Save the Seals! Navy heroes to be put on trial

Dec. 7: “A date which will live in infamy.”

Those words were spoken 68 years ago by the commander in chief after the United States suffered a terrible blow when the Japanese launched a sneak attack against Pearl Harbor. We should certainly remember that date this year, and honor those Americans who lost their lives then, as well as the heroic soldiers who brought victory four years later over both Japan and Germany in World War II.

But there is another reason to mourn on Dec. 7 this year, and it does not demean the sacrifice of the 2,402 dead from the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941 to conclude that Dec. 7, 2009, is also a date that should live in infamy.

It is on that date, this Monday, when three U.S. Navy Seals are scheduled to be arraigned in a court-martial, apparently at Norfolk Naval Station in Norfolk, Va., for the alleged crime of punching a terrorist in the face when taking him into custody in September.

And not just any terrorist either, but one of the most wanted terrorists in the world.

Ahmed Hashim Abed was the mastermind of the terrorist attack on four Blackwater USA security guards who were ambushed while transporting catering supplies in Fallujah, Iraq, and then killed by gunfire and grenades. The true atrocity was that their bodies were then burned and dragged through the city. Finally, two of the mutilated bodies were hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River for the press to photograph.

Enough said about Mr. Abed and his character?

For you and me probably, but not for the United States government, which figures that Mr. Abed’s claim that he was punched in the face while being captured is just as credible as the testimony of the Seals that it never happened. It’s standard operating procedure for al-Qaida terrorists to claim they were roughed up when they were arrested. That way they can turn the U.S. military into the bad guys — you know, the same U.S. military that has saved the world from evil dictators and evil armies and evil terrorists more times than you or I can count!

So let’s not give Mr. Ahmed Hashim Abed too much credit. Chances are he is making the whole thing up. A handwritten statement by one of the witnesses, after all, said he looked at the detainee after he was in custody and “he appeared in good health.”

But suppose it did happen? Suppose he was given a fat lip while being detained? So what! Doesn’t anyone realize what American soldiers did to Nazis they captured during World War II? A fat lip was the least of their worries. And those U.S. soldiers are known, for good reason, as “the greatest generation.” That’s partly because they did not have any moral ambiguity about what was right and wrong.

If anything captures the moral decline of America, it is the fact that we now think it is right to put American soldiers on trial for giving a homicidal terrorist a fat lip. We should be thanking those Navy Seals. They should be at the front of a ticker-tape parade in downtown Manhattan that goes right past the hole in the ground where the World Trade Center used to stand.

But instead they will be on trial starting in January. Who knows? If they are convicted, maybe they will still be in jail when the United States offers a civilian trial to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Maybe they will still be on probation when Mohammed is found not guilty and the U.S. government tries to figure out what to do with him next. Just what do you do with an “innocent” terrorist who killed 3,000 people and claimed to have beheaded the American journalist Daniel Pearl?

A fat lip doesn’t seen like enough, does it?

But Washington just doesn’t get it. Over and over again, officials in the White House, the Justice Department and the Pentagon make decisions that put Americans in jeopardy and let terrorist claim the moral high ground.

Last year, I wrote about the U.S. Marines who were accused of commiting atrocities at Haditha, Iraq, by Rep. John Murtha and the New York Times and, yes, even by the Marine Corps. One by one, charges against those eight Marines were dropped, and it became obvious the accusations were brought more for political reasons than for justice. Yet the careers of those soldiers have been ruined.

Nor should we forget the ridiculous charges brought against the two Border Patrol officers in Arizona, Ignacio “Nacho” Ramos and Jose Compean, who were charged and convicted of shooting a Mexican drug smuggler after he was caught in the act and tried to flee from them back into Mexico. Their lives will never be the same.

These and other cases prove that the U.S. government is now its own worst enemy.

I heard it put best in an Internet rant by Bob Thompson, a Queens-N.Y.-based comedian and social commentator: “When is our freaking government going to freaking get it? When are they going to stop treating freaking terrorists like freaking soldiers and soldiers like freaking terrorists? I’m sick of it. I’m freaking sick of it.”

Amen to that.

Let’s just hope that enough people hear about this outrage against justice and decency to force the president to issue an unconditional amnesty for these American heroes. If we are ever going to restore our country to the greatness of the past, we must reward our brave soldiers for doing their duty, not put them on trial.

 n Frank Miele is managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake and writes a weekly column. E-mail responses may be sent to edit@dailyinterlake.com