Only one more acquittal to go.
Two of the three Navy SEALs court-martialed in Iraq for supposedly mistreating a brutal terrorist were cleared of all charges this week.
Petty Officer 1st Class Julio Huertas and Petty Officer 2nd Class Jonathan Keefe had been part of the team that last year captured Ahmed Hashim Abed — mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four US contractors in Fallujah in 2004.
But when Abed complained that another SEAL, Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew McCabe, had given him a fat lip (or some such thing) in custody, the two were brought up on dereliction charges for failing to intervene.
The whole thing was a farce to begin with — and, sure enough, the testimony of the government’s lone non-terrorist eyewitness came riddled with holes.
So much for the prosecution’s cowardly claim that throwing the book at the SEALs was needed to show “why we’re better than the terrorists.”
As if heroes like Huertas, Keefe and McCabe don’t prove that every day.
McCabe’s trial is set to begin May 3.
A third acquittal would go a long way toward convincing America’s men and women in combat that someone still has their backs.
If in fact that’s true.