NAVAL STATION NORFOLK, Va. — Two Navy SEALs accused in the mistreatment of an Iraqi suspect in the 2004 slayings of four U.S. contractors were arraigned in military court Monday, and one SEAL said he was gratified by support from the public and some members of Congress.
The judge scheduled courts-martial next month for Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew McCabe of Perrysburg, Ohio, and Petty Officer 1st Class Julio Huertas of Blue Island, Ill. A third SEAL will be arraigned later.
The SEALs have received an outpouring of public support on the Internet, and a California congressman has led a campaign urging Defense Secretary Robert Gates to intervene. About three dozen protesters, including the mother of one of the slain contractors, stood outside the Norfolk Naval Station gate Monday morning holding signs of support.
McCabe is accused of striking the detainee in the midsection, dereliction of duty for failing to safeguard the detainee, and lying to investigators. He deferred entering a plea until his Jan. 19 trial.
McCabe told reporters he was confident he would be exonerated.
“I feel very good about it,” he said as he made his way through the crowd of supporters, shaking hands and thanking them. “The support is phenomenal. It makes us feel better, all these people being behind us.”
While this travesty was being perpetrated in North Carolina at Camp LeJunne The nation’s highest-ranking military officer told soldiers and Marines Monday that the insurgency in Afghanistan has grown in the last three years and he expects casualties to rise next year as additional U.S. troops pour into the war.
“This is the most dangerous time I’ve seen growing up the last four decades in uniform,” Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told about 1,000 Marines at Camp Lejeune.(and I believe it is the most dangerous time that our brave men and women have gone into battle because they have been ordered, as they were told by MulleN yesterday, that if we kill a dozen terrorist Taliban but also kill one or two civilians during the fir fight . It is not a victory! We have to protect the civilians!)
My question is this:. Admiral, how do we determine that people who mostly wear robes that can HIDE underneath an AK-47, that those among the ones shooting at our men and women, are not potential killers?
Many attending Mullen’s talks at Camp Lejeune and Fort Campbell, Ky., will be sent to Afghanistan after this Christmas aspointed out in President Barack Obama’s plan announced last week.
After the first of the year, the Marines will begin sending an additional 6,200 from Lejeune and Camp Pendleton, Calif., the Pentagon announced Monday. The Army will also begin sending in the first of its forces in the spring — a training brigade with about 3,400 soldiers from Fort Drum, N.Y. Three brigades from Fort Campbell’s 101st Airborne Division are also heading to Afghanistan and about 4,100 support forces from various places will deploy early.
“We are not winning, which means we are losing and as we are losing, the message traffic out there to (insurgency) recruits keeps getting better and better and more keep coming,” Mullen said. “That’s why we need the 30,000 and in particular, and you are the lead on this, getting in there this year, over the next 12 months, almost in lightning bolt fashion.”
Mullen told 700 soldiers at Fort Campbell that military leaders believe they have 18 to 24 months to reverse the insurgency, in what he expects to be a tough and bloody fight.
“I am sure we will sustain an increase in the level of casualties, and I don’t want to be in any way unclear about that,” he told troops at Fort Campbell. “This is what happened in Iraq during the surge and as tragic as it is, to turn this thing around, it will be a part of this surge, as well.”
“I expect a tough fight in 2010,” Mullen said. ( what he did not say to the Marines, was that they only have 18 months to accomplish the mission. Then the President has promised he will withdraw!!)
Many questions from soldiers and Marines focused on the role of Pakistan and America’s NATO allies in containing al-Qaeda and the Taliban and on the July 2011 withdraw date.
Mullen said the 2011 date is not an end or withdrawal date.Not exactly what Obama said when he gave his speech to the cadets at West Point!
“In the long run, it is not going to be about killing Taliban,” Mullen told the Marines at Camp Lejeune. “In the long run, it’s going to be because the Afghan people want them out.”( never in my life have I heard a senior officer say war was not about killing the enemy! McArthur and Eisenhower have been be making back flips in their graves!
Just why this aristocratic admiral is the Chief of Staff of the Armed forces is evidentially because he believes as Obama does that we can win over our enemies by being nice to the civilians. Forget about the axiom “kill or be killed”. As Winston Churchill said in 1944: “No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism.”War is about killing the enemy before hey kill you!!
Mullen also said, “in the long run, we are anxious to get at al-Qaeda and the leadership that resides in the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Strategically the way you do this in my view is to bring pressure from both sides.”So he expects the Pakistani military to help the Marines, but all the reports(and there are few) about the location of Osama bin Laden are that he is hiding in Pakistan with full knowledge of the Pakistan government who either cannot locate or will not capture him. I would not expect too much co-operation from them!
The thrust of this post is that it appears to me that we are sending brave men and women, all volunteers, into HARMS way with orders to give Miranda rights to any one they capture and to not shoot until they are shot at. NO WAY TO WIN A WAR!!!