Captain James Yee

Atrios links to this NYTimes article about the bogus case against U.S. Army chaplain Capt. James Yee:

"This whole thing makes the military prosecutors look ridiculous," said John L. Fugh, a retired major general and onetime judge advocate general, the highest uniformed legal officer in the Army. ... "It certainly seems like they couldn't get him on what they first thought they had," General Fugh said, "so they said, `Let's get the son of a gun on something.' "

It looks like the case was driven by an overzealous C.O., Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who wanted to nail a Muslim soldier. "Some senior officers at Guantánamo were skeptical about the wisdom of having Muslims and Arab-Americans involved in the interrogations of prisoners and other camp operations, and there was smoldering suspicion over what they were doing when they met with one another." Right. Those shifty Muslims, talking to each other. Bastards. They're probably all al Qaeda. The bigotry was aided by incompetence: "Reservists serving as counterintelligence officers at the camp were apprehensive that they might miss some sign of infiltration of the base but were relatively inexperienced in how to handle such matters."

It would be funny, except Yee still faces imprisonment and dishonorable discharge for such heinous crimes as adultery.

And there was this delightful tidbit:

[O]ne of these reservists ended up himself being charged with the same offenses that were initially lodged against Captain Yee, specifically "wrongfully transporting classified material without the proper security container." But the officer, Col. Jack Farr, a reservist in Army intelligence, was not arrested or detained like Captain Yee.

Colonel Farr was also charged with making a false statement about his handling of classified documents when the matter was being investigated.

A military spokesman would say only that each case is different.

Yes, it certainly is different when a loyal patriotic white Christian is charged with such things. Especially when he has a bird on his collar. Fuckwits.

Atrios then takes Michelle Malkin to task for this article (warning: Townhall link) in which she said:

Yee exploited our bent-over-backwards solicitude toward Muslims in the military by allegedly using his access to smuggle out diagrams of the detainees' cells and lists of the names of the detainees and their interrogators. More than half of the armed forces' Muslim chaplains were trained by a terror-linked, Saudi-subsidized institute while military leaders blindly sung the praises of multiculturalism.

Islamist Fifth Columnists are benefiting from the very guarantees of religious freedom being denied to devout Christian soldiers such as Daniel Moody who are risking their lives for the War on Terror overseas. This dangerous deference to radical Islam -- rooted in a cowardly fear of offending -- is not only a threat to our soldiers' constitutionally protected rights, but to our national security.

To which Atrios rightly responds, "Oh, Ms. Malkin, we're waiting." Don't notice much right-wing blog activity on this story, either, although it was very different when they all called him a traitor, said leg irons were too good for him, said political correctness was shielding him from media scrutiny, and said all Muslim chaplains should be under suspicion. Yeah, maybe if we watch 'em hard enough, we can get them all on previously-undetected cases of adultery.

All together now: INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY.

Update 3/20/04: Charges dropped.