GItmo Judge Axed For Speaking Out

Military judge dismissed:

A judge hearing a war crimes case at Guantanamo Bay who publicly expressed frustration with military prosecutors' refusal to give evidence to the defense has been dismissed, tribunal officials confirmed Friday.

Army Col. Peter Brownback III was presiding over the case of Canadian detainee Omar Khadr. Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, in his role as chief judge at Guantanamo, ordered the dismissal without explanation and announced Brownback's replacement in an e-mail this week to lawyers in Khadr's case.

In another indication of the Pentagon's drive to step up the pace at Guantanamo, charges were drafted against three more terrorism suspects, bringing to 17 the number accused of war crimes.

[SNIP]

Brownback said during an April hearing that he had been "badgered and beaten and bruised by Maj. Groharing" to set a date but couldn't do so in good conscience when the prosecution was withholding evidence.

Brownback revealed in a November 2007 session that Pentagon officials had made clear they "didn't like" his decision the previous June to dismiss the Khadr case for lack of jurisdiction.

That ruling was overturned a few weeks later by a hastily assembled Court of Military Commission Review.

Asked about Brownback's removal, Air Force Capt. Andre Kok, a tribunal spokesman, said it was "a mutual decision between Col. Brownback and the Army that he revert to his retired status when his current active-duty orders expire in June."

We are ruled by a military junta, one that spits on the rule of law.

--WS

Citizen's Arrest

In order for there to be an actual arrest, you'd have to get past his bodyguard, Pam Atlas. A pie in the face would be nice, too.

John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, faces a citizen's arrest when he addresses an audience at the Hay Festival in Wales this evening.

George Monbiot, the journalist and activist, is planning the action because he believes Mr Bolton is a "war criminal".

He said he was surprised that Mr Bolton would be allowed to "swim through the politest of polite soirees – which is of course Hay."

Mr Bolton, who was the American ambassador to the UN from August 2005 to January 2006, is due to talk at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival at 6.30pm on international relations.

I'd rather see the actual authorities from the Hague arrest him, but so much for wishes and good intentions.

--WS

Iraq Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA)

[Image: Aerial photograph of the Castleshaw Roman fort which lies on the old Roman Road from Manchester to York.]

I had to get in my Pale Rider Way Way back Time Machine to go get this for you, so please read it:

ONE of the most effective ways of breeding enmity among friendly nations is to station the troops of one country on the soil of another in peacetime. The problem is compounded when the foreign troops claim extraterritorial privileges and hold themselves not subject to local law. In the overall grand strategy of the cold war, the U.S. has sought to devise a new and workable solution to the old problems: a worldwide network of "status-of-forces agreements" designed to cover the bulk of 700,000 U.S. soldiers, sailors and airmen stationed in 49 friendly countries.

The status-of-forces agreements, in spite of the ruckus over Specialist Third Class Girard in Japan, are working out amazingly well. Status-of-forces agreements have contributed in six years of steady growth toward easing the tensions between allies, and have added up to a remarkable good-sense show of international justice from which the U.S. and its allies alike have benefited. One Girard case provides an uproar in the U.S. and Japan, for example, but 5,544 other U.S.-Japanese cases that came up last year worked out smoothly. Over a longer term, fewer than half a dozen out of 10,000 arrests of Americans in France since 1953 have caused the U.S. any concern.

Off Duty, Off Base. Since 1951, the U.S. has negotiated more than 40 status-of-forces agreements covering most of the world sectors where the U.S. force-in-being is deployed. The basic agreement is the NATO status-of-forces treaty signed in London in 1951 and ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1953. This NATO treaty grants the U.S. primary jurisdiction over G.I.s in a NATO country who get in trouble while on duty, or who commit offenses against other U.S. citizens. The treaty generally grants the "host" NATO country primary legal jurisdiction when G.I.s commit off-duty, off-base offenses that can range from running red lights to rape.

Now, how many blogs will link to an article from 1957 as if it were yesterday and locate for you a very, very relevant little nugget of information?

The key provision--ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1953--means that when the United States decides to station troops on foreign soil, a SOFA must be ratified by the United States Senate.

Is the SOFA being negotiated between Iraq and the United States going to be ratified by the Senate? No. They're not. Surprised?

