By Elaine Donnelly
Extending sexual misconduct to combat units
The Obama administration has gone to extraordinary lengths to publicize details of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, even as it threatens to file criminal charges against a former Navy SEAL because he provided the same type of mission rundown in his recently published book.
A recent Army health report draws an alarming profile of a fighting force more prone to inexcusable violence amid an "epidemic" of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the mental breakdown attracting speculation as a factor in a massacre of Afghan civilians this month.
When Lt. j.g. Timothy W. Dorsey intentionally fired his fighter jet's missile at an Air Force reconnaissance plane, nearly killing its two aviators and destroying the aircraft during a training exercise, it was hard to imagine then how his Navy career would wind up 25 years later.
As William C. Rodriguez inspected the badly decomposed bodies of two Iraqis, he was troubled by the large crowd of observers in the military's national morgue at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
Taking Anwar al-Awlaki alive would have presented a difficult challenge for U.S. government prosecutors seeking a terrorism conviction, legal experts say.
A Navy panel on Wednesday said the former commander of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier who produced raunchy videos aboard the USS Enterprise can remain in the Navy.
"The Obama administration strategically leaked details of the bin Laden raid for political advantage," said Charles Gittins, a criminal defense lawyer who has defended scores of military clients, including SEALs.
"Using strategic leaks for political gain, while complaining that a witness to events wrote about what he personally saw and did, really is the height of hypocrisy," Mr. Gittins said.
