But you’d have to be stupid, fanatical, and dishonest to argue–as Trig Truther Sullivan does–that Barack Obama’s failures are part of an ingenious “long game” that is destined to succeed.

If this is the best Obama’s supporters can do, Obama’s only hope for re-election is the weak Republican field.

Sullivan, who claims to care about national debt, begins by arguing, contrary to reality, that Obama’s massive $787 billion stimulus (actually, $862 billion) turned the economy around. He offers no proof other than the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy familiar from basic economics. Sullivan also ignores the composition of the stimulus, which shoveled cash to cronies and bloated big states with their massive public sector obligations.

In addition, Sullivan claims that Obama’s auto bailout succeeded–when in fact it pushed aside property rights and subsidized failed “green” cars, rather than allowing car makers to rebuild through normal bankruptcy. He also commends Obama for continuing George W. Bush’s bank bailouts–but does not mention the Dodd-Frank financial “reforms” that enshrine “too big to fail,” hurt small businesses and fail to address Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Next, Sullivan tries to defend Obama on taxes, pointing out that the president passed tax cuts as part of the stimulus. He ignores the numerous new taxes and tax increases that Obama signed into law–from higher cigarette taxes to the many ObamaCare taxes–as well as the glaring fact that Obama has been campaigning for the past several years on the promise to raise taxes on the rich, and would have done so if not for Congress.

Sullivan’s defense of ObamaCare is that it is more “moderate” than it might have been. That is hardly a measure of success–and after devious accounting tricks, thousands of waivers, and the abandonment of ObamaCare’s Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) program, the law is clearly on a path to failure. Fundamentally, it is unconstitutional–a reality Sullivan does not care to note in his encomium to Obama.

On foreign policy, Sullivan hails Obama’s success in the death of Osama bin Laden–giving a fantastical account of the president’s courage, and perpetuating the false meme that Bush had “ignored” Al Qaeda. In fact, it was the war in Iraq–and the interrogation methods that Sullivan decries–that produced the intelligence that led to bin Laden.

Aside from the war on Al Qaeda, Obama squandered every diplomatic and military success bequeathed to him by Bush. He destroyed missile defense in Europe, and wasted hard-won gains in Iraq by withdrawing troops against the advice of the military. While appeasing Iran and gutting the future of our defense, Obama alienated and undermined U.S allies. Sullivan, who detests Israel, even applauds Obama’s pointless confrontation with Benjamin Netanyahu–hardly a way to sell a second Obama term.

Having dealt with conservatives (in his own mind at least), Sullivan lists reasons that the left should be pleased with the president they elected. He’s correct that liberals should back Obama; they will never again see a U.S. president with such radical policies and pedigree. But he overlooks the degree to which Obama has discredited left-wing theory by exposing its flaws in practice–the real reason the left is distancing itself from him.

What is most telling in Sullivan’s admonition to liberals is his use of Obama’s inaugural metaphor of the “clenched fist.” The president, he says, “begins by extending a hand to his opponents” and outwits them when they respond “by raising a fist.” Yet Obama was referring to foreign policy, not U.S. politics. Once in office, of course, Obama embraced America’s enemies and bullied domestic opponents–as even the left knows all too well.

Sullivan quotes George Orwell: “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” What is in front of Sullivan’s nose is Obama’s incompetence. He has coasted on the military success of his Republican predecessor, and is taking credit for moderate economic progress enabled by a Republican Congress that has held taxes, regulation, and spending in check. If he wins in 2012, Obama will again have Republicans to thank.

Mr. Speaker:

I rise in opposition to Section 1021 of the underlying Conference Report (H.R. 1540, the National Defense Authorization Act).

This section specifically affirms that the President has the authority to deny due process to any American it charges with “substantially supporting al Qaeda, the Taliban or any ‘associated forces’” – whatever that means.

Would “substantial support” of an “associated force,” mean linking a web-site to a web-site that links to a web-site affiliated with al-Qaeda?  We don’t know.  The question is, “do we really want to find out?”

We’re told not to worry – that the bill explicitly states that nothing in it shall alter existing law.

But wait.

There is no existing law that gives the President the power to ignore the Bill of Rights and detain Americans without due process.  There is only an assertion by the last two presidents that this power is inherent in an open-ended and ill-defined war on terrorism.  But it is a power not granted by any act of Congress.  At least, not until now.

