US military jury clears SEAL in Iraq abuse case

[OakRidgeStars]

One down -- two more to go.

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http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/04/22 ... buse-case/

BAGHDAD (AP) — A U.S. military jury cleared a Navy SEAL Thursday of failing to prevent the beating of an Iraqi prisoner suspected of masterminding a 2004 attack that killed four American security contractors.

The contractors' burned bodies were dragged through the streets and two were hanged from a bridge over the Euphrates river in the former insurgent hotbed of Fallujah, in what became a turning point in the Iraq war.

The trial of three SEALs, the Navy's elite special forces unit, in the abuse case has outraged many Americans who see it as coddling terrorists.

A six-man jury found Petty Officer 1st Class Julio Huertas, 29, of Blue Island, Illinois, not guilty of charges of dereliction of duty and attempting to influence the testimony of another service member. The jury spent two hours deliberating the verdict.

"It's a big weight off my shoulders," a smiling and composed Huertas said as he left the courthouse at the U.S. military's Camp Victory on Baghdad's western outskirts.

"Compared to all the physical activity we go through, this has been mentally more challenging."

Huertas said he plans now to continue with his military career and "to go home and kiss my wife."

Huertas was the first of three SEALS to face a court-martial for charges related to the abuse incident and the verdict was a major blow to the government's case. All three SEALs could have received only a disciplinary reprimand, but insisted on a military trial to clear their names and save their careers.

The trial stems from an attack on four Blackwater security contractors who were driving through the city of Fallujah west of Baghdad in early 2004. The images of the bodies hanging from the bridge drove home to many the rising power of the insurgency and helped spark a bloody U.S. invasion of the city to root out the insurgents later that year.

The Iraqi prisoner who was allegedly abused, Ahmed Hashim Abed, testified Wednesday on the opening day of the trial that he was beaten by U.S. troops while hooded and tied to a chair.

Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Kevin DeMartino, who was assigned to process and transport the prisoner and is not a SEAL, testified he saw one SEAL punch the prisoner in the stomach and watched blood spurt from his mouth. Huertas and the third SEAL were in the narrow holding-room at the time of the incident, he added.

But defense attorneys tried to cast doubt on the beating claims, showing photographs of Abed after the alleged beating in which he had a visible cut inside his lip but no obvious signs of bruising or injuries anywhere else.

In her closing arguments, Huertas' civilian attorney Monica Lombardi pointed to inconsistencies between DeMartino's testimony and nearly every other Navy witness. She also reminded the jury of the terrorism charges against Abed, who is in Iraqi custody and has not yet been tried, saying he could not be trusted and may have inflicted wounds on himself as a way of casting blame on American troops.

"There was no abuse," Lombardi said. "This is classic terrorist training."

After the verdict, Lombardi said the jurors told her they had made their ruling because there were too many inconsistencies in the case and that they did not believe the prisoner.

Prosecutors refused to comment after the verdict, but in his closing argument Lt. Cmdr. Jason Grover said the SEALs were itching for payback for the killings of the Blackwater guards — two of whom were former SEALs — and that now the elite unit had "circled the wagons."

The court-martial of Petty Officer 2nd Class Jonathan Keefe, of Yorktown, Virginia, who is also charged with dereliction of duty on allegations he failed to safeguard the prisoner, is scheduled to begin Friday also at Camp Victory.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew McCabe, of Perrysburg, Ohio, the SEAL charged with assaulting Abed, is scheduled to be court-martialed May 3 in Virginia, where the three men are based.

[VBshooter]

Let's hope the other 2 do as well... it's shameful they have to go through this at all. Sends a pretty sad message to spec warriors..."do your job..get a court date" Political grandstanding to promote PC garbage.

[gunderwood]

Let's hope the other 2 do as well... it's shameful they have to go through this at all. Sends a pretty sad message to spec warriors..."do your job..get a court date" Political grandstanding to promote PC garbage.

Perhaps, I am not well informed on this particular event, but...

Just like LE, I expect them to behave well. Yes, they have hard jobs, but if a LEO behaves badly, I expect an investigation and punishment commensable to what a civilian gets. If that isn't "fair" then it isn't fair for everyone and shouldn't be the law. I don't know if these guys are guilty or not, that is for the jury to decide, but if their commanders thought they did something wrong, the UCMJ has proceedures to handle it. As far as I know the proceedures are being followed.

Are you infering that the Administration leaned on someone to get this out there? It is being politically timed?

