Last of Navy SEAL 3 acquitted
More from the AP:
A military jury in Virginia found a Navy SEAL not guilty Thursday on charges of punching a suspected Iraqi terrorist.
Jurors deliberated about an hour and 40 minutes before returning their verdict in the court-martial of Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew McCabe.
The 24-year-old Perrysburg, Ohio, man was tried at Naval Station Norfolk on accusations of assaulting Ahmed Hashim Abed, who is suspected of plotting the 2004 slayings of four U.S. contractors in Fallujah.
The prosecution’s key witness had testified he saw McCabe deliver a right cross to Abed’s midsection. However, several defense witnesses contradicted portions of that testimony.
And via Fox News:
McCabe, a special operations petty officer second class, called the proceedings “troubling at times,” adding “having your career on the line is not an easy thing to handle.
McCabe was the third and final Navy SEAL to be prosecuted in the case. He had faced charges of assault, making a false official statement and dereliction of performance of duty for willfully failing to safeguard a detainee. McCabe was accused of punching last year is Ahmed Hashim Abed, the suspected mastermind of the grisly killings six years ago.
After the court martial, the 24-year-old from Perrysburg, Ohio, thanked the public for its continued support.
“It’s been great everything they’ve done,” he told Fox News. “But, don’t worry about it anymore. We are putting this all behind us. It’s done and over with. I’m going to try not to think about this ever again.”
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Categories: War
Villainous Company
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’bout damn time
Can’t imagine why it got this far, but as it did, I’m very happy for this verdict.
Gee, why isn’t this as big as the news when they were charged?
Thank the Lord. It’s a travisty that this happend to begin with. Now let’s take care of Amed, or whatever his towel head name is.
God Speed to all three SEAL’s.
Its unbelieveable they were charged in the first place.
They stood tall and won.
I wish I could agree, but, every US service member will be thinking about this every time they come into contact with the enemy in every situation. Will they be court-martialed for doing their jobs?
The outcome may have been good, but the persecution itself will have a chilling effect. People will be killed.
Rumor has it that this whole charade was payback from Obama for the killing of the Somali pirates.
I would love to know who filed the charges originally and why someone in their chain of command did not stop this charade. Isn’t there a senior officer anywhere who has some gonads these days?
Indeed.
Why does our government want to punish those who protect us?
Remember Ramos and Compean?
Republicanvet asks, “Gee, why isn’t this as big as the news when they were charged?” Because prosecutors habitually try their cases in the press before taking them into court, same as any civilian prosecutions, and they always cover up their losses, since looking good is more important than seeing that justice is done.
*First good news story of the day, and heartwarming as well; We need these young men and women to continue to defend our country, so it would be nice to someday have a CiC on their side for a change; Next time, pop a cap in Ahmed on the battlfield.
Yes I do remember. I have the “To Protect and Serve Time” Border Patrol T-shirt (and bought a few for friends). The TSA at the Vegas airport loved them.
Hopefully they are laying low and trying to restore themselves from the devistation that was inflicted on them and their families.
this is insane that our warriors are abused like this, incredible, like everything else that the leftists have turned upside down in our nation.
the names of every one of these charging officers and jag prosecutors should publicized. they are miserable scum and they deserve some consequences for smearing these good SEALs in a time of war.
I am apoplectic that this even ever occurred!!!!
names! who are the liars who falsely accused our guys of some kind of crime for “hitting” an enemy at war, is there a firing squad for lairs like that?
I hold Obeyme and the coward Robert Gates responsible.
Nov 2 baby for some payback.
After being aquitted, they were told their next duty station would aboard the USS John Murtha.
The POS PC individual/s that brought this to court, should be tried for treason, and have their pink panties taken away.
Medals, increase in grade, plus a cash bonus taken from the above stated POS to the Navy Seals involved.
Put me in charge!
Murtha was unavailable for comment.
He was busy doing satan’s laundry.
Rogue,
You beat me to it by a minute!
It’s about time! How did this ever get this far? Heaven knows what might happen the next time a soldier shoots a terrorist.
I am sure Obama will change the ROE to require group sessions before our troops can lock and load…
They deliberated about an hour and 39 minutes too long in my opinion.
This should have been very easy to agree on.
Glad they all were acquitted. Score one for the good guys.
I wish you were in charge of it leatherneck!
Thank God
I am happy for ther SEAL and for the acquittal.
If this guy were an Officer it would have never gotten this far. Col West, now running for Congress in Florida, discharged his weapon while interrogating a detainee.