What this bill says is, “What Presidents have only asserted, Congress now affirms in statute.”

We’re told that this merely pushes the question to the Supreme Court to decide if indefinite detainment is compatible with any remaining vestige of the Bill of Rights.

That’s a good point, IF the Court were the sole guardian of the Constitution.  But it is not.  If it were, there would be no reason to require every member of Congress to swear to preserve, protect, and defend that Constitution.

We are also its guardians.

And today, we who have sworn fealty to that Constitution sit to consider a bill that affirms a power contained in no law and that has the full potential to crack the very foundation of American liberty.

On August 10, 2011, the hacker group “Anonymous” announced that it would join the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. That’s what sparked my interest in monitoring #OccupyWallStreet.

I reached out to a colleague and asked if he would be interested in studying the protest with me. At first, it seemed disorganized, and we believed it would only be a few hundred protestors.

As we engaged in monitoring its growth, we recruited other people to help us begin the collection of data available via social media. We began mapping out key players, and monitored Anonymous’s efforts to organize protests in the San Francisco Bay area public transportation system (#opBART) in order to detect patterns and key influencers.

Then, at the end of August, we were alerted by a fellow researcher that information about USDoR (U.S. Day of Rage, to which Occupy Wall Street is connected) had been posted on Shamuk and Al-Jahad, two Al-Qaeda recruitment sites. We began to take the “Occupy” protest more seriously, and dedicated more time to research and monitoring.

Days later, Anonymous announced that it would be releasing its new DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) tool. Because of the Al-Qaeda posting, we contacted the New York Field Office of the FBI so they could investigate the potential threat. From that point on, we decided we needed to include the Human Element of Intelligence (HUMINT), and to infiltrate the protestors to map their ties to Anonymous, and to the postings on Shamuk and Al-Jahad.

A few of us had attended several of the pre-protest meet-ups and training classes. The Civil Disobedience training was taught by Elliot “Smokey” Madison, a New York-based anarchist who is a member of the People’s Law Collective, a voluntary group that advises protesters on legal issues arising from their actions. The Media training was taught by Vlad Teichberg, a New York based anarchist who is a member of the Glass Bead Collective, an artistic activist group.

After attending these meetings and socializing with those present, several of our team members were added to all the mailing lists of the “Occupy” group. That is how we created the email archive that we are sharing with you (see below). In addition to the involvement of socialists, anarchists, and other radicals, the emails also reveal heavy union involvement from the beginning of the “Occupy” movement, as well as discussion about the role of the Democratic Party, and how the movement should respond to President Barack Obama.

The emails also reveal that the Occupation attempted to provoke the New York Police Department prior to some of the clashes that occurred with activists.

Additionally, the emails reveal the many failed efforts of the hacker collective Anonymous. If those efforts had succeeded, they may have damaged the global economy.

Some examples are:

• #opLightHouse (FAILED) using NYC Subways to create FlashMobs and havoc through the city on Sept 17, 2011: see http://privatepaste.com/download/267076bdbc/operationLH-updateUno
• #RefRef Denial of Service tool release (FAILED) was designed to crash banks and NYSE, but the tool was never released: see http://www.geekosystem.com/anon-to-launch-new-weapon/; http://www.iss.net/threats/434.html
• September 20^th FAILED attacks against NYSE, NYPD, NYC.GOV, NYPD Retirees, Federal Reserve: see http://www.slideshare.net/robinsage/anonymous-occupy-wall-street-attacks
• #DayOfVengence (Sept 27^th) (FAILED) because FBI arrested the operation leader CommanderX prior to the attack: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20110912-10391695.html

We are sharing the email archive because we believe the public needs to know the hidden agendas behind the Occupation–the socialist, anarchist, and other agendas that have not been reported in the mainstream media.

