Navy SEALs Face Assault Charges for Capturing Most-Wanted Terrorist

Just found this on Fox News website. Two of the three were arraigned today. Link to story here

Two Navy SEALs Arraigned in Military Court, Accused in Mistreatment of Iraqi Suspect

Monday, December 07, 2009

NAVAL STATION NORFOLK, Va. — Two Navy SEALs accused in the mistreatment of an Iraqi suspect in the 2004 slayings of four U.S. contractors were arraigned in military court Monday, and one SEAL said he was gratified by support from the public and some members of Congress.

The judge scheduled courts-martial next month for Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew McCabe of Perrysburg, Ohio, and Petty Officer 1st Class Julio Huertas of Blue Island, Ill. A third SEAL will be arraigned later.

The SEALs have received an outpouring of public support on the Internet, and a California congressman has led a campaign urging Defense Secretary Robert Gates to intervene. About three dozen protesters, including the mother of one of the slain contractors, stood outside the Norfolk Naval Station gate Monday morning holding signs of support.

McCabe is accused of striking the detainee in the midsection, dereliction of duty for failing to safeguard the detainee, and lying to investigators. He deferred entering a plea until his Jan. 19 trial.

McCabe told reporters he was confident he would be exonerated.

"I feel very good about it," he said as he made his way through the crowd of supporters, shaking hands and thanking them. "The support is phenomenal. It makes us feel better, all these people being behind us."

Huertas pleaded not guilty to charges of dereliction of duty, lying to investigators and impeding an investigation. His trial was set for Jan. 11.

"He's been a hero — two tours of Iraq and one tour of Afghanistan — and now this is the thanks he gets," Huertas' civilian attorney, Monica Lombardi, told reporters after the arraignment.

Military attorneys were not available for comment.

McCabe and Huertas both deferred a decision on whether to be tried by a military judge or jury. Lombardi said they couldn't choose because they still have not received the prosecution's evidence.

The men could have accepted a nonjudicial reprimand but wanted to go to trial to clear their names, Lombardi said. A reprimand could have resulted in a loss of rank; if they are convicted at trial, they could get up to a year in jail, a bad conduct discharge, or a loss of rank or pay.

McCabe declined to talk to reporters about specifics of the case. His father, Marty McCabe of Las Vegas, said all his son did was his job.

"It just turns my stomach to have these people send him over there and put him in harm's way, and then they don't have his back when he gets home," Marty McCabe said.

Military officials have cautioned against a public rush to judgment, saying a true picture will emerge when all the evidence is heard. However, more than 45,000 people have signed onto a Facebook page supporting the SEALs, and U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., said in a letter to Gates last week that the prosecution was an overreaction by the military.

The charges stem from an alleged assault after the SEALs captured Ahmed Hashim Abed in early September. Abed is believed to be connected to the killings of four Blackwater security guards who were protecting a convoy when they were attacked by Iraqi insurgents. Their burned corpses were dragged through the city, and two of them were hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River.

Donna Zovko of Cleveland, whose son Jerry Zovko was among the slain contractors, said the prosecution of the SEALs who captured Abed was "very heartbreaking."

"For these young Navy SEALs, I am very thankful and hopeful that they will be OK," Zovko said.

Along with McCabe and Huertas, Petty Officer Jonathan Keefe of Yorktown, Va., is charged with dereliction of duty and making a false official statement. His arraignment has not been scheduled.

The SEALs, based at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek in Norfolk, are not in custody.
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While browsing through the blogosphere, it was mentioned that not too long ago, Rush had a discussion with a retired MI officer on the air (Greg from NC, broadcast last week sometime). According to the aforementioned retired dude, the UCMJ proceedings are being pursued as a direct result of the SEALS' actions in the rescue of the captain of the Maersk Alabama. Supposedly, POTUS set the ROE so that it would almost completely preclude the killing of the pirates on that lifeboat, and was subsequently less than amused when the SEALS did take the shot. He allegedly took credit for ordering the shot to keep from looking like an appeasing shitbag when the general population applauded the deaths of the floating skinnies. The prosecution of the three SEALS, therefore, is the administration's way of "getting back at" the Navy SEAL organization for the actions taken off the coast of Somalia.

Since I'm in no way connected to the MI community, I couldn't tell you if this is more than mere conjecture. However, looking back at how the administration has run the show up to this point, it really wouldn't surprise me in the least if this was, indeed, an attempt at childish vengeance at the expense of three outstanding Sailors' careers.
 
After a little hunting, I found a transcript of the call that I was referring to.....

RUSH: Greg in North Carolina, great to have you on the phone here, sir. Welcome to EIB Network.

CALLER: Hi, Mr. Limbaugh, how are you?

