On the one hand, four Blackwater contractors were murdered and beheaded as they pulled security in a convoy that was attempting to deliver food.

On the other hand, Al-Isawi had a small cut on his lip that a doctor would later testify appeared to have been self-inflicted.

Yet for this latter instance of bloodshed three SEALs were charged with serious crimes. All of them — Matthew McCabe, Jonathan Keefe and one known by the pseudonym “Sam Gonzales” — were cleared, but in “Honor and Betrayal: The Untold Story of the Navy SEALs Who Captured the ‘Butcher of Fallujah’ — and the Shameful Ordeal They Later Endured” (Da Capo Press), his follow-up to his previous Navy SEALs bestseller, “Lone Survivor,” author Patrick Robinson asks why they were court-martialed in the first place.

Fair question, as is this one: If McCabe (the man who actually apprehended Al-Isawi) had wanted to abuse the prisoner, why didn’t he do so during the raid? Indeed, McCabe could simply have shot Al-Isawi (who would later hang for his crimes) and called it a night. “Shot him dead, right there in his apartment, since he was armed, with a record of crime and violence which would’ve made Genghis Khan look like Mr. Rogers.”