Email archive:

.pst format: primary and alternate

.csv format: primary and alternate

“…on a day when others tried to divide us, we can regain the sense of common purpose that stirred in our hearts 10 years ago. As a nation, we face difficult challenges, and as citizens in a democratic society we engage in vigorous debates about the future. But as we do, let’s never forget the lesson we learned anew 10 years ago — that our differences pale beside what unites us and that when we choose to move forward together, as one American family, the United States doesn’t just endure, we can emerge from our tests and trials stronger than before. That’s the America we were on 9/11 and in the days that followed. That’s the America we can and must always be.”
– Pres. Barack Obama, USA Today, Sept. 8, 2011

Ten year have passed since the Islamist attacks on the United States of America; attacks that killed 2,977 people in New York, Washington, DC and Shanksville, PA. Since that time we have routed the Taliban from their haven in Afghanistan, dispatched Osama bin Laden to the icy deep and lopped off many of the heads of the Islamist terror hydra. We have grown as a people to better understand the dysfunctional relationship that the Islamic theo-political dogma has with Western Culture. And we have done our best to attain closure, for ourselves, for our society and for our country.

But closure can be hard to attain when there are no bodies to bury and no pointed victory over a vanquished foe. And when closure alludes because of unresolved issues we must always re-examine the event; the moment; the realities.

At the ten year mark, an American president is foolishly stopping short of succeeding in a generational conflict with fundamentalist Islamists…or radical Islamists…or jihadists, you pick the politically correct term the Progressive-Left elitists are sanctioning as appropriate this week. To me, they are the enemy; bloodthirsty ideologues who are committed to ideological conquest by the sword in their quest to establish a global Caliphate existing under the exclusive stricture of Sharia Law. But then, that’s just me…educated on the subject and painfully realistic in my examination. You see, I dispensed with the self-imposed mental handicap of political correctness years ago…and I feel a lot better for having done so. I also see things a lot clearer without the fog of stupidity clouding every issue.

At the ten year mark, a secularist New York Mayor – along with the Progressive elites of his ilk – is advocating for the construction of a victory mosque within the footprint of the fallen World Trade Center. New York’s Mayor Bloomberg, about as self-righteous as they come, is so certain that a “kumbaya” inclusionist approach to fundamentalist Islam will heal the rift between cultures that he refuses to examine the Islamic traditions of conquest; traditions that include building great mosques over conquered lands and, in particular, conquered religious properties. One need only understand that mosques now stand over holy places meaningful to religions that existed long before Muhammad or the theo-political creed that is Islam, established in 610 A.D., to validate this reality.

Ten years on we witness an American Administration that not only sullies the relationship between the United States and its greatest Middle Eastern ally, Israel, but acts transparently in its deference to the Palestinian Movement; a movement of predominantly intolerant, and in many cases violent, Islamists who stake claim to an area that, historically, never existed. It should be noted that these Palestinian Islamists are the same people who danced in the streets of Gaza in celebration of the slaughter that took place on American soil September 11, 2001.

Ten years on we observe an American Administration completely ignoring the sanctity of free speech – a freedom guaranteed in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution – in its advocacy of a move by the Islamic and global communities (via the United Nations) to “combat” so-called Islamophobia.

Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center on Religious Freedom and a member of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, writes:

“An unprecedented collaboration between the Obama administration and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to combat ‘Islamophobia’ may lead to the de-legitimization of freedom of expression as a human right.

“The administration is taking the lead in an international effort to ‘implement’ a UN resolution against religious ‘stereotyping,’ specifically as applied to Islam.

“To be sure, the administration argues that the effort should not result in free-speech curbs. However, its partners in the collaboration, the 56 member states of the OIC, have no such qualms.

“Many OIC states police private speech through Islamic blasphemy laws that the Saudi-based OIC has long worked to see applied universally. Under Muslim pressure, Western Europe now has laws against religious hate speech that serve as proxies for Islamic blasphemy codes.”

It would seem that those who want to honestly examine and debate the grotesque contradictions presented by Muslims of a fundamentalist Islamic bent in their alleged symbiotic relationship with the West face the challenge of censorship should they dare to confront issues such as honor killings, female genital mutilation, gender equality, rights for homosexuals in the Islamic culture, freedom of religion in Islamic nations, etc.

Ten years on from the mass slaughter of September 11, 2001, and reports continuously surface about the encroachment of jihadist terror organizations into the Western Hemisphere. The Italian daily Corriere della Sera, reports that Hezbollah is setting up operations just 90 miles south of Key West, Florida, in Cuba. Reports of Hezbollah, Hamas and even al Qaeda activity in the tri-border area of South America and in Venezuela have been verified. And reports increase with each passing day of Hezbollah corroboration with Mexican drug cartels operating on the Southern border of the United States.