Being a government agent, military, LE, civil servant, politician, etc. shouldn't give you special legal priviledges or exempt you from the law. That is a surefire recipe to get the wrong people in those jobs and for corruption.

[zephyp]

Let's hope the other 2 do as well... it's shameful they have to go through this at all. Sends a pretty sad message to spec warriors..."do your job..get a court date" Political grandstanding to promote PC garbage.

Shameful doesnt even come close Spence...we need to invent a new word for this type of evil in our government...shameful is what I feel about whats going on...its like watching a kid ruin something beautiful that you created...nothing you can do anymore about that...cant beast em...cant lock em in a room...all you can do is sit back and hope NO ONE SEES YOU SMACK THEM ACROSS THE BUTT A FEW TIMES...

[GS78]

I believe these SEAL team members would have been better off had they simply dispatched their detainee after getting what they could get from the dirtbag. There should not be these kind of chicken sh*T rules in a combat zone. Do whatever you have to do to win, go home.


......and lets not lose sight of the fact that this was because some raghead got punched during an interrogation.

........on the other hand, the Americans that were killed by his friends, were mutilated and drug through the streets, hanged on a bridge and burned. I think the raghead should have dissapeared into thin air, but I remember when SEALS were expected to do that.

[zephyp]

I believe these SEAL team members would have been better off had they simply dispatched their detainee after getting what they could get from the dirtbag.

[gunderwood]

So are the SEALs contesting that they did punch him in the face or are they admitting they did, but defending their actions as appropriate?

Still not sure what evidence we have that this is politically motivated. I dislike the Administration as much as the next guy, but why are you saying they are doing this to destroy the military?

[Vahunter]

Since the US is the only country playing by the rules I could care less if they had beaten Johnny Jihad to death. Any info they could get from him to save one life would be well worth it. Sorry but unlike our current administration I'm not into kissing terriosts asses.

[CowboyT]

You guys aren't making us look good at all by calling them "ragheads". Might as well use the word "negro" or any other racial/religious epithet.

That said, the trial of these SEALs is an absolute disgrace that should never have happened in the first place. The Dept. of "Justice" should've ended this before it started. THEY WERE DOING THEIR JOBS! THEY'RE SEALS!! You don't send in the SEALs to be nice!

[VBshooter]

I too think it would have been better to just eliminate the problem and avoid the nonsense these trials are providing.This kind of action IMHO can only cause others to be restrained in future actions for fear of retribution because some jihadist says he got mishandled. When it appears that your own government is more apt to charge you rather than support you it impairs the abilities of these people to act effectively.If the defendent got smacked in the teeth he probably deserved it and more.These Navy Seals should be congratulated for a job well done, not put on public display to show how fair we are to an enemy that uses a whole different play book.

[gunderwood]

You don't send in the SEALs to be nice!

I think that is the bigger issue. If you are going to send our troop into harm, you better allow them to kick butt and take names. Anything else is just police action and we how well that worked for Clinton. Historically, conflicts which are fought as a police action fail.

It isn't fair to the troops either. Militaries are trained for battle and generally don't do LE action well even when they are trained for it. The problem is that sometimes they are military and sometimes they are LE. You are asking them to make split second decisions at times on which they are. Given time and enough troops, someone, somewhere will make a bad decision. It doesn't take many bad decisions to completely undermine the police action you were undertaking.

If you aren't going to fight a war, don't go in the first place. It will only turn out badly if you do. There is a reason out founding fathers required Congress to declare war.

Emphesis mine:

I too think it would have been better to just eliminate the problem and avoid the nonsense these trials are providing.This kind of action IMHO can only cause others to be restrained in future actions for fear of retribution because some jihadist says he got mishandled. When it appears that your own government is more apt to charge you rather than support you it impairs the abilities of these people to act effectively.If the defendent got smacked in the teeth he probably deserved it and more.These Navy Seals should be congratulated for a job well done, not put on public display to show how fair we are to an enemy that uses a whole different play book.

Eliminating the problem only causes more problems for your police action. The problem is that a population that is under your police action expects fairness. If you fail to show it, they will resent you even more; don't forget that they are going to resent your being there anyways. Not being "fair" makes you an aggressor to even the moderates. They may not fight, but they will begin to passively support the opposition. You will lose your intel, women and children will be used as spies against you, etc. There are stories of women being used in Iraq to pace off US outposts for mortor attacks later. See, everyone becomes the enemy! The resource commitment goes through the roof to keep such a population under your thumb. In the end, you use a lot of resources to achieve nothing. Sure the politicians will tell you great things have been done, but nothing substantial has changed.

