January 8, 2010
1st Lt. Michael Behenna: Now is the Time for Justice
Ros Prynn
Yesterday in Washington, D.C., Army Ranger 1st Lt Michael Behenna's case came up for a clemency hearing. This American hero is serving a 25-year sentence for a crime he did not commit. That's right: this American soldier is another in an ever growing list of American soldiers convicted as criminals for doing the job for which the U.S. Army trained him.
I can hardly wait when all of the libtards in the military are "removed from service".
GOVERNMENT WITHHOLDS EVIDENCE; SOLDIER GOES TO PRISON FOR 25 YEARS FOR SHOOTING AL QAEDA OPERATIVE
Sound familiar? Murtha must be proud.
The Story ...
On March 20th, 2009, 1st Lieutenant Michael Behenna was sentenced to 25 years in prison for killing a known Al Qaeda operative while serving in Iraq. The “victim”, Ali Mansur, was known to be a member of an Al Qaeda cell operating in the lieutenant’s area of operation, and was suspected to have organized an attack on Lt. Behenna’s platoon in April 2008 which killed two U.S. soldiers and injured two more. Army intelligence ordered the release of Mansur and Lt. Behenna was ordered to return the terrorist to his home.
During the return of Mansur, Lt. Behenna again questioned the Al Qaeda member for information about other members of the terrorist cell, and financial supporters. During this interrogation, Mansur attacked Lt. Behenna, who killed the terrorist in self-defense. The government subsequently prosecuted Lt. Behenna for premeditated murder.
I have heard Michael's mother, Vicki, and 1st Lt. Behenna's girlfriend, Shannon talk about the struggle for justice for this Airborne Ranger. You can find archives on this case over at Do The Right Thing.
In June 2009, I wrote this:
Here we go again. Back in March, I highlighted a piece that Snooper had written about this travesty. You can go here for that. Now, from Family Security Matters comes this:
Imagine that you’ve learned in your local newspaper and on TV that a serial murderer is stalking and killing people in your community. Anxious and concerned for the safety of your family, you buy a gun.
Then your worst nightmare happens. Lying in bed and drifting off to sleep, you hear a loud sound downstairs – the unmistakable explosion of your front door being battered down and the menacing footsteps of an intruder climbing the stairs to your bedroom. You cock your already-loaded gun, and when the thug lunges at you, you shoot.
Now dead, he is positively identified as the man who murdered the other people in your town… and you are hailed as a hero.
You don’t consider yourself a hero at all, but simply a regular citizen protecting his family. When polls are taken about what you did, 90 percent of people say they would have done the same thing, six percent say they would have “reasoned” with the intruder, and another four percent said, “I don’t know.”
[...]
But theory has no place in the real world of American soldiers who have volunteered to protect and defend our country and are faced not with neighborhood thugs but with al Qaeda terrorists who have told the entire world that their Number One mission is to kill all the “infidels” – particularly Americans – who disagree with their Islamist agenda of establishing a Muslim-driven Caliphate of Islamic “law” in the Western world...."
To follow this story is to really wonder WTH is going on. To see how the trial was conducted, and how this hero's rights were trampled and ignored, is a damning indictment of the very country 1Lt Behenna swore an oath to protect. It really IS an obscenity. Family Security Matters has this excellent write up on this gross miscarriage of justice of yet another of America's finest.
They end with:
The Behennas and their many supporters have mobilized to help Michael and they urge everyone to contact his or her elected official to make sure that justice is done. And because the government has limitless resources but they don’t, they’ve established a Legal Defense Fund to help their efforts.
1LT Michael Behenna Legal Defense Fund
c/o Jack Dawson, co-trustee
100 Park Avenue, Second Floor
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73102-8099
Rachel Lawrence Mor, co-trustee
3037 N.W. 63rd Street, Suite 251
Oklahoma City Oklahoma 73116
Many are taking notice of what has been done to Michael Behenna. Many are crying foul as our troops are being unjustly prosecuted for doing what they are trained to do: ridding the world of terrorists. (Haditha, or most recently, Navy SEALS anyone?)
This one stinks out loud. I am referring to the military trial of Army Ranger 1Lt. Michael Behenna of Oklahoma for the charge of murder of an Al Qaeda operative in Iraq in which military prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence provided by the military prosecution’s own expert witness from the defense team until after the trial wrapped up. As a likely result, Behenna, 25, was sentenced in March of this year to 25 years in prison for unpremeditated murder.