Ten years later and the West looks on as a so-called “Arab Spring” takes hold across the Middle East and Northern Africa. As Progressives, the uninformed and the know-nothing cheerleaders for the Obama Administration cheer the “advancement of democracy” in these lands, they ignore the inevitability that democracy in the Middle East is always subject to the organized forces that be; that the best organized factions within each “sovereign” locale will ultimately win power and, therefore legitimacy on the world stage. The gigantic problem with this all-to-soon-to-become-reality scenario is that fundamentalist Islamists are the best organized in each and every one of these locales.

In Egypt, even though many of us exclaimed the dangers of the Muslim Brotherhood, the mainstream media, along with the Obama Administration and the Progressive Movement, celebrated democracy in the aftermath of Mubarak. Today we witness the Muslim Brotherhood threatening the Egyptian military not to interfere in the crafting of a new constitution.

In Lybia, even though many of us warned that Libyan rebels had extensive ties to jihadists groups including al Qaeda and offshoots that waged war against US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Obama Administration, along with the presiding governments in Britain and France, advocated for NATO operations to support the terrorist affiliated groups over the clown prince Qaddafi. Today, these rebels not only have Qaddafi’s money, they have his SA-24 heat-seeking missiles and, some fear, his stockpile of chemical weapons.

Ten years on…

In 2006, I wrote of Jonathan Briley. Mr. Briley is better known in his death as “The Falling Man” of the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attacks. I wrote then:

“The mainstream media in the United States has taken the images of September 11th, 2001 off the television and out of the newspapers. They say that the images are too disturbing, that they incite a want for revenge rather than allow closure. But they are wrong to do this.

“The United States should not and cannot simply forgive and forget just because the host country of the Taliban and al Qaeda – Afghanistan – has been liberated and transformed. Facts demonstrate that al Qaeda, the Taliban and radical Islam have been planning and preparing to implement their global campaign of terrorism – their declared war against the Western World – since before 1993, well before September 11th. Their central location for training may have been eliminated but they had prepared for that, splintering like roaches to the four corners of the world, preparing, planning and implementing their battle plans made decades before.

“Make no mistake, they are a cunning adversary. They understood that the US would come after them. They planned for this event.

“This war cannot be about ‘tolerance’ or forgiving, or about understanding the ‘reasons why’ someone would want to murder innocents whether it be with an airplane, a car bomb, a suicide vest or a saif. This battle has to be about freedom and the right of innocents to live their lives in liberty, free of fear from an unholy sect of genocidal totalitarians who offer only oppression, dominance and terror as their bounty…”

With all of the appeasement the West has offered the radical, fundamentalist Islamist community, with all of the advances made by jihadists around the world, with Islamists pressuring governments around the world, from Britain to the Netherlands, Spain to Germany and the United States, to coddle their barbarity; to provide inclusion for their totalitarian theocratic ideology, can we truly say that Jonathan Briley has received any semblance of justice, that his family has attained any modicum of closure? Only the radically dense would answer yes.

So, as we watch the secular commemorations of the ten year passing of the attacks on our country by radical Islamists, fundamentalist Muslims, jihadis, or, if you have dispensed with political correctness as I have, the scum of the Earth, ask yourself: do you feel safer today than Jon Briley did at fifteen seconds after 9:41am, on September 11, 2001? I know I don’t.

From our president we will hear a call to community service and a plea to find volunteer opportunities in our neighborhoods, because, you know… the real message behind 9/11 is to plant a garden at the local welfare office.

What we won’t hear enough of this momentous day is the truth about 9/11. The truth about what happened that day. The truth about why it happened.

The truth is that on September 11, 2001 war was declared on the United States of America. Our ideological opponents on the left (as well as some of the more troubling supporters of Rep. Ron Paul) will tell you that it 9/11 wasn’t an act of war because the perpetrators were not acting on behalf of any nation. As if in some way the fact that our attackers didn’t have a flag on their sleeves while demolishing our financial and military headquarters some how re-defines the act as merely a “crime”.

