“I have tried to be a loyal soldier, putting the needs of this nation before my own”

From Reuters

Now, I wanna warn you; this story might get a lot of play over with the Kossacks, since it’s some “rogue agent” of some “vast, right-wing conspiracy.” Part of Karl Rove’s attack machine. Part of some evil plot from Donald Rumsfeld. Just put the pieces together, man…

A military jury at Fort Carson, Colorado, sentenced CW3 Lewis Welshofer Jr. to forfeit $6,000 in pay and was given 60 days of restricted movement. That’s down from the original hopes of the prosecution, a two-year jail sentence as well as a dishonorable discharge. But, since this is a scandal in Iraq, involving somebody with a prisoner…guess what person’s name pops up…

Former Pvt. Lynndie England, seen in pictures with naked Abu Ghraib prisoners in humiliating poses, was sentenced to three years in prison and two other soldiers were given sentences of 10 and 8-1/2 years.

Uh, yeah. That is just like what happened with somebody directly ordered to stay away from that part of the prison. How does this compare with the person witnesses at the hearing portrayed “as a dedicated soldier fighting the growing insurgency in western Iraq?” How does humiliating prisoners compare to getting valuable secrets from a high-dollar figure in a pressure-packed situation?

It doesn’t. This was a man who actually cared about his job, and his country, and was doing what he could to make the mission happen. When I read, “Welshofer became tearful when asking the jury for leniency,” I wasn’t looking at a selfish group of abusive children. To be preemptive here, this was not the act of some rogue agent of Big Oil™. This was a man, groping with the boundaries of his authority.

Make no mistake about it, what he did was beyond the line. Should he be punished? Yes. Should it be to the maximum; the highest penalties? Of course not. This was the act of a desperate man, at a desperate time. To say otherwise is to not understand the effects of War on the people fighting it.

CW3 Welshofer was acquitted of murder, a charge that could have brought a life sentence. “Fighting these charges is the hardest thing we’ve had to face in our life together,” his wife Barbara said. She said her three children were hurt and confused and the family has spent its life savings on Welshofer’s legal defense. But…check this from the AP at MSNBC.com:

Prosecutors described Welshofer as a rogue interrogator who became frustrated with Mowhoush’s refusal to answer questions and escalated his techniques from simple interviews to beatings to simulating drowning, and finally, to death.

Emphasis mine. Honestly, I don’t think this is going to get any play, since it’s too old, and not really a good sound-byte. But it’s enough to grate on my nerves, simply because it’s another soldier who did wrong. Yes, he sinned, but…what was the cost? The slap on the wrist is too much in this humble blogger’s opinion.

There’s bigger fish to fry, now, since they never could get anything to stick to Rummy or Rove in Iraq. Maybe they can get this Abrahmoff thing to work? The DeLay indictments? Domestic wire-tapping? Who knows?

But justice is a funny thing. It rewards the innocent, and punishes the guilty. Maybe not today, but eventually. CW3 Welshofer’s biggest sin was trying to do too much. For that, I cannot find him guilty.


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