One of the problems with the war on terror is that we are not fighting uniformed soldiers from a recognized country. The soldiers we are fighting have no rules--they cut off people's heads with dull knives and they mutilate people and bodies without remorse. That is what makes the decision to proscute Navy SEALS for something they might not have done in capturing a terrorist leader in Iraq so strange.
Fox News is reporting today that three Navy SEALS have requested a trial by court-martial as the way to answer charges that they punched Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named "Objective Amber," when they captured him. Ahmed Hashim Abed was the alleged mastermind in the killing and mutilating of four Blackwater security guards in 2004. There is some question as to whether Ahmed Hashim Abed's wound was self-inflicted. Unfortunately, many of terrorists we are fighting understand our legal system in ways that we do not.
The article points out:
"Neal Puckett, an attorney representing McCabe, told Fox News the SEALs are being charged for allegedly giving the detainee a "punch in the gut."
"I don't know how they're going to bring this detainee to the United States and give us our constitutional right to confrontation in the courtroom," Puckett said. "But again, we have terrorists getting their constitutional rights in New York City, but I suspect that they're going to deny these SEALs their right to confrontation in a military courtroom in Virginia."
All I can conclude from the fact that these SEALS will be charged with anything at all is that our leaders do not understand the enemy they are fighting. That is a dangerous place to be in the middle of a war on terrorism.
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