‘Tuning up’ an individual or acting in exigent circumstnces has to be viewed in context.
I can.
Dead wrong.
I don’t know if they’re liars, but here are the names of the accused.
Ahmed Hashim Abed and Petty Officer 3rd Class Kevin DeMartino
Sorry, the names of the accusers.
They played a couple of rubbers of bridge.
this just makes my heart jump with happiness and joy…thank god our prayers have been answered. Now someone go after the dickweed that pushed for this in the 1st place. I personally had a lousy day but I will sleep better tonite knowing these patriots have been cleared.
OT, Sara the sweeatheart of all the conservatives has shown her true colors again by endorsing Fiorina, another RINO she’s attracted to.
IMHO. good nite and good bye Sara…I thought she was too good to be true.
I think Haditha taught EVERYONE in the chain that no matter how petty the accusation, ANYONE in the chain must go the extra mile no matter what in investigating and/or prosecuting no matter how slight the offense.
EVERYONE in the chain is afraid of some schmuck terrorist sympathizer in the drive-by media happening upon another planted video tape. That tape overplayed in the media, and some military hating leftist demanding a congressional hack hold hearings.
…and someone in the chain being hung for something they didn’t believe warranted an investigation.
Yup….and maybe she’ll make it a threesome with Tammy Bruce…
I have a feeling the Repubs will screw up their 2010 opportunity before Novemeber…
I have a feeling the Repubs will screw up their 2010 opportunity before
Novemeber…oops, November…BTW->McCain=Palin
The bureaucrats who brought this phony case against Lt. McCabe are the kindred spirits of Richard Goldstone and his UN colleagues who accused Israel of war crimes for defending themselves against Islamic fanatics. For the bureaucrats who brought the bogus case against the Navy Seals and Lt. McCabe and for the Goldstones of the world, there is a very sick political correctness in which being Muslim and Arab is akin to being saintly. To these folks, Muslims and Arabs are an aggrieved ethnic group. Therefore, any claims made by Muslims and or Arabs is considered true and no investigation need be done. In this crucible of political correctness, men like Richard Goldstone, who never spent one day in uniform, have the gall to pass on judgment on Lt. McCabe, the Navy Seals, the US armed forces and the IDF.
Wonderful news for these heroes who risk their lives daily for America!
Of course this will enrage AP who demanded their heads on a silver platter at HotAir – but we can only surmise he’s just gotta be used to consistently being on the wrong side of just about everything by now.
Can our government stop harassing and handcuffing our soldiers now?
Not if the UN has it’s way.
NATO proposes awards for…Courageous Restraint
Thank God!
Special Operations Petty Officer Second Class McCabe is a big man in wanting to put this all in the past. I couldn’t if I were in his place.
How crazy is it that we give enemy combatants the right to sue our soldiers? Will this stop the higher ups from trying to quell the fighting spirit of our military who, after all, are just following their orders to catch and subdue enemies?
The case is a travesty of all that is sane! Thank God it ended the right way!
On May 6th, 2010 at 10:09 pm, traveler49 said:
He was busy doing satan’s laundry.
he had his mouthful chewing out the hash marks!!!
It got that far because a Navy Corpsman with a grudge decided to make a name for himself.
Thankfully, the members of the jury rightfully acknowledged that the corpsman had no witnesses to back him up and they didn’t think a punch in the stomach was worth destroying the lives of the three SEALs.
Hopefully, in the future they will either shoot the scum instead of capturing them or use extraordinary rendition and let someone else get intelligence out of them before they bury their bodies in the desert.
SEALS aren’t policemen. They aren’t out there, in harm’s way, to act like police officers. They’re trained to blow up things and kill people. Abed should be happy he’s alive, and not scattered across the desert. If the Left has its way, all soldiers would have Miranda cards and read them to prisoners, with teams of lawyers waiting to “protect” them.
Ronald Reagan would have fired everybody involved in the persecution. Our enemies must be laughing their arse off right now. The rule of law if fine with left wing wackos when it comes to persecuting our soldiers, but unnecessary when it comes to enforcing immigration laws.
This whole fiasco was sickening. The average American doesn’t care if they belted the terrorist or not.
