For Navy SEAL McCabe, much hinges on elderly, partly deaf translator and the caliphate

By Kay B. Day

PO 2nd class Matthew McCabe’s trial in a Norfolk (Va.) courtroom is underway, and an issue I’ve raised is relevant to any trial for a member of the military in a foreign war zone. I have modest fluency in several languages, and once you study another language, you begin to understand that like English, those languages have various nuances and larger options for leeway in translation as well.

I remain concerned about the fairness of trials for our military members who must rely on translators we cannot fully vet. And it’s a known fact translators of Middle Eastern languages can often be difficult to find.

Thus I was relieved to read that this potential source of confusion was addressed on Tuesday in court.

Click to read more ...

Digging deeper into coverage of the Navy SEALs trials

By Kay B. Day

After the second of three trials for Navy SEALs facing charges over an alleged Iraqi terrorist, the Associated Press ran a story similar to the first one covering the cases. The second story announced a 'not guilty' verdict for PO 2nd Class Jonathan Keefe.

After I read the first story about PO 1st Class Julio Huertas, I wrote about the extreme bias I perceived in the AP writer’s article about Huertas.

Click to read more ...