Police actions don't work unless you are willing to conquer and destroy a civilization. You will need to bring in immigrants and disperse the population throughout your empire. Probably make them slaves. Until the conqueror destroys their common bond, their culture, military police action always fails. Not right way, but it will eventually. Destroy the culture and replace it with something else or you will lose. Empires of old understood this and practiced it, where they didn't they had lots of trouble.

So what if their play book is different? Strategically, they must execute guerilla warfare. When they stood and fought, like Fallujah, they get their butts kicked. One of the things that worked well for us during the Revolutionary War was fighting in the woods, "sniping," etc. Especially early on, if we stood and fought, we lost. There are certainly moral and ethical issues with some of the tactics they have employed (I'm not comparing their implementation of the basic strategy to our founding fathers). Strategically, they would have to be complete idiots to not employ guerilla warfare. However, there certainly are more moral and ethical ways to wage such warfare. The Bitish complained greatly that we targeted officers and wouldn't line up and die like they perferred. One of the greatest sins of warfare is assumping that your enemy will fight like you.

The problem isn't so much that they aren't fighting "fair," but rather that our politicians, their aides and probably some people at the Pentagon are complete idiots! They underestimated the enemy and shut up anyone who disagreed. They assumed the enemy would fight like us. The assumed that we would be loved. They assumed that a smaller force would be a sign of restraint instead of weakness. They assumed that wars are won be technology, by racking up a bigger score. Score doesn't matter in war, destroying the will of your enemy is the only way you win, unless you are willing to kill them all. They couldn't have botched up these wars more if they tried. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out.

Has everyone forgot why we are fighting a war? You fight wars because reason has failed and your only option left is force. When using force all the rules go out the window, especially for your enemy and how they pan to engage you. If you're CCing and someone tries to take your life, you're not going to fight "fair." You will punch, scratch, bit, kick him in the balls, etc. until you are safe. Period.

The war can't end until you convince the other side that what they are fighting for isn't worth this anymore. Then you must give them a peaceful way out. If the options are die on the battlefield or die in your prision, what incentive do I have to stop fighting?

[BluemontGlock]

Fundimentally, I believe you do not send in soldiers unless you are fighting war, you do not send in soldiers to act like police, humanitarians, politicians, negotiators, or to run interface with the local population...Soldiers are killers of the enemy. period.

You send them in to fight a War, you set them up to win, you pull them out and send in all the other required skills sets that are not killing, destroying, interdicting, and pounding the enemy into bloody dust.

We should make no excuses for the damage that is caused if we have to send out troops...( did we apologize for bombing nagasaki? No, don't think so...) if you were playing nice in the first place, we wouldn't have to come over and kick your ass...don;t expect any breaks, actually you should expect a giant mess if we come over...now then, lets talk about the ways you can avoid that...are you interested...??? O to proud to talk like a human being? driven by religious lunacy? poltical idiology? does freedom give you te shitz...? AAAwwww, thats too- bad....OK, hold please... ((S2, send them in, full compliment of Abrams too...nah, no worries on the water buffalo's ..we won't be there long...)) HARD, FAST, & BRUTAL. it is war..not a picnic, not a fashion sale,... a war...

Giving the enemy the thought that they can abuse themselves and make our fighting men look bad...or have any access to our legal system, or the thought that they have ANY STANDING WHAT SO EVER IN OUR LEGAL SYSTEM is absolutley wrong...now i will say, holding people without a trial, court martial, etc..is also not acceptable...their standing is a prisoner of war/police action/ pissed off combatant, whatever...there is a process..use it...i do not know what the answer is there, but holding someone indefinitly strikes me as wrong as well...you can convict, release, pass back to thier own gov't, shoot them, whatever...but doing nothing is just that, doing nothing...

The world should know and inherintly understand, if you allow factions in your country to kill our citizens and hang them out for public display, YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE A BIG PROBLEM...a BIG MESSY PROBLEM...adn civilians are going to be hurt and Killed. EXCEPT IT or change your ways...

and as i have said, i liked it back when we only showed up to save the day and finish the fight, but things havr changed there as well...

My hat is off to the American Fighting Wo/Man...as it is easy for me to sit here at a cliamte controlled environment and type it, it is something else in its entirerty, to go and do it...
Thank god you do!

