It came as a really joyful surprise when the morning KFAQ talk show host Pat Campbell opened his show on May 6 with the announcement that PRESDT-45 had given a complete pardon to former Lt. Michael Behenna, of Guthrie, Oklahoma, from his questionable 2009 court marshall conviction for a reported “unpremeditated murder in a combat zone” of an Islamic terrorist while on duty in Iraq.
That is the case mentioned, without a name, in a previous effort of mine two weeks ago. The word “questionable” is my opinion but one shared by a number of prominent individuals in Oklahoma as well as fellow veterans in Tulsa. After serving five years in Fort Leavenworth (Kansas) Prison, he was paroled to a virtual home confinement in Guthrie but still stripped of all his citizenship rights, including the right to bear arms, necessary to protect himself from al Qaeda followers seeking revenge.
On May 7, the daily paper carried the story, fairly well buried, with the headline reading “Trump pardons ex-soldier who killed Iraqi prisoner” with the by-line given to Josh Dulaney of The Oklahoman, which seems to imply that the soldier/terrorist was in prison custody when he was dispatched to the believed trip to Allah and “75 virgins” reward for all the infidels (non-Muslims) that he had killed, including the use of IED (improvised explosive devices) while helping in the “holy war” to take over the world, beginning in the Middle East. One of those IEDs had already killed some of Lt. Behenna’s troops before the prisoner was captured.
Not all of the facts in the field have become available and clear to me but more than the above have been furnished to the former World War II Vets of Tulsa, now called All Veterans Association. Some of our members had mounted a letterwriting program
hoping to bring the pardon about for at least two years. One thing that was furnished was the statement that while being interrogated in the field, the prisoner managed to pick up a rock and made a move with it to kill Lt. Behenna – the daily paper story said he tried to get Lt. Behenna’s gun and Behenna shot him in self defense.
The story we heard was that the defense was not allowed to present that in evidence. Lt. Behenna, it appears, may have violated the “Rules of Engagement” then in effect under the PRESBO-44 administration. Under that circumstance, it would seem logical that a much smaller charge would have been warranted. The mentioned Rules of Engagement we were told by active and reserve duty members were not to be made available to the general public. But they seem to be deliberately oriented to placing our military personnel in greater danger or at least making them hesitant to take serious action for their own or others protection
Mr. Campbell included in his story that he had learned that the Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter had written several letters supporting pardon to the Department of Justice and finally had written one directly to the president. While that letter may have been a factor, it seems to me that the pardon came surprisingly early considering the stressful aggressive actions against Mr. Trump by his self-appointed Democrat enemies. It is questionable in my mind whether any other person in public life could have done half as much in the same time frame while under the same aggressive obstructionist actions. Mr. Campbell had information that after signing the pardon, the President called Lt. Behenna personally to inform him of the action.
To my mind, this whole incident brings to light what went on during the eight years of the previous administration against anything military, or even law enforcement. The Border Patrol is included in law enforcement and a number of members were killed by the very guns that had been illegally sold here and delivered to the Mexican drug cartels to be used against our people as well as any of their opponents there.
There have been sufficient reliable reports of that program, titled, “Fast and Furious,” for the purposes of using the killing of U.S. citizens by the guns as an excuse to secure the nation as “gun free” – that is except for those in the government. And “government” includes such unlikely departments as the IRS. In an effort to hamstring the Second Amendment idea of “keep and bear arms,” a number of government bureaus and agencies placed extravagant orders for ammunition so as to dry up the supply to the law-abiding citizens.