Four more US Soldiers face prosecution

With the Iraq prisoner abuse investigation widening, the US is indicting, bringing to trial, and convicting more and more US Soldiers.

In an AP article, Warrant Officers Lewis E. Welshofer Jr and Jefferson L. Williams, Sgt. 1st Class William J. Sommer and Spc. Jerry L. Loper,  are being charged with the killing of Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush of the former Iraqian Army.

The specification (a military term for the individual acts that comprise the indictment) is that the defendants slid a sleeping bag over Mowhoush's head and rolled him from his back to his stomach while asking questions.  As a result, the late general died of asphyxiation. 

Under the Geneva Convention, this type of questioning and treatment is prohibited. The US rules of engagement written to side step the Geneva rules of war declared all POWs as illegal combatants.  It has also been stated by other US Soldiers who are being tried for such abuse that they received orders to conduct hostile interrogations despite the rules of war as written by the Geneva conventions, of which the US is also a signer of the ratifications.

The US chose a ‘go it alone’ posture in the protraction of unilateral military actions out of frustration with the UN to afford the US carte blanche war powers and increasing the US global authority over the sovereignty and governments of other nations.

Two other unidentified Fort Carson soldiers face courts-martial on manslaughter charges in connection with an unrelated death in Iraq that of the drowning of an Iraqi civilian in the Tigris River.

My thanks to AP

Michael Berglin