Bright spot: tireless parents (mother on team that convicted Timothy McVeigh, father former state investigator) and the entire Oklahoma Congressional Delegation, now pressing the clemency board for fair treatment. Details (petition, defense fund info, and news, including a recent, compelling LA Times two-part story on the case) at Defend Michael.
Go here to read all the background on this.
Now is crucial time as to whether Michael Behenna will see freedom, justice. Again, from Snooper:
WASHINGTON — Vicki Behenna has 10 minutes to plead her son’s case.
Where does she begin?
In the last few months, she has developed hours of arguments about why U.S. Army 1st Lt. Michael Behenna was wrongly convicted of killing a suspected terrorist in Iraq in 2008, why his 20-year sentence for unpremeditated murder was too severe compared to other sentences for the same offense and why the military rules for detaining suspected terrorists make no sense in a combat zone.
She will have to condense all that into a matter of minutes when she appears Thursday before the Army Clemency and Parole Board in Arlington, Va.
Vicki Behenna, of Edmond, is a federal prosecutor — she was part of the team that won conviction of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh — so she knows something about making concise and cogent arguments in a legal setting. When she appears before the clemency board, though, it will be “as his mom,” she said last week.
She said she has been given 10 minutes to address the board and that she will focus primarily on the length of her son’s sentence for unpremeditated murder. Though she hasn’t been able to find a central data bank of courtmartial sentences, she said the longest other recent sentence she could find for unpremeditated murder in a combat zone was 11 years. Her son originally received a 25-year sentence, which was reduced to 20 years. Michael Behenna, who is 26, is serving that sentence at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
The clemency hearing is just one of the legal routes being pursued by Behenna and her husband, Scott.
Houston attorney Jack Zimmerman recently filed an appeal claiming Michael Behenna’s conviction should be overturned, in part because prosecutors didn’t turn over evidence that would have corroborated Behenna’s story that he shot the victim in self-defense. The evidence was the opinion of a renowned expert on bloodstains.[emphasis mine]
The Behennas have also enlisted Oklahoma attorneys and elected officials to write letters to military leaders and the clemency board urging that Lt. Behenna’s case be handled fairly and according to legal principles.
[...]
Behenna suspected that Ali Mansur had been involved in planting a roadside bomb that killed two members of his platoon and wounded others.
Behenna had arrested Ali Mansur at his home, and Behenna was the one ordered to take Ali Mansur back home when he was released from custody.
Behenna shot and killed Ali Mansur that night after questioning him. Prosecutors said it was an execution; Behenna claimed Ali Mansur had been trying to grab Behenna’s gun.
The case has received national media attention and has been taken up as a cause on some Web sites, including one started by the Behennas called DefendMichael.com; a petition posted on the site seeking a new trial for Lt. Behenna has more than 6,500 signatures.
Bev Perlson, whose son has served four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and who started a group called Band of Mothers, accompanied Vicki Behenna to lawmakers’ offices on Capitol Hill in early December. Perlson features Lt. Behenna’s case promi nently on her Web site and said in an interview last week that she is encouraging veterans and others to show up at the hearing on Thursday.
Though the public is not allowed into the hearing, Perlson said it would be an important show of support just to have people outside the building.
“It just breaks my heart what happened to Michael,” she said. ...
It’s heartbreaking to see yet another of America's finest denied the justice that they serve to bring to other countries around the world.
The hearing is now over, and we await the verdict. We shall see if justice for our soldiers is just empty rhetoric, or if we really do believe in the values upon which the United States of America was founded.
As Snooper says: pay attention!
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Ros Prynn is a journalist/writer/editor, who is also writing three books. Her travels, paired with her warped British sense of humor, have shaped her world view. If you listen very carefully, you might hear her singing: “I proudly stand up next to you…” to her American “family” and friends. She has an international readership (including the U.S. State Dept.) and you can find her own blog at http://assolutatranquillita.blogspot.com/.
"I find it incomprehensible that this administration is treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue. The president has finally said that we are at war with al-Qaeda. Well, if this is a war, then Abdulmutallab should be treated as a combatant not a criminal."...
posted by: Ron Roloff
Sunday, January 10, 2010 at 11:27 AM
why doesn't the LT get a mutli-million dollar trial , televised in NEW YORK??????
I guess terrorism has it's perks..and JUSTICE
posted by: capt pete
Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 08:38 PM
Stay strong Lt.Behenna. You did exactly as this Former Marine would have. I am sure
If Patton,MacCarther,John PaulJones were here today,this would never have happened. Many Americans know of you and standing tall for you outside that cage.
