[BIGLOOK]

It's curious to me that the convening officer isn't their former SEAL team leader or CO of the team unit; that authority has been passed off to Maj Gen Cleveland at CENTCOM. Hmmm....makes me think this is just a political brouhaha.

Let's look into 'unlawful command influence' next.

[Tallguy]

Any chance that the lower command levels ‘punted’ on this? Or did the SEALs waive hearings at the lower levels? Truly, I have no clue as to how this type of thing works.

[Tallguy]

1 other thing that I read about this a couple of days back... 3 other SEALs were listed as witnesses. 1 of the 3 was an officer, and so might have been the Team Leader. Perhaps this is part of the reason why the case is starting at such an unusually high command level?

[OldDeckHand]

"It's curious to me that the convening officer isn't their former SEAL team leader or CO of the team unit"

For whatever reason, their unit commander felt that the charges merited punishment that could only be non-judicially provided by Admiral's Mast (in this instance, a US Army MajGen). Since, they refused Mast, it's appropriate that their unified combatant commander act as convening authority for the special court-martial.

I don't agree with the charges, but the "mechanics" of how this has played out, are accurate.