The liberals and libertarians mired in their denial of the reality of the world we live in are dangerous and must be answered with vigor. 9/11 was not a “criminal act”. And, despite what President Obama might say, we are not in a war against Al Qaeda. By narrowing our focus and pretending that we must only respond against those whose fingerprints can be found on the 9/11 attack is an invitation to our enemies around the world to wage war on us through proxies like Al Qaeda.  A Commander-in-Chief Ron Paul, with his pathetic call for Letters of Marque and Reprisal, would allow enemies like North Korea, Iran and Venezuela to send hundreds of organizations like Al Qaeda toward our skyscrapers all under the protective banner of “rogue criminal act”.

9/11 was war. War was declared on the United States of America, and very soon after, on many of our allies, Great Britain Australia and Spain. At the time we had a leader who recognized the fact that we were at war, whether we liked it or not. And he struck back. Effectively and with gusto. The Afghan government, which had aided and abetted our attackers, fell within months.

By not being obsessed with one man, Osama bin Laden, and instead focusing his aim at nations that were supporting, funding or giving refuge to terrorist groups, our President effectively and wisely declared that our world cannot be at peace until the day comes when nations will not risk their own destruction by playing footsie with madmen who do their dirty work for them.

Three years ago our country dozed off.  We thought that if we elected a man who talked nice to our enemies (take a look at what candidate Obama said about unconditional talks with North Korea, Iran and Venezuela) and pronounced “Pahk-eee-stahn” like a local we’d somehow steer clear of terrorist attacks.  The fact is the world is much more dangerous now than it was three years ago.  We are less popular in the Arab world than before we hired citizen of the world Obama to be our Commander-in-Chief.

And as President Obama implores Americans to heed the call of 9/11 and volunteer at a soup kitchen, our enemies are plotting their next devastating attack on us.

9/11 was a declaration of war.  We answered.  Then we turned our back.  What will happen next?

1st Lt. Michael Behenna

Who is Michael Behenna? He is the Army Ranger first lieutenant who, on July 31, 2008, was charged with the premeditated murder of Ali Mansur, a known Al-Qaeda agent operating near Albu Toma, an area north of Baghdad. He is the one-time leader of the 18-member Delta Company, 5th Platoon of the Army’s 101st Airborne Infantry Division who, seven months later, was convicted of unpremeditated murder and sentenced to 25 years confinement — later reduced to 15 — at Fort Leavenworth.

Why do I staunchly support Lieutenant Behenna? Because even the government’s top witness, Dr. Herb MacDonell — a man who wasn’t allowed to testify after new evidence was shared with him and he told prosecutors he believed the young officer was innocent.

Below is an excerpt from a Dec. 12, 2009, post at BigG, one of the more than four dozen posts I’ve written about Lieutenant Behenna’s case, that outlines the forensics expert’s position:

An e-mail Dr. Herbert Leon MacDonell sent to Capts. Meghan Poirier, Jason Elbert and Erwin Roberts — Army prosecutors all — just after 4 o’clock in the afternoon Feb. 27, 2009, should have warranted their attention for several reasons, but they opted to treat the information it contained in exactly the same manner as they had treated it when delivered in person a day earlier.

Largely as a result of the prosecutors’ decisions, Army Ranger 1st Lt. Michael Behenna is now serving a 20-year sentence at Fort Leavenworth after being convicted by a seven-member court-martial panel of unpremeditated murder in the shooting death of Ali Mansur, a known Al-Qaeda operative.

Why should the prosecutors have paid attention to what Dr. MacDonell had to share with them?

For starters, they should have paid attention, because Dr. MacDonell is the expert witness in blood stain forensics they had flown to Fort Campbell, Ky. to testify in the case. Now serving as director of the Laboratory of Forensic Science in Corning, N.Y., Dr. MacDonell’s expert forensics career spans five decades and includes such high-profile and complex cases as the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and the case against O.J. Simpson. In other words, he’s no slouch when it comes to investigations.

For reasons inexplicable, prosecutors opted not to call upon Dr. MacDonell to testify in the case; therefore, he was never able to share with the court something new he had learned about the case — something vital that prosecutors had not shared with him.

Thanks, however, to the fact that he sent that single e-mail, Lieutenant Behenna’s parents, Scott and Vicki Behenna, now hold on to an ever-so-slim hope that they can bring an end to the family nightmare involving their son, now 26.

Read the unedited text of Dr. MacDonell’s e-mail message below and judge for yourself whether you think Lieutenant Behenna deserves, at a minimum, a new trial or, more appropriately, a full presidential pardon:

Friday, February 27, 2009
4:07 p.m.