Semper-FI
posted by: cutter falls
Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 08:55 AM
Hard to believe the progressive mindset pervades the Army jag corps. It seems if you try to blow up a plane or kill 13 people you have more rights than those who are defending us. I am surprised they didn't arrest the police officers that shot the terriorst at Ft Hood for murder. The issue here is why was evidence withheld that could have acquitted 1st Lt. Behenna. This deal stinks... We are at war, and we have to read these thugs miranda rights or wait until they fire on us before we can return fire.. this is insanity
posted by: Steve OConnor
Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 12:24 AM
As a former Marine my heart goes out to you. All through our training we were taught what a noble deed we were doing by serving our country and the importance of looking out for our fellow Marines. You did not ask to be sent to war you volunteered to protect your country and it's government. Our government has abandoned it's warriors and most of the people in office need to be replaced. I will do my part in trying to assure that this happens. Stay strong.
Regards,
Perry Calderon
Gilmer TX
posted by: Perry Calderon
Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 07:08 PM
Nguyá»…n Ngá»c Loan comes to mind. A soldier does what he has to do. He publicly executed a Viet Cong spy and murderer The photo is one of the most famous pictures taken during the Vietnam War. Later, after the North Vietnamese Army invaded South Vietnam in spite of the Paris Peace Accords of 1973, the Communists acknowledged the Viet Cong spy as one of their own.
During the American "Civil War," it was usual practice to summarily execute spies; this was done by both sides. I remember reading about a gunsmith being shot dead by Union soldiers for fixing a Rebel's rifle in the Ohio River town of West Point, Kentucky which is near Louisville.
As Robert E. Lee, a Civil War officer said, "It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we would grow fond of it."
posted by: hueygunner
Wednesday, September 8, 2010 at 01:31 AM
Hi everyone,
I have researched this case after receiving a letter in the mail requesting a donation.
It seems you have failed to mention that the "victim" was found naked in a culvert with two bullet holes and partially burned.
The official story is that the "victim", who was under some sort of "interrogation" by the Lt., attempted to seize the Lt.'s weapon. In self defense, Lt. Behenna fired two shots into the "victim" and was then forced to place a incendiary grenade under his head.
Issue #1: Lt. Behenna was not ordered to interrogate the "victim" and took it upon himself to do so. Had he followed orders he likely would not be in the situation he is in today. Or he might have been killed by the hands of the "victim" at a later date, hard to say.
Issue #2: A grenade under the head? Self defense? Come now...
capt pete has the only reasonable comment prior to this one. The rest of you seem to have no issue with an officer disobeying a lawful order and being involved in a questionable shooting/burning of someone. We are Americans, we should set the example for professional soldiering, not shoot/burn naked people in ditches.
When a civilian is involved in a self-defense shooting it is described in one of two ways. Good shoot or bad shoot, good shoot meaning that it is clear the shooting was in self defense and the charges are either not filed, dropped or found not guilty. A bad shoot is the opposite, the story not being clear or there being fishy things about the shooting (like putting a grenade under the dead persons head) will often lead to a bad shoot being declared.
This case is a bad shoot.
I am sure there have been many other incidents during this conflict and throughout history which were far more heinous than this one. But there is one difference. Lt. Behenna was caught.
posted by: Alan
Friday, September 10, 2010 at 02:03 PM
Mike, I am so sad that you are still not out yet! I know what it feels like and it is NOT a good life to be locked up, and ESPECIALLY when you ARE NOT GUILTY of a crime! You ARE a Brave Paratrooper and WE LOVE you for it too! I want you to know you are LOVED by Thousands and we are praying for your realese! I pray the ones in power will do thier DUTY and RELEASE YOU NOW! Take care and will talk to ya later my BROTHER, Kenny DeWit 173rd Airborne Brigade
posted by: Kenneth DeWit
Thursday, March 3, 2011 at 11:40 PM
This much is true: The victim was an Al Qaeda suspect who was being released for lack of sufficient evidence to secure prosecution. No doubt that he was guilty, but it was a case of catch-and-release, as often happens.
This is also known: The Lieutenant acted without authority, and in violation of regulations, to 'interrogate' the victim rather than releasing him. He thought that he, a lowly junior officer on his first combat tour out of Ranger School, knew better than years of legal precedent and a detachment of trained army interrogators.
This is reasonable opinion: Prisoners about to be released are extremely unlikely to attempt to escape or assault their escorts - unless provoked (i.e. assaulted) beyond reason. Either he was killed in cold blood, or after reacting to an assault. Either way, the Lt is responsible. Trying to destroy the evidence with an incendiary grenade only makes him look more guilty.
posted by: Ben Franklin
Friday, August 5, 2011 at 05:30 PM
