Clubbing SEALS

[a_majoor]

From the NY Post; political correctness run amok:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/clubbing_seals_HL7IoVVGqlZpvWCXQRWcDJ

Clubbing SEALs
Last Updated: 3:25 AM, November 27, 2009

Posted: 12:31 AM, November 27, 2009

Punch a terrorist -- head for the brig.

Welcome to America's thoroughly modern military.

The notion beggars the imagination, but three Navy SEALs who helped capture one of the most notorious terrorists in Iraq now face courts-martial -- because the terrorist acquired a bloody lip after the takedown.

Ahmed Hashim Abed organized the brutal 2004 attack on four US civilian contractors working as security guards in Fallujah. After murdering the guards, terrorists dragged their bodies through the city, burning and hanging two of them over the Euphrates Bridge.

Fast forward to this past summer: Navy Petty Officers Matthew McCabe, Jonathan Keefe and Julio Huertas were part of a SEAL team that captured Abed.

Abed complained that he was punched on Sept. 1 during his initial detention. A fat, bloody lip was offered up as proof.

Imagine that.

Now McCabe is charged with assault, dereliction of duty and making a false statement; Keefe is charged with dereliction of duty and making a false statement; Huertas has the same charges as Keefe, plus one of impeding an investigation.

It's not hard to figure out what happened here: One SEAL slugged Abed -- no doubt for good reason -- and the other two wouldn't rat out their buddy to investigators who would've been better employed slugging Abed themselves.

And so the SEALs will be arraigned on Dec. 7 -- another reason for the date to live in infamy.

Ironically, if the three had treated Abed like Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq has routinely treated American soldiers it captures, his bloody, mutilated corpse would've turned up floating in a river.

(For the record, the number of US combat troops captured in Iraq and Afghanistan who have been recovered alive is approximately zero.)

What is especially ironic, to say nothing of infuriating, about the SEALs' inquisition is that it underscores the utter lack of curiosity exhibited by the Pentagon in the matter of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army shrink and Islamist.

Hasan was allowed to remain in contact with troops despite a distressingly long record of incendiary public rhetoric -- and copious e-mail traffic with an associate of Osama bin Laden.

The FBI and Army were on to him, but lacked the courage to confront him.

The result: 13 Americans dead, and 29 wounded, at Fort Hood.

The truth, of course, is that falling afoul of the diversity police is a quick way to end an otherwise promising career -- and the Pentagon and FBI know it.

SEALs, on the other hand, are fair game. What a scandal.

Meanwhile, we wonder.

What happens the next time America needs SEALs -- and there aren't any?

Or, at least, there aren't any who meet traditional SEAL standards -- the warriors having been chased away by the pettifoggers.

Outlandish?

Don't bet money on it.

 

[kratz]

At first glance, the headline had me thinking this was another PETA protest.  ;D

 

[sm1lodon]

I think the will of the American people to defend Muslim terrorists and crucify their own will fall dramatically after a few extremely catastrophic terrorist events on American soil, and no sooner. It might not be pretty, but, civil liberties for some groups will suffer, I think.

America didn't wake up to WWII until Pearl Harbor. Not even after the Nazis torpedoed an American ship. Now THAT is being apathetic and pacifistic, I think. Then they went "crucify-them-Japs" crazy, replete with "relocation camps" and general racial prejudice.

I wonder what the balancing act between individual freedom and freedom to plant terror-training-and-fomenting-centers will be in the coming years.

I mean, should it REALLY be legal to publish anti-American propaganda proclaiming that Americans should die in America while it is illegal to publish anti-Muslim literature?

Isn't there anyone else who thinks that is stupid other than me and Anderson Cooper?

I mean, if you are in America, and are proclaiming that Americans should all die, shouldn't they just boot your *** back to whatever gunpowder ghetto country you came from?

And if you are an American spouting that crap, then shouldn't they shoot you dead so you fulfill your own wishes?

I mean, when does it become treason to incite people to hate and kill Americans, while in America? AFTER you murder unarmed American soldiers in a military base, or perhaps, wonder of wonders, BEFORE you get to the point of doing that?

I mean, if freedom of speech is so sacred, does that mean it is also legal to proclaim that everyone should do OTHER murderous, seditious and immoral acts?

Freedom of speech is great. Within limits. Being able to publish outright lies for years (a la New York Times) or incite others to murder and suffer no punishment? I mean, when does it go too far?

Freedom to be free is fine. Allowing freedom to incite others to murder is not freedom, it's stupidity run amok. Tolerance is fine. But tolerance is not defined as tolerating others to trample you because they are intolerant.

 

[CallOfDuty]

Wow...I agree....this is stupid.