Pamela Geller
Atlas Shrugs
7/6/2012
There is something horribly wrong in America when a soldier is jailed for killing the enemy. The criminalization of our heroes is the liberal wet dream and the goal of the enemy, Islamic supremacists. Indeed, they make common cause of their hatred of the good.
Lt. Behenna shot a known al qaeda killer on the battlefield, a terrorist the Army had actually issued a kill/capture order for before they realized he was already dead.
His mother wrote here:
… we will not give up the fight. It is our hope that Congress will hold hearings on the Army’s Catch and Release policy and the current ROE’s that limit our soldiers and Marines ability to defend themselves sometime this fall…… I have come to believe that the only way the Army will release Michael from prison is for the American public to demand it. In that regard I am once again asking for your help. The Savage Nation has been so supportive of Michael, helping us with his legal expenses, and writing letters of encouragement to him. Now I need their voice. I need the voice of the American public to demand his release…
…The sad news arrived shortly after 6 p.m. Central Thursday, almost 11 weeks after the five-member CAAF panel heard Lieutenant Behenna’s final appeal of the verdict that found him guilty of unpremeditated murder in the shooting death of Ali Mansur, a known Al-Qaeda operative in Iraq.
It is beyond comprehension how multiple levels of the military justice system were able to reconcile the lieutenant’s conviction with the fact that the government’s own expert witness reached the conclusion that the lieutenant acted in self defense…
Read the complete article at Atlas Shrugs.
CAJ note: If you don’t know Lt. Behenna’s story, read our posts. And a word to our “leaders”, political and military: don’t send our troops to fight in Hell if you don’t intend to let them win. In your crazy world wouldn’t this judgment qualify every combatant’s death to be prosecuted as “unpremeditated murder”?
For information directly from the Behenna family, visit www.DefendMichael.wordpress.com.
Update: The Death of the Grown-Up, by Diana West. Devastating: Michael Behenna’s Conviction Upheld
In the interest of a balanced discussion, one veteran’s thoughts:
The jury concluded be [sic] did as accused. The man was in his custody. He cut him lose and interrogated him- not his job. Then he shot him. He did several things we are told specifically not to do. If the prisoner was bagged and tagged then he was responsible for him. Period.
There are other cases I have really disagreed with. This isn’t one of them. Our training and ROE [rules of engagement] are pretty specific. He would not have gotten away with it in WWII.
H/T The Blacksphere
