Justice for Navy SEALs

File image courtesy: Seaman Kyle Gahlau

After following the ill-advised prosecution of three Navy SEALs since this blog's inception, The Unknown Soldiers finally has some good news to relay. Two of three elite warriors accused of a role in the alleged assault of terrorist Ahmed Hashim Abed during his capture have been acquitted of charges in the case. Petty Officer Jonathan Keefe and Petty Officer 1st Class Julio Huertas are undoubtedly relieved that their legal ordeal is over, but concerned for their brother in arms, Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew McCabe, who faces trial next week.

To recap the mind-boggling case against the SEALs, which has been condemned by at least 40 members of Congress and prominent military veterans, Ahmed Hashim Abed was behind the brutal 2004 murders of four American civilian contractors in Fallujah. After the killings, two of the bodies were hung from a bridge by terrorists. While Abed has changed his story several times and now denies his role in the despicable incident, U.S. troops immediately started hunting for him after the attack, and he was captured by Navy SEALs who risked their lives to bring him to justice. After his apprehension, Abed claims he was punched in the stomach. Petty Officer 2nd Class McCabe is accused of hitting the terrorist, while his two fellow SEALs have been rightfully cleared of a cover-up.

To be clear, I simply don't care if a terrorist who savagely murdered and mutilated four American civilians was punched in the stomach. Obviously, I don't trust the words of a killer, and have major doubts whether he was hit in the first place. But even if Abed was struck, the suspect suffered no permanent injuries and his life was never in danger. Does anyone honestly expect the capture of a wanted terrorist in a war zone to resemble a police operation on the homefront?

Evidently, The Associated Press feels the vindication of two Navy SEALs is just another reason for mistrust of the U.S. military. Reporter Lara Jakes wrote a slanted, misleading story about the acquittals that any responsible copy editor should have immediately e-mailed back to her under a "rewrite" subject line:

Against the backdrop of the Abu Ghraib detainee abuse scandal and the 2007 Nisoor Square shootings of 17 civilians in Baghdad, allegedly by Blackwater guards, the SEALs verdict marks another blow to America's image in Iraq.

"These trials are just propaganda for their justice and democracy," sneered Abdul-Rahman Najim al-Mashhadani, head of the Iraqi human rights group Hammurabi.

There is so much to dissect here that I don't know where to start. But I will first address the framing of two Navy SEALs being acquitted as a "blow to America's image in Iraq," which is a statement of opinion that no objective reporter should ever place in a news story. By this reporter's standards, the SEAL trials should have never been held, since anything but a guilty verdict would somehow harm the reputation of the United States. If any Iraqi wants to judge our country by a disputed punch to a murderer's stomach instead of the thousands of American troops who bled on their soil to depose Saddam Hussein and protect civilians from extremists, they were never objective in the first place. Regardless of anyone's stand on the Iraq war, I think we can all agree that America's image will be just fine after these verdicts.

Second, what do these three Navy SEALs have to do with Abu Ghraib? This case, which has so far resulted in acquittals, has absolutely no connection to the small group of U.S. servicemembers convicted of humiliating prisoners six years ago. Repeatedly injecting Abu Ghraib into the text is clear proof of Jakes' efforts to write her story with a skeptical, combative tone. Yet I wonder why the writer declined to bring up the Haditha case, which was the topic of choice for so many journalists over the years? Perhaps it's because despite the media's relentless initial condemnation of eight Marines for allegedly murdering 24 Iraqi civilians, juries and judges have either dropped charges or acquitted seven Marines since. One Marine still faces trial on reduced charges. While the initial Haditha allegations were on magazine covers, newspaper front pages, and lead blocks of cable newscasts, the acquittals have not been reported with the same frequency or vigor.

Lastly, the 'human rights group' cited by Jakes is Hammurabi, the organization behind the propaganda campaign against the Haditha Marines. TIME originally presented Hammurabi to the public as a human rights group affiliated with the internationally respected Human Rights Watch. When fact-checkers skeptical of Hammurabi were unable to verify any links between the two groups, TIME quietly appended a correction and said the magazine "regrets the error." Yet Hammurabi's graphic images of dead civilians still appeared on a provocative magazine cover about the Haditha incident, and the damage to America's image, which this Associated Press reporter is evidently so concerned about, was done. No journalist has ever proven Hammurabi is actually a group dedicated to advancing human rights, yet the obscure organization is still quoted in controversial stories about the U.S. military.

What truly damages our country's image in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the world is journalists who abuse their constitutional freedom of the press and ruin the lives of American troops before all facts have been presented. Even after acquittals against servicemembers who volunteered to fight for our country overseas, many reporters still refuse to apologize for incorrect assumptions and inexcusable mistakes, writing defiant articles like this sad, easily refuted AP column. Unlike many in journalism, which polls show is among the least-respected professions, the vast majority of neutral observers give men and women in the military the benefit of the doubt when controversy arises. Most of us know that a terrorist claiming he was punched in the stomach does not justify ruining the reputations of three elite members of Navy special forces who have endured things few of us could imagine.

An article in The Chicago Sun-Times said one of the cleared SEALs, Petty Officer 1st Class Julio Huertas, plans to rejoin his team as soon as possible. The next time Huertas saves an innocent life, which will undoubtedly happen, I will be happy to contact The Associated Press, where I once briefly worked in a non-journalist capacity, to see if a certain reporter is interested in writing about it.