JAG CENTRAL

From the NY Times, No Prison for Soldier in Abuse Case:

A jury on Thursday spared Pfc. Willie V. Brand from prison time, reducing his rank a day after he was convicted in a brutal attack on an Afghan prisoner. Prosecutors had asked that the defendant, 27, be sent to a military prison for 10 years with a dishonorable discharge.

On Wednesday, a jury of four enlisted soldiers and three officers convicted Private Brand of assault, maltreatment, maiming and making a false official statement in connection with an attack on a detainee known as Dilawar at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan while Private Brand worked in a detention center there in December 2002.

The jury acquitted him of charges that he had abused a second detainee, Habibullah. Both prisoners died in December 2002.

Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, Head of U.S. Southern Command, Criticizing Bush Administration Policy Toward Securing Immunity for Troops in Latin America (Reuters)

In other news, an article about how foreign policy aimed at securing favorable Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs) for our troops could be backfiring, entitled Bush's Aid Cuts on Court Issue Roil Latin American Neighbors:

Three years ago the Bush administration began prodding countries to shield Americans from the fledgling International Criminal Court in The Hague, which was intended to be the first permanent tribunal for prosecuting crimes like genocide.

The United States has since cut aid to some two dozen nations that refused to sign immunity agreements that American officials say are intended to protect American soldiers and policy makers from politically motivated prosecutions.

To the Bush administration, the aid cuts are the price paid for refusing to offer support in an area where it views the United States, with its military might stretched across the globe, as being uniquely vulnerable.

But particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean, home to 12 nations that have been penalized, the cuts are generating strong resentment at what many see as heavy-handed diplomacy, officials and diplomats in seven countries said.

More than that, some Americans are also beginning to question the policy, as political and military leaders in the region complain that the aid cuts are squandering good will and hurting their ability to cooperate in other important areas, like the campaigns against drugs and terrorism.

In testimony before Congress in March, Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, the commander of American military forces in Latin America, said the sanctions had excluded Latin American officers from American training programs and could allow China, which has been seeking military ties to Latin America, to fill the void.

"We now risk losing contact and interoperability with a generation of military classmates in many nations of the region, including several leading countries," General Craddock told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Most of the penalties, outlined in a law that went into effect in 2003, have been in the form of cuts in military training and other security aid. But a budget bill passed in December also permits new cuts in social and health-care programs, like AIDS education and peacekeeping, refugee assistance and judicial reforms.

Categories: SOFA, Detainee-Abuse, Newspapers