media that these terrorists have been treated extremely well. You can point to abu ghraib and other minor incidents during this long drawn out so called war on terrorism let me rephrase that to fit Ocommie’s description, it is a “man-caused disaster.” Who gives a crap if a known murdering animal gets a busted lip or a slug in the gut after being captured. Who really gives a crap except you bleeding heart commies. To say that the US military should lower their standards is a critical piece of this puzzle because commies like you love to tout that we should be above reproach when trying to fight and win a war is a out and out joke because the commies in charge have no standards at all. And further more the majority of the commies that are always running down our military and trying to control it to prevent it from winning have never spent one honest day serving this country in the military.

"Well, no matter what is going on or what are the circumstances, secret trials and/or keeping the names of the people charged secret is not the way that we ought to do things in this society."

In a situation where war is involved certain things have to kept secret. But that is not the point here.Revealing the names of these men and where they live puts them and their families in danger. Are you so stupid as to not to see that? And why? A thug recieved a fat lip?

As I stated earlier the US Military adheres to the articles of war and the geneva convention and you can see clearly from the state run media that these terrorists have been treated extremely well.

Exactly my point. We have very high standards, and we uphold them the vast majority of the time. We also have regulations to enforce those standards. And any servicemember who violates those regulations should be punished accordingly.

This shouldn't be that hard of a concept for people who know the military.

You can point to abu ghraib and other minor incidents during this long drawn out so called war on terrorism

Abu Ghraib happened exactly because of a lack of good order and discipline, failure to follow and enforce the regulations. To get away from the PC era, imagine what Patton would have done had this lack of discipline happened under his command regardless of whether it made it to the press. I'm not sure I want to imagine it, because it wouldn't be pretty.

Who gives a crap if a known murdering animal gets a busted lip or a slug in the gut after being captured.

The U.S. military. Always has, and hopefully always will. Like I said, do we have a bunch of thugs who will punch a compliant prisoner, or do we have a professional military? I believe we have the latter.

I kind of wish they'd just shot him on sight, would have saved everybody the trouble, but I guess he was probably wanted as an intelligence source.

You were saying ...

Revealing the names of these men and where they live puts them and their families in danger.

You're not going to change our society because you think this should be kept secret. That's not the way we operate.

Now..., on the other hand, if people (our voting public) thinks that these things should be kept secret, then, by all means, we can use the political process that we all have at our disposal to get this kind of policy enacted.

I don't think it will fly and I don't think it should ever "fly" (that is, to keep people's names secret that are charged and will be on trial) if they are citizens of this country. That is too much of a protection for our society (and also for soldiers, too). Can you imagine what the military could do is all charges and names of soldiers being charged and tried were kept secret and away from the public. It would be very ripe for abuse by officials and our own government.

It's by making it totally public that the people can know about it in the first place, decide if these people are honest and sincere (by knowing who they are) and applying pressure to our government, where necessary. Being kept secret would take that all away from us.

You were saying ...

You don’t get the point. I don’t expect you ever will.

Well, the point is that you see it one way and I see it the other way. And I've presented a solution that I point out will change things. You get the voting public to back what you're saying.

But, the fact of the matter is that it is not this way now, and I don't ever think it will be different (in that I think that it will always be that names of the accused and those going to trial won't ever be kept secret but will always be public).

However, you do have the solution to make it different than the way I think it should be -- which is the way it is now...

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