Smothering The Hearts and Minds

Kevin Drum points us to a Marc Cooper post on the court martial of Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr. called Smothering The Hearts and Minds:

Let’s make sure we get this story right. You take the captured, uniformed general of an enemy army — and in blatant violation of all notions of human decency and of the Geneva Conventions — you beat him with rubber hoses, pour water down his nose, then stuff him into a sleeping bag, tie him with electrical cord, and then sit your ass down on his chest until he suffocates and you are convicted of what? “Negligent homicide?”

....Remember that the victim in this case, Iraqi General Abed Hamel Mowhoush was a top, uniformed officer of a recognized state-sponsored enemy army and not some “illegal combatant.” Worse, when Mowhoush was suffocated in November 2003, it was after he had voluntarily turned himself in to U.S. military authorities. At least, sort of voluntarily. Fact is, the General surrendered to American troops because they were holding his sons hostage — yet another stark violation of international law.

And we also learn this from the LA Times account of the trial:

The day after the general’s death, prosecutors said, Welshofer asked for another sleeping bag so he could continue using the technique on others.

Read the whole thing if you have a strong stomach. And then ask yourself: if the jury bought Welshofer's argument that he was just following orders, whose orders was he following?