News > January 17, 2005

Sue the Messenger

By Joel Patenaude

Navy SEALs demonstrate "approved procedures" for "legitimate intelligence gathering purposes."

“Those AP reporters who published those photos (and their apologists) are no better than street scum and deserve a hearty dose of street justice,” writes “Boot Hill,” the pseudonym of a visitor to the right-wing chat room FreeRepublic.com. The reporter in question is Seth Hettena, a reporter for the Associated Press’ San Diego bureau.

What raised Boot Hill’s ire was a December 3 article detailing Hettena’s discovery of more than 40 photos that appear to show Navy SEALs cheerfully abusing Iraqi prisoners. Many of the images were date-stamped May 2003—months before even worse treatment of Iraqis took place at Abu Ghraib prison. Hettena found the pictures by using a simple Google keyword search, which led him to a Web site where the photos were posted by one of the soldiers’ wives.

Hettena’s report spoke volumes about why these photos of the SEALs’ “approved procedures” for “legitimate intelligence-gathering purposes” (as Navy Cmdr. Jeff Bender described the acts pictured) are not likely to win the United States new allies in its war on terror.

“These and other photos found by the AP appear to show the immediate aftermath of raids on civilian homes,” Hettena wrote. “A mug shot shows a man with an automatic weapon pointed at his head and a gloved thumb jabbed into his throat. In many photos, faces [of the captives] have been blacked out. What appears to be blood drips from the heads of some. A family huddles in a room in one photo, while others show debris and upturned furniture.”

Another photo—reposted by an approving FreeRepublic.com reader in late December (“I don’t know if this is one of them, but I love it!!!”)—showed a soldier grinning ear-to-ear and giving the thumbs-up while sitting between two bound and hooded Iraqi captives.

Instead of apologizing for these actions, the victimizers claimed victimhood. On December 28 a half-dozen Navy SEALs and two of their wives filed a civil lawsuit against Hettena and the AP. The SEALs seek unspecified damages and a court injunction against further use of the photos or identification of the commandos by the AP. The plaintiffs, none of whom are named in the lawsuit, claim the AP invaded their privacy and intentionally caused them emotional harm. Unmentioned is what became of the Iraqi prisoners or the extent of the harm done to them.

The plaintiffs’ lawyer claims the faces of most of the captive “insurgents and terrorists” photographed were obscured by the SEALs out of “respect” for them—a courtesy the AP didn’t extend to the SEALs before transmitting the pictures. But, as the AP explained in a January 5 statement, the wire service doesn’t alter photos and “the expressions of the servicemen are a key part of the story.”

Due to the lawsuit and a directive from his editors and their lawyers, Hettena could not comment for this story. But Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, notes that all Hettena and the AP did was republish what was already publicly available. “There is no question [the AP] had a legal right” to transmit the photos for publication, Dalglish says. “Not in any way, shape or form was it an invasion of [the SEALs’] privacy.”

The Navy has so far distanced itself from the SEALs’ lawsuit, calling it a private matter. But if only to avoid further embarrassment or public scrutiny of the SEALs’ operations in Iraq, Dalglish says, “I wouldn’t be surprised if the military got involved” to encourage an out-of-court settlement. “This thing could get monumentally messy.”

An editorial in the New York Post said the SEALs “at the very least, deserve an apology” from the AP. But the tabloid got it backward. It’s the SEALs who owe their fellow servicemen and the American people an apology. Their acts have diminished all of us in the eyes of the world.

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• Reader Comments

  once again, it’s time to start hating ourselves.

  Posted by surge on Jan 17, 2005 at 5:32 PM

  All I know is that the sauce needs to be boiled down a little bit.  Just saying.

  Posted by Terrortron, the Destructionator on Jan 17, 2005 at 6:27 PM

  Whenever I see a yellow ribbon stuck to the back of a terrorist supporting SUV, the troops I think of are these. If the germans were wrong to support the nazis, and they were, then certainly we are wrong to support our troops, in Iraq illegally, an invasion justified by our un-elected leadership fraudulently, maintained using methods the US once punished the soldiars of our enemies for using, financed by stealing, not only from our own nation’s present needs and the people who work to support them, but from the next several generations to boot. In Viet Nam the troops were drafted and sent to war against their will. In Iraq the troops are mostly there by choice. I can’t think of any package of benefits a person could recieve that would justify participation in this immoral enterprise.

  Posted by Kenneth D. Brown on Jan 17, 2005 at 11:14 PM

  I feel less and less American by the day.  I can’t believe what is happening to this country, the massive shifting to the right, and the way most American citizens avidly approve of the torture and massive carnage we are doing in Iraq. Look at how the republicans swept the 2004 elections! After all the ugly shit that happened in the first 4 years of Bush, he is handily elected with a record turnout of voters!  Americans love him! They love war and bombing the fuck out of far away countries...get used to it ‘cause there is more coming right down the pipeline my friends. What’s more, demonstrating, writing representatives, Farenheit 9-11 documentaries--none of this changes the course of what is happening: Bush has even admitted he actually likes being hated here and worldwide, and laughs at demonstrators! The liberals and democrats are totally screwed, and locked out of all important government positions from here on out indefinitely. All we are left to do is piss, bitch and moan amongst our own miserable selves. This country has been taken over by the hard right corporate interests and there is sadly no way to stop them. If you are liberal and live in this country, be prepared to read about Bush day after day, year after year--and another Bush will come right after this one--and all the time you’ll read about everything you value and hold dear being trampled and mocked by the corporate republican Bush elite.  In my opinion the battle is lost: leaving the USA is the only solution.  And the sooner the better.

  Posted by Not given because this is a police state on Jan 18, 2005 at 12:19 AM

  “emotional harm”?

  I hope to God you vicious Amerikkkan bastards get wiped out.

  You are going to be remembered as the Nazis of the 21st century.

  And that goes for all you apathetic SOBs who should be fighting this evil like the Ukrainians instead of fucking around on the web.

  Posted by Ziauddin Sardar Mk. 2 on Jan 18, 2005 at 9:09 AM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 24 posts.

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Also by Joel Patenaude

• Sue the Messenger