I was relieved when I heard about this last night – indeed, thank God all of these guys can get on with there career. Zyzzyg – Lt Col West went through an Article 32 hearing [military version of an indictment hearing; i.e., are the charges valid and is there enough evidence?] From what I can gather, he accepted non-judicial punishment and then retired – the njp effectively ended his career. Let’s not be too quick to say officers are pampered and get away with things. I’m a 21-yr SNCO – I’ve met some officers I don’t care for, believe me, but from what I can tell I’d go to war with Lt Col West. Who apparently, is at least a tacit supporter of the Tea Party.
er…. their careers, I should say….
I’m glad they were freed.
But, I’m NOT glad this happened in the first place!
They SHOULD have all been given Bronze Stars!
Very troubling that those risking their lives are seen as less trustworthy and honorable than those who perpetually attempt to and succeed in killing us.
The pc left is derranged and dangerous.
You stand by your buddies, especially in a case like this. The terrorist should be glad he wasn’t “executed”, instead of taken prisoner.
What a BS prosecution this was. Political correctness in the military is sickening. A couple of days ago we let an Iranian military plane hover above one of our carriers, consucting up close spying to their heart’s content. Unfortunately we needed the permission of Big Daddy in the WH to blow it out of the sky as we should have done. Our military has been neutered by liberals who couldnt tell evil if it jumped up and bit them in their spineless backs.
corkie, here’s more:
Hope he doesn’t get the job.
That’s right and it’s called war.
I listened to a soldier, Marine(?) explain that when he called into Rush Limbaugh back in November. I’ve been watching our response to piracy ever since.
It’s a blot on our country that it ever came to this, but yes, Thank God these men are free!
The left still believes that, if we’re nice to the terrorists, they’ll be nice to us. “All the world needs is love”. That’s why they try so hard to blame any bomb or other attack on “right-wingers” and “tea partiers”. Terrorists in jail, live better than they ever have lived. I wonder how long it will be before our snipers get charged with murders. History shows, time and time again, when a power is broke and the society devalues its morals and values, it fails.
From a public relations perspective, it seems to me that recent, over-zealous US Military prosecutors have had a horrible track record with attempting to convict their battlefield heros.
Is there any available, legal recourse against these failed, over-zealous prosecutors?
It seems to me that their pendulums need to be straightened.
I’d like to see a letter of reprimand put in the jacket of the officers who allowed this nonsense to go forward. All because one nervous nellie thought his own future career with the Highway Patrol might be threatened if his didn’t rat on his fellow sailors for a petty perceived incident.
I don’t think you can blame the lawyers. I think you have to blame the commanders that insist on taking cases to trial for political reasons – even if the case is incredibly weak. (I’ve witnesses this first hand.) The commanders are known as convening authorities – they convene the court martial. The prosecutors are merely doing their jobs for their client.
Unfortunately, our military commanders are far too influenced by the politics that trickle down from the White House.
Praise God!
Islamic terrorists are not members of the human race.
You have to keep in mind here that it was the Seals choice to go to courts martial. The problem started when they were charged with assault (in an effort to avoid having the press run a Seals allowed to go wild expose) and offered nonjudicial punishment (article 15). to which they wisely said “no thanks, we’ll take our chances in court”. I’m no lawyer, but I believe that once an article 15 is turned down by the accused, the commander has to convene a courts martial. but I could be wrong on that point. I understand that SecDef and/or CINC could have dropped the charges administratively, but chose to let it run its course and cn now say “see, the system works”.
As mentioned, the media coverage of the acquittals is scant compared to the initial charges.
In baseball we would cal this an O-fer!!!
I thought I read something a little differently about this case. If I’m not mistaken, court-martial proceedings were requested by the defendents in order to clear them of any wrong-doing (the incident was going to be placed as a mark on their record). They (the Seals) did the honorable thing by insisting that a trial be held to exhonerate their actions and to make sure that the truth was brought to light.
When the cameras are gone and the SEALs are back with their teams, watch what is going to happen next, very, very, very quietly. The Navy effectively, substantially deal with the sailor who falsely testified that the SEALs abused their prisoner.
He danced. Now he will have to pay the fiddler.
I have a first cousin who is career Navy (stationed in Spain), so I couldn’t be more pleased with this news! Although I do wonder if, given her reaction to NYC car bomber Shazhad being a Muslim, MSDNC’s Contessa Brewer feels the same?
While you’re point is correct, your statement isn’t as accurate as it could be.
They didn’t request a court martial. They refused to be punished without a court martial – which is their right. That meant that a commander (the convening authority) had to chose between dropping the charges and proceeding to trial.
Here’s what McCade said yesterday:
I knew these heroes would be cleared.
