Navy JAG resigns over torture issue
“It was with sadness that I signed my name this grey morning to a letter resigning my commission in the U.S. Navy,” wrote Gig Harbor, Wash., resident and attorney-at-law Andrew Williams in a letter to The Peninsula Gateway last week. “There was a time when I served with pride … Sadly, no more.”
Williams’ sadness stems from the recent CIA videotape scandal in which tapes showing secret interrogations of two Al Qaeda operatives were destroyed.
The tapes may have contained evidence that the U.S. government used a type of torture known as waterboarding to obtain information from suspected terrorists.
Torture, including water-boarding, is prohibited under the treaties of the Geneva Convention.
It was in the much-publicized interview two weeks ago between Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, who is the chief legal adviser at the Pentagon’s Office of Military Commissions, that led Williams to resign. [complete article]
