[richlevy]

From here.

Attorneys for Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr. said he believed the general had information that would "break the back of the whole insurgency" at a time when soldiers were being killed in an increasingly lethal and bold resistance.

But prosecutor Maj. Tiernan Dolan maintained that Welshofer tortured Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush at a detention camp in 2003, treating him "worse than you would treat a dog."

After six hours of deliberations, the panel of six Army officers spared Welshofer on the more serious charge of murder — which carries a potential life sentence — instead convicting him late Saturday of negligent homicide and negligent dereliction of duty. He was acquitted of assault.

Welshofer stood silently and showed no reaction when the verdict was announced. He could be dishonorably discharged and sentenced to a maximum three years and three months in prison at a Monday hearing.

n an e-mail to a commander, Dolan said, Welshofer wrote that restrictions on interrogation techniques were impeding the Army's ability to gather intelligence. Welshofer wrote that authorized techniques came from Cold War-era doctrine that did not apply in Iraq, Dolan said.

"Our enemy understands force, not psychological mind games," Dolan quoted from Welshofer's message. Dolan said an officer responded by telling Welshofer to "take a deep breath and remember who we are."

I wonder if GWB is going to have this guy stand up in the gallery during his next State of the Union?

Many armies have had to deal with insurgents, and all of them have had to deal with uniformed enemy. How they did so is a measure of who they were.

In WWII, elements of the German military had very brutal, and to some degree effective measures for dealing with insurgencies. Their methods were the grist for many propoganda films and even parodies for decades.

The reasons McCain is upset about stuff like this is that Welshofer's attitude was probably similar to the attitudes of the guards and officers running the 'Hanoi Hilton'. They assumed prisoners had intelligence and propoganda value. They probably felt that breaking them would be a patriotic duty and might save lives.

Up until now, we have publicly taken the high road. We could demonstrate to the world our expectations about how our soldiers were to be treated. We could argue to the United Nations before or after we punished countries who tortured our soldiers that we were holding them to our standards. By being consistent, we could make the case that we were not hypocrites.

The dead man may have been an enemy, but he was also an officer in uniform. He probably did not belong to Al-Qaeda. At the worst, he may have been tied to the insurgents, although that fact was never determined. In the end, he did not provide any useful intelligence and his death probably hurt us.

Assuming Welshofer is convicted, he will probably be pardoned in 6-12 months. It's too bad all of the Joint Chief positions are filled, because he might just be the guy the administration is looking for to retool the Army to more effectively fight terrorism. If there is ever any large scale unrest in this country, he might even get the chance to try out his skills in Virginia.