Earlier this month, I received an e-mail update from Scott and Vicki Behenna, whose son Army Ranger 1st Lt. Michael Behenna is serving 15 years in Fort Leavenworth military prison over the May 2008 shooting of a known killer in Iraq — a terrorist for whom the Army would actually issue a kill/capture order before realizing he was already dead. By the way, that last detail ranks as a minor outrage compared to the other outrages in this military disgrace of a case.
As for most Americans, December has been a busy month for the Behenna family. But while most families have been busy with Christmas plans, the Behennas have been seeking justice for their 27-year-old son.
On Dec. 2, they went before the Army Clemency Board to ask it either to suspend Michael’s sentence, or significantly reduce it, given that it’s at least 50 percent longer than other combat-related unpremeditated murder sentences.
On Dec. 9, the Behennas wrote, they would be attending the long-awaited military court appeal of Michael’s conviction.
“At this point,” the e-mail continued, “it would take a miracle to prevent Michael from spending another Christmas in prison. But we count it among our many blessings that we will be able to spend Christmas with our son in the visitation room. … Michael’s story has continued to grow exponentially as have all the stories of the Leavenworth Ten. Please keep the letters coming for all these brave American soldiers.”
Ah, the Leavenworth Ten. Readers of this column should be familiar with these soldiers. Their continued incarcerations remain a moral blight on the U.S. military, which has extended clemency to thousands of Iraqi, Iranian, Afghan and other killers from Gitmo to Camp Bucca to Bagram Prison, even as it imprisons these men who went to fight them.
One of them, Pfc. Corey Claggett, suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder, has been in solitary confinement for more than four years. (The superior who gave the unlawful order Claggett followed, however, is free on parole.)
How could this be?
I attended Michael’s appeals hearing, and, while listening to the military prosecutor defend the guilty verdict, it struck me that what drives such prosecutions is not the pursuit of truth through shadow and fire but a postmodern kind of righteousness that metastasizes independent of the wartime conditions in which all of these dark, difficult incidents take place.
I urge readers to visit defendmichael.com for details, but the crux is this: While the prosecution argued that Michael shot a seated victim, Michael says he shot in self-defense at an enemy who had sprung to his feet, chucking concrete and coming at him.
And, of crucial importance to Michael’s appeals case, the prosecution’s own forensics witness, Dr. Herbert MacDonnell, said the forensics evidence supported Michael’s scenario.
But MacDonnell never went before the jury. And, in apparent violation of due process, his evidence was never disclosed to the defense until after the guilty verdict came in.
No big deal, the prosecution argued in military appeals court. Indeed, whether standing or sitting, the enemy fighter was fully justified in attacking the fully armed American lieutenant threatening his life. Further, the military prosecutor claimed the situation was such that the U.S. lieutenant had … no … right … to … self-defense.
This is twisted beyond twisted. So, too, is the apparent fact that had the terrorist seized the lieutenant’s weapon in a scuffle, Lt. Michael Behenna would be innocent in the military’s eyes. He would also be dead.
It’s time for our appalling military justice system to go on trial.
Examiner Columnist Diana West is syndicated nationally by United Media and is the author of “The Death of the Grown-Up: How America’s Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization.”