Dear Captain Poirier:

I came home to an incredible pile-up of work but I shall try to send an invoice to you within a few days. On that issue I should advice you that I may have exceeded what was appropriate because of staying two nights rather then one. My estimate for my total cost was based on one night there but I shall still try to keep the total within your budget even if I have to reduce the number of hours I spent here in preparation for my testimony.

On another issue I am somewhat concerned that I did not testify and have a chance to inform the court of the only logical explanation for this shooting. As I demonstrated to you and to the two other prosecutors, Dr. Berg, Sgt. McCaulley, and Sgt. Rogers?, from the evidence I feel that Ali Mansur had to have been shot in the chest when he was standing. As he dropped straight down he was shot again at the very instant that his head passed in front of the muzzle. Admittedly, this would be an amazing coincidence, however, it fits the facts and as I told you on Wednesday, it fits the facts and I can not think of a more logical explanation.

This scenario is consistent with the two shots being close together, consistent with their horizontal trajectory, consistent with the bloodstains on the floor, and consistent with the condition of the 9mm flattened out bullet which was tumbling after leaving Mansur’s head or body. I do not know where this bullet was recovered but I would expect after impact to the concrete wall it fell very close to that wall. The other bullet should have been close to the first and there should have been two impact points on the wall.

On Thursday afternoon when I heard Lt. Michael Behenna testify as to the circumstances of how the shots were fired I could not believe how close it was to the scenario I had described to you on Wednesday. I am sure that had I testified that I would have wanted to give my reenactment so the jury could have had the option of considering how well the defendant’s story fit the physical facts. This, of course, would not have been helpful to the prosecution case. However, I feel that it is quite important as possible exculpatory evidence so I hope that, in the interest of justice, you informed Mr. Zimmerman of my findings. It certainly appears like Brady material to me.

It was a pleasure meeting you and your team and I learned one thing; the military life is not for me. You guys are getting up about the time we go to bed.

Respectfully Submitted,

Dr. Herbert Leon MacDonell, Director
LABORATORY OF FORENSIC SCIENCE

The details above offer just a snippet of the injustice that has befallen this young officer and his family. In another post, Photos Show Scene Where Trail of Injustice Began, I shared photos of the shooting scene as well as the t ext of the sworn affidavit (below), dated April 21, 2009, in which Dr. MacDonell explains how knowledge he obtained while waiting to testify in the case could have changed dramatically its outcome:

I was retained by the government to testify as an expert witness in bloodstain analysis. On 16 December 2008 I received a FedEx package from Captain Megan Poirier. It contained ten envelopes of photographs and reports as well as a video of the scene. Included was a report by Barbara Liveri, and the autopsy report done by an Iraqi doctor. Prior to trial, I told the government that using only the photographs at the scene and the nature of the surfaces where the bloodstains were located made it difficult to reach any definitive conclusions. I had been contacted before trial by Jack Zimmerman, one of the lawyers for First Lieutenant Behenna and told him the same thing. I was set to travel to Fort Campbell on Wednesday, February 25, 2009, to return on Friday, February 27, 2009. I was called and asked to come a day earlier, which I did. I sat in on the testimony of Dr. Paul Radelat and Mr. Tom Bevel. They testified on Wednesday.

At a recess on Wednesday, I was in the prosecutor’s office in room 13 in the courthouse. While talking with Dr. Berg about the bullet wounds Ali Mansur received, Dr. Berg gave me information I previously did not have. Dr. Berg told me that the wound trajectories for both the chest wound and the head wound were horizontal and essentially parallel.

After thinking about this new information, I did a demonstration to show the only logical explanation which was consistent with the autopsy findings, the bloodstains, the final resting position of the body, and the time between shots. I had Sergeant MacCauley stand directly in front of me, and facing me. I asked him to raise his right arm a little and then I poked my right index finger in to the right side of his chest under his arm and said, “Bang! You have just been shot, so drop down.” The sergeant dropped to his knees and as his head passed in front of my finger, I said, “Bang! You have been shot again.” I remarked that this was consistent with the physical evidence. All three prosecutors, Captains Poirier, Roberts, and Elbert were present when I gave this demonstration and informed them of my opinion.