Yay!
THis is great news, but the damage is done. Our guys will be second guessing themselves and hesitating for fear of doing something that will get them dragged before a court. Good American Hero lives will be lost because of these prosecutions.
War is court-martialing your troops for doing their jobs? That’s an interesting take on things.
Next time they’re looking for al Qaeda, why not just send a lawyer?
JHSII, I’m good at misinterpreting and maybe that was the case with your post.
Your first sentence and last sentences caught my attention:
My interpretation was that now a soldier may just go ahead and kill the enemy rather than try to take him into custody. War.
Thanks for the clarification, Corkie.
These ridiculous charges should never have been brought in the first place, and I am so relieved that these three young men have been acquitted.
What has become of our country when military personnel are being punished for protecting us?
The cowardly fanatical thugs who tortured and murdered the American contractors are the ones who should be punished. Ask the surviving family members what they think should be done with them. I can predict the response.
I am a little late in chiming in, but I wanted to add my two cents.
First: I am glad that the SEALs were exonerated of all charges. This never should have been an issue and I hope that it sets a precedent the next time some terrorist thinks he can try to get our military into trouble.
However, I am going to speak up about the lawyers that are getting shredded here. I know that it’s repugnant to a lot of folks that there had to be a trial, but we still have laws.
As was pointed out earlier, the SEALs could have accepted Non Judicial Punishment. The end result would have been them being punished and a mark on their service record books entered.
Instead, they exercised their rights to refuse NJP and demand a court martial. This made things a lot more difficult for the prosecuting attorneys since they had to work within rules of evidence to prove that a crime had been committed.
And really people, it’s not like the JAG folks get thrilled at the idea of going after their own people for something like this. But the prosecuting attorney had a job to do. Barring a conflict of interest, he could not refuse the case and he had to do his best to make sure that the SEALs were found guilty beyond reasonable doubt. So I wouldn’t be too upset with them for what happened here.
Blame the man that the SEALs caught instead.
Eh, it’s never too late.
Be that as it may, I can’t imagine any soldier who has served in the thick of it enjoying being tried and judged by some desk jockeys whose toughest fights in their lives have been against over-flatulence.
#55 corkie said:
Thank you, Corkie. My concern is with anyone who insists on pressing an incredibly weak case. In my opinion, their names should be just as household as the fighting men and women who are accused.
On May 7th, 2010 at 1:55 pm, GladzKravtz #67
My point was that soldiers shouldn’t have to be looking over their shoulders in fear of being prosecuted for just doing their jobs. That fear will get soldiers killed because they won’t be concentrating on the job at hand.
Secondly, the soldiers now know that their superiors don’t have their backs, and will in fact side with the enemy in cases where accusations are made against a soldier.
The good news is that they were exonerated. The bad news is that they now know that they can’t trust their commanders.
What you say has a great deal of validity and merit.
My understanding is that the SEALs wanted to go Courts Marshall because they were unwilling to accept the ‘punishment’ initially pursued. It may have also been some form of NJP.
Col West’s case did not go as far as the SEALs case for any number of reasons. Col West had more years in and could retire with a pension. The SEAL may have been discharged and did he (they) have the length of service required to recieve a military pension?
We remain is disagreemnt, I maintain that Oficers are treated differently from enlisted personnel.
Most likely because he didn’t request it. I have no idea of his motives, but if you are under military punishment especially as severe as his, you can request a court martial, it’s basically asking for a trial instead of a plea bargain….
Some JAGs/judges were war fighters prior to law school. And the juries aren’t supposed to be all desk jockeys.
I think that’s a great idea. Someone should post the name of the officer that convened these courts martial.
Your comment is stupid from start to finish.
Wrong. They didn’t want to go to court martial. They wanted the charges dropped, but that wasn’t their decision.
They refused to accept punishment without a trial, so a commander took the case to trial.
What are you unintelligibly grasping for here?
1. The SEALs were all offered lighter punishments than Allen West was initially offered.
2. Allen West was punished more severely than all the SEALs.
Both these facts directly contradict your original assertion.
Of course you do – even though you don’t have a good reason to maintain this belief. It merely fits your liberal, I repeat, liberal meme of a repressive social hierarchy in America manifesting itself in the military.
Such is the benefit of lawyers on the battlefield…None, nada..negative.
And we thought reporters were bad.
Maybe you guys should go visit Murtha and show him what you’re really made of.
Oh, I forgot, God already did.