JAG CENTRAL

BG Johnny A. Weida, USAFA Commandant of Cadets, Passed Over for Promotion by Senate (usafa.af.mil)

From the NY Times, Cadet Leader for Air Force is Passed Over for Promotion ("The Senate has shelved plans to promote the No. 2 officer at the Air Force Academy, a Christian who has been criticized as proselytizing in memorandums and speeches. The name of the officer, Brig. Gen. Johnny A. Weida, commandant of cadets, was pulled from a promotions list before a Senate vote on Friday to award 21 Air Force generals a second star. General Weida, a 1978 academy graduate, was nominated in May for promotion to major general."), and two letters to the editor entitled, Abuse of Detainees: Not In Our Name.

From the Washington Post, Documents Tell of Brutal Improvisation by GIs:

Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush was being stubborn with his American captors, and a series of intense beatings and creative interrogation tactics were not enough to break his will. On the morning of Nov. 26, 2003, a U.S. Army interrogator and a military guard grabbed a green sleeping bag, stuffed Mowhoush inside, wrapped him in an electrical cord, laid him on the floor and began to go to work. Again.

It was inside the sleeping bag that the 56-year-old detainee took his last breath through broken ribs, lying on the floor beneath a U.S. soldier in Interrogation Room 6 in the western Iraqi desert. Two days before, a secret CIA-sponsored group of Iraqi paramilitaries, working with Army interrogators, had beaten Mowhoush nearly senseless, using fists, a club and a rubber hose, according to classified documents.

ANALYSIS: If you read one article this week, read this one. It is thoroughly riveting. It is over five pages long but worth the time. The abuse only gets worse from this beginning excerpt. Most importantly, the accounts allegedly come not from biased witnesses looking to write a book, but from the actual government classified investigation documents.

In other news from the Post, Detainee Alleges Abuse En Route to Guantanamo ("Benyam Mohammed alleged that the torture took place in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan and that he was flown between those countries by American operatives, according to Clive Stafford Smith, a British human rights lawyer who said he represents about 40 Guantanamo Bay prisoners. There is no known independent verification of the allegations made by Mohammed, who the lawyer said reached Guantanamo in September.")

Categories: Guantanamo, Detainee-Abuse, Weida, Discrimination, Air-Force-Academy, Newspapers