On Thursday morning during one of the breaks I examined the 9mm bullet and saw it had struck a hard object while traveling backwards. This is consistent with the bullet tumbling as it exited on of Ali Mansur’s wounds. The uniformity of the extruded lead into a disk-like configuration shows it was traveling in a horizontal trajectory if the surface it struck was a flat, very coarse, vertical surface. Logically, that could have been the culvert’s concrete wall.

On Thursday afternoon, the day after this demonstration, I listened to Lt. Behenna testify. I had seen no written statement made by him. This was the first time I learned what he said had happened. After Lt. Behenna described the shooting, I turned to Dr. Berg and told him, “That is exactly what I told you guys yesterday.” There was a recess about 5:00 pm and Lt. Behenna was still on the witness stand. I was told by Captain Poirier that I would not be needed, and a flight was arranged for me for that evening. I told Captains Poirier and Roberts that I could stay another day if necessary. They told me my testimony would not be needed and I could leave to get my flight.

When I went back to room 13 to get my hat, coat, and briefcase the captains on the prosecution team were already in that room. As I gathered my things I reminded them that although the scenario I had presented to them the day before was unlikely, it still was the only theory I could develop that was consistent with the physical evidence. It was also exactly the way Lt. Behenna had described the events. Their reaction was noticeably cold. I went back into the courtroom and went over to Jack Zimmerman. As I was putting on my coat I remarked that I was sorry I was leaving because I would have made a good witness for him. He asked why, and I told him I was a government expert, and could not discuss it with him until after the trial. He asked me not to leave but I did. I did not believe it would have been proper for me to have told Attorney Zimmerman any more than I did. I was not “eager to communicate” with him or I would have told him my concern at that time on Thursday.

I expected that the prosecutors would tell Mr. Zimmerman what I had told them. When I was released without being called as a defense witness, and had returned to Corning, New York, I was concerned. I consulted two friends, a Supreme Court judge and a lawyer, and decided to check with Captain Poirier to ensure she had passed on the opinion I had given the prosecutors Thursday afternoon when I was getting my hat, coat, and briefcase.

From reading the judge’s ruling, I believe the misunderstanding may have resulted from the way I interpreted the questions asked during my telephone testimony on Saturday, February 28, 2009.

When I testified that I told Dr. Berg, “That is exactly what I told you guys yesterday,” and did not remember telling my reaction to any other person, I meant right there at that moment in the courtroom. There was no one else but Dr. Berg sitting nearby who had witnessed my demonstration the day before. The prosecutors were at counsel table then.

However, at the next recess, when I went to get my hat, coat, and briefcase, I specifically told the three prosecutors in their office in room 13 the same thing I told Dr. Berg. As I testified on February 28, 2009, “And as I was leaving I told the prosecuting group, I said, “That was exactly what I told you.’”

I do not feel that it is fair to put the opinion I related to Dr. Berg and Captains Poirier, Roberts, and Elbert on Thursday in quotation marks. Until Wednesday afternoon I had not been told the wound trajectories for both shots were horizontal and parallel. I had not been provided the bullet to examine. The scientific process required me to consider the physical and medical evidence in reaching my final conclusion. That is why I wanted to see the bullet on Thursday. When I heard Lt. Behenna describe what happened, I did not say other witnesses were lying, or that my conclusion was based on my opinion of the Lieutenant’s credibility. My expert opinion was based on the fact that the Lieutenant’s description as to how the shooting occurred fit the physical evidence.

I have consulted and testified in many trials, and I know what exculpatory evidence is. I firmly believe the jury should have heard my testimony.

Of course, there’s much more to this story; therefore, I strongly encourage you to read the dozens of other posts I’ve published about Lieutenant Behenna, then write your congressman and demand justice for this soldier.

To learn more about Lieutenant Behenna’s life before and after he joined the Army, click here to download “The Michael Behenna Story” (26 pgs., PDF) by new BMW contributor Carrie Fatigante.

To learn more about the case and the legal defense fund set up to help defray costs associated with Lt. Behenna’s defense, visit DefendMichael.com.

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by New York Times’ best selling author Brad Thor to discuss his newest thriller Full Black, how he develops material for his books, the importance of highlighting the work of the fearless patriots in America’s Special Forces, and the upcoming Warner Bros. film adaptations of his blockbuster novels.

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