Gary Hart:

To seal the deal, with the expectation of binding future presidential successors, Mr. Bush and Iraq president Nouri al-Maliki are in the process of negotiating a "status of forces agreement" that would commit the U.S. military to combat any internal or external factions the Iraqi government deemed a threat. This represents a one-directional security treaty cloaked in the form of an agreement not subject to Senate ratification. And it guarantees U.S. involvement in age-old Iraqi sectarian conflict for decades to come.

And so by showing a picture of an old Roman fort from when they garrisoned England, a Time Magazine article from way, way back when, and a little current events, we come to the end of our history lesson for today.

LTC Jordan "Cleared"

Officer Cleared in Abu Ghraib Case

The only officer charged in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal has been cleared of criminal wrongdoing, his attorney said Thursday. A military jury convicted Army Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan in August of disobeying an order to not talk about an investigation into the abuse of Iraqi prisoners in the fall of 2003. Jordan was acquitted of allegations that he failed to supervise 11 lower-ranking soldiers previously convicted for their roles at Abu Ghraib.

Now the conviction has been thrown out. Maj. Gen. Richard J. Rowe, commanding general of the Military District of Washington, sent Jordan's attorney a memo Tuesday saying the criminal charge has been dismissed. Although a military jury voted to convict Jordan and recommended a criminal reprimand, Rowe had the final say.

The document said simply that the finding of guilty and the sentence had been "disapproved" and that the charges were dismissed, said Maj. Kris Poppe, Jordan's attorney.

Instead of the criminal reprimand, Rowe issued an administrative reprimand that questions Jordan's decision to disobey the order from Maj. Gen. George Fay, who investigated the abuses. The action means Jordan will have no criminal conviction on his record.

Poppe had asked Rowe in a letter last week to dismiss the conviction. Jordan acknowledged he did not follow Fay's order, but he does not believe he committed a crime, Poppe said.

"We simply asked the convening authority, Maj. Gen. Rowe, to consider the fact that Col. Jordan has faced these very serious charges for a long period of time, that he had been found not guilty of any offense related to the abuse of detainees, and that he had a stellar record," Poppe said. "Under the whole circumstances ... it would be unjust to maintain that conviction."

The Abu Ghraib scandal erupted in 2004 with the release of pictures of grinning U.S. soldiers posing with detainees, some naked, being held on leashes or in painful and sexually humiliating positions.

Like Jordan, several other officers were reprimanded administratively for their roles at Abu Ghraib. The highest-ranking soldier to be convicted of a crime was former Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick, a military police reservist, who was paroled in October from military prison after serving about three years of an eight-year sentence.

Jordan, 51, of Fredericksburg, Va., could not be reached for comment, but told The Washington Post that the Army "finally got it right."

"I'm still a little bit shocked by it all, but I'm gratified and glad that General Rowe saw it for what it really is," Jordan told the newspaper. "I don't know if any officer needed to be held accountable, but I obviously don't believe it should have been me."

Poppe said Jordan would remain on active duty at Fort Belvoir, Va., until he retires later this year.

...with full benefits.

Well, good for you, LTC Jordan. I hope you have something to be proud of.

Cynicism About the Jordan Verdict

My cynicism is sure getting a workout lately.

Take the conviction of Lt. Colonel Steven Jordan, the highest ranking member of the armed services to stand trial for the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib. He was not convicted of prisoner abuse, or of being a derelict officer. He was convicted of talking about what happened at the prison.

(Loose lips sink appropriations for new ships!)

And the real culprits all skate away. The Two-Star Dominatrix, MG Barbara Fast? She skates away, unencumbered by charges nor, it seems, by conscience. But some of us know the score. We know that her deputies, Military Intelligence Warrant Officers shown tuning up prisoners in the photographs right next to SSG Graner, are some of the most sadistic bastards to ever don the cloth...These criminals too, walk free.

The Army counted on the idiots of this country to buy the lie that a part-time Staff Sergeant ran the entire show. That a part-time Staff Sergeant was the ringleader of the whole sordid spectacle. They conveniently omitted from their explanation the real role of those Warrant Officers. And idiot America bought it.

Most Americans don't even know what a warrant officer actually is.

They sure as hell aren't going to explain that with a WO standing there, a SSG might as well be a PFC where accountability starts and stops. Scapegoats were sentenced to military prison, while war criminals, sadists and torturers walk free.

[H/T to Pale Rider. This post is essentially a summation of an email conversation the wto of us had on this topic, with some input from my husband.]