RUSH: Fine, sir.

CALLER: Good. I just wanted to call and kind of give a little more insight on this SEAL team situation. I was in the teams for 20 years. I have multiple-decade military service and came in not long after Vietnam. I also worked for Blackwater for a few years in Iraq and know one of the guys that was killed at Fallujah quite well. But, anyway, the point I’m going to get at here is that I think there’s quite a bit of evidence that this is kind of a backwash from the situation of a couple months ago when the SEAL operators rescued Captain Phillips off the coast of Somalia. You may recall that situation.

RUSH: Yes, I do.

CALLER: Well, the truth behind that situation is that the SEAL operators were kept off the scene for well over 36 hours. There was a lot of foot dragging by the commander-in-chief’s people in letting them in the theater. After they were in theater and in place they were given a very restrictive ROE: Rules Of Engagement. The ROE was so restrictive that really they couldn’t engage their targets. There were two previous opportunities to rescue Captain Phillips, and they were not allowed to take those opportunities.

RUSH: Let me stop you here because people may not know. We’re talking Somali pirates. We’re talking about the Maersk cargo ship that a bunch of Somali pirates, teenagers, took over. One of them eventually died, and the media credited Obama — honest to God, folks, the media credited Obama — with giving the order to pull the trigger. Now you may resume the story, sir.

CALLER: Okay. When they finally did engage the hostiles, they did it liberally interpreting the ROE, and the on-site commander finally was kind of fed up with the situation and gave them a weapons-free command and they were able to engage and rescue Captain Phillips. The fallout from that was immediate and rather violent in its anger. The White House people — I don’t know the president himself, I just know their representatives with the chain of command — were absolutely livid with this and they did not want the rescue to be conducted in the way that it was. You know, I cannot prove this because I would have to give names and I’m not giving names for obvious reasons. But the bottom line is that on very good, solid inside information, the national command authority past the Pentagon was not happy.


RUSH: So let me cut to the chase here. So what I think I hear you saying is the blowback that you mentioned is, this is payback for the SEALs violating the ROE on this captain of the Maersk; and this is the chain of command reasserting itself, letting everybody know who’s boss and what’s going to happen to you if you don’t follow orders?

CALLER: That is my rather experienced opinion — and, frankly, the opinion of others
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RK - If that is even partially true, I am more disgusted with our "leader" than ever before... WTF is my country doing to itself????
 
I've got my pitchfork, and my torch at the ready.

I hope the people pursuing these SEALs have an airtight case, or else a hundred thousand people like me are going to light up every blog, website and forum in every way imaginable about it.

Every serviceman and every servicewoman should be paying very close attention to this case.

So far, what I know is that members of the military are in trouble for punching a terrorist in the nose. It doesn't look too good.
 
Update to the story...

http://www.military.com/news/article/officer-seals-charges-wont-be-dropped.html

An update.

It appears that the abuse allegations were made, not by the detainee, but other US Servicemembers.

It would be way too easy and expedient for MG Cleveland to drop the charges if it were a simple matter - especially given the interest Rep Burton has expressed through his correspondence. As i've suspected all along, there is more to this story and of serious gravity to merit criminal prosecution.

:2c: renewed
 
I've got to call BS on the story related to Rush. I'd need to see some serious, unbiased corroboration before I believe any of that conspiracy theory.
 
CBTech said:
Here's an update, these Frogs requested court-martial. What does that tell you?

:2c: renewed
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Taking your point of view to mind, my guess is that the Seals figured if they upped the ante, asked for court martial, and played the patriotism card, the command would relent.

If that is so, then MG Cleveland just called their bet.
 
If you think my point was to say the SEALs were hedging their bets then you are mistaken. I have reason to believe they were, more than likely, raising the Bull Shit flag.

I believe, personally, 3 guys are caught in the middle of someone else's pissing contest. Or is this axe grinding?
 
CBTech said:
If you think my point was to say the SEALs were hedging their bets then you are mistaken. I have reason to believe they were, more than likely, raising the Bull Shit flag.

I believe, personally, 3 guys are caught in the middle of someone else's pissing contest. Or is this axe grinding?
Click to expand...

Look, I don't think this court martial is a good idea, especially if that which is thus far known is the extent of the issues. But if this is a settlement of some score, then who's vendetta is being settled? The use of this venue (court martial by the TSOC) doesn't support your theory.

The published circumstances are a bit mild for MG Cleveland to be digging his heels in so hard. If there were relief of command of one or more more senior leaders on top of these preferred charges, that would be compelling. To my knowledge, that is not the case.
 
I agree Gypsy. Some part of me wonders if the hajji will embellish his claims once he's on the stand. More than likely he won't, but it would be interesting to see.
 

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