God Bless and God Speed! Carry On....

[OakRidgeStars]

Fox News is reporting that the second Navy seal has been found not guilty. More info to come...

[OakRidgeStars]

Update: Read all about it here.

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http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/04/23 ... llings-ml/



BAGHDAD -- A U.S. military judge has cleared a Navy SEAL of wrongdoing in the alleged beating of a prisoner suspected of masterminding the grisly 2004 killings of four American contractors in Iraq.

The military says the judge found insufficient evidence to convict Petty Officer 2nd Class Jonathan Keefe on charges of dereliction of duty.

Keefe -- one of three SEALS charged in the case -- was not accused of assaulting Ahmed Hashim Abed but of failing to prevent the abuse.

The case has drawn fire from at least 20 members of Congress and other Americans who see it as coddling terrorists to overcompensate for the notorious Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

[VBshooter]

BAGHDAD -- A U.S. military judge has cleared a Navy SEAL of wrongdoing in the alleged beating of a prisoner suspected of masterminding the grisly 2004 killings of four American contractors in Iraq.


How sweet it is to read those words......

[VAGentlemen]

Hate to join the chorus... but the Navy SEALS were not carrying out a police action, and were not exercising arrest powers. The terrorist came back in good condition with a fat lip. I bet he didn't go down without swinging.

AS a person who served in the AF as a security specialist, and currently serves his country in other capacities, I don't have much sympathy for the enemy, whomever the enemy might be.. foreign or domestic.

I also have even less tolerance for the way some of our soldiers and boarder patrol is being treated by our own govt, but that's a completely different topic. It's a different time now, brought on by pretentious politicians acting out of self interest and behaving badly. Again, another topic.

[GS78]

You guys aren't making us look good at all by calling them "ragheads". Might as well use the word "negro" or any other racial/religious epithet.

You are kidding right?

[GS78]

.This kind of action IMHO can only cause others to be restrained in future actions for fear of retribution because some jihadist says he got mishandled. .

If I am not mistaken, thats what happened in Beruit in 83, the guards were either reluctant to fire on the truck, or they were unarmed.

[GS78]

Well just McCabe left, and I think he goes to trial in Norfolk soon. He is the one team member actually charged with hitting the .......(dare I say it?)....
.... .RAGHEADTERRORIST.


on a lighter note, looks like The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)has won a fight over the TV show "south park" for references it finds offensive. The show was censored after a threat was posted on a internet site, claiming the comedy channel, and the producers of south park would find themselves shot and stabbed to death like a dutch film maker who made fun of the child rapist prophet mohammed. South park, and comedy channel bleeped out any references to islam in the episode. However they continue to make fun at every other religion. Islam, the religion of PEACE, is the only one exempt, and then only after some of the MUSLIM followers threatened to kill.....now then I don't want to sound like a racist, so I did not use the N word, as was mentioned earlier by someone else. The fact is that muslims, and islam are a blight on the United States. Period

[zephyp]

You guys aren't making us look good at all by calling them "ragheads". Might as well use the word "negro" or any other racial/religious epithet.

That said, the trial of these SEALs is an absolute disgrace that should never have happened in the first place. The Dept. of "Justice" should've ended this before it started. THEY WERE DOING THEIR JOBS! THEY'RE SEALS!! You don't send in the SEALs to be nice!

I'm not one to run around using "racial epithets" but I remember a time when combat soldiers were just that - combat soldiers. If someone in the unit thought someone was gay, they got beat up...dont take showers, they got beat up...speak out against America, they got beat up...not stick by your buddy or your unit, you got beat up bad...seriously...and the enemy was just that -- the enemy -- krauts were krauts -- zipperheads were zipperheads -- dinks were dinks...

I dont know if you've ever been in a combat unit but as a leader I always looked for the meat eaters...the ones I knew would not break down when the SHTF and that I could trust to do the job and accomplish the mission -- which was to maim, kill, pillage, plunder, and destroy the enemy...I guess all that changed around the time of the Vietnam conflict with the advent of stinking hippies and the booting of God from our schools...

By the way, in today's war the enemy are the RAGHEADS...and if that makes me look bad then so be it...I've had it with all the crap going on today...I aint going along with it and I aint afraid to say so...AND I can do that without repercussion -- unless I awoke this morning in Nazi Germany circa 1938...

Good point on the SEALS...and BTW, you dont send in combat troops PERIOD to be nice...you send them in to accomplish the mission. If you forgot what that was, see my comment above...