{"id":542616,"date":"2010-04-24T15:57:05","date_gmt":"2010-04-24T19:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com\/?p=17277"},"modified":"2010-04-24T15:57:05","modified_gmt":"2010-04-24T19:57:05","slug":"rep-navy-seals-shouldn%e2%80%99t-have-been-tried","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/542616","title":{"rendered":"Rep: Navy SEALs Shouldn\u2019t Have Been Tried"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Congressman Dan Burton (R-IN) says although he is happy with the acquittals of two Navy SEALs, the men should never have been tried in the first place.<\/p>\n

During an appearance on America’s News Headquarters on Saturday, the congressman said “They risked their lives to capture the terrorist and for them to be court-martialed and accused of what they’ve been accused of bothers me. In addition it sends a terrible message to the men and women in the field in Afghanistan and Iraq, who are risking their lives every day. Do they have to use kid gloves when they go after the terrorists who have done horrible things? I don’t think so.”<\/p>\n

Burton went on to say, “The very idea of a most-wanted terrorist sitting in a court room and testifying against our elite soldiers is absolutely disgusting\u2026 And in my opinion, after risking their lives they probably deserve medals instead of being tried in a court-martial.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Friday, Petty Officer 2nd Class Jonathan Keefe was cleared of wrongdoing in the alleged beating of an Iraqi prisoner suspected of masterminding the brutal killings of four American contractors. That verdict came one day after Petty Officer 1st Class Julio Huertas was found not guilty. The third Navy SEAL, Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew McCabe, faces trial on May 3rd<\/sup> in Nofolk, Virginia. McCabe is the only one accused of assault.<\/p>\n

Alleged mistreatment by American troops has become a sensitive subject since the detainee abuse scandal of Abu Ghraib. On Wednesday, the Iraqi prisoner Ahmed Hashim Abed testified that a hood was pulled over his head, he was hit from behind and punched in the stomach.\u00a0 But Burton argues the claim of abuse is straight out of al Qaeda\u2019s playbook.<\/p>\n

The congressman said, \u201cThe al Qaeda manual says very clearly if you are captured, say you were tortured or mistreated and that will resonate with the American people, especially the left.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burton has been an advocate for the SEALs since the beginning. Last year, he sent a letter to Major General Charles Cleveland, Commander of Special Operations Command Central, asking for all charges against the SEALs to be dropped.\u00a0 40 Members of Congress added their signatures to the letter which was also sent to Defense Secretary Gates, Admiral Mullin and President Obama.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congressman Dan Burton (R-IN) says although he is happy with the acquittals of two Navy SEALs, the men should never have been tried in the first place. During an appearance on America’s News Headquarters on Saturday, the congressman said “They risked their lives to capture the terrorist and for them to be court-martialed and accused […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6711,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-542616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6711"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542616\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}