US Special Forces Left Behind in Tripoli

US SPECIAL FORCES LEFT BEHIND IN TRIPOLI 



                                                    

Thirteen U.S. special forces sailors left behind in Tripoli are surrounded and threatened by radical Islamic terroritss  - but the U.S. military refuses to bring them home.

The three officers and ten men of the U.S.S. Intrepid died in 1804 fighting the same radical Islamists we fight today, then known as Barbary pirates. They captured ships and held their crews for ransome, enslaved and killed Christians and imposed Sharia law where ever they laid claim to the territory, that now includes Tripoli.

One of the ideals that defines the differences between us and radical Islamists is the veneration of the dead and making monuments of the graves of our saints and heroes. That's something the radical Islamists don’t do - and don’t allow anyone else to do either. The Islamists don’t believe in honoring their dead, only Allah and his prophet Mohammid.

As U.S. Navy personnel who died on one of the first special ops missions of the U.S. military, these men should be afforded the same rights and honors as the Americans who die fighting on foreign soil today. And our clearly stated policy of leaving no one behind should be enforced across the board and not selectively to those who died most recently.

Instead of repatriating these men when they could, the military used the graves of the American heroes a means of dealing with the Gadhafi government. So the cemetery was restored and the graves and crypts refurbished. A history of the cemetery was written and the State Department requested the United Nations add the  cemetery to the list of World Heritage sites ostensibly protected by the UN. But that hasn’t been the case with other World Heritage sites under control of the radical islamists, including the twin Buddas in Afghanistan, the ancient Sufi archivs in Timbukto,  mosques in Iraq and Syira and other World Heritage sites that have been totally destroyed by ISIS. You can imagine what they would do to desecrate the clearly marked graves of US sailors and destroy whatever remains are entombed, as they did with the revered Sufi saints in nearby mosques.

Rather than just bring them home the DOD spent twice as much money on a study of the feasibility of repatriating them and decided it wasn’t worth it.

The DOD POW/MP office, riddled with scandal, refused to bring the remains of the men of the Intrepid home when they had the opportunity, despite the repeated requests of the families of two off the officers and the support of the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Am-Vets and the New Jersey State Legislature.

As soon as the security situation permits the remains of these men should be retrieved and returned home and reburied with full military honors in a secure place where people can visit and learn the lessons of history and take inspiration from the gallant actions of these brave men.

Now it is just a matter of who will get there first, the radical islmasits who will undoubtedly videotape their desecreation and destruction of the graves, or Americans who save Captain Somers and the remains of his brave crew?