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.
In the interview, Graham asked Hartmann how the uniformed legal community should respond if the Iranian government used waterboarding to torture a U.S. solider into disclosing when the next U.S. military operation would occur.
Hartmann responded: "I am not prepared to answer that question."
For Williams, a former naval Lieutenant Commander and member of the Judge Advocate General's Corps (JAG), this answer went against "every training I had as an attorney" and as a member of the military.
Williams enlisted in the Navy in 1991 after completing law school at Santa Clara University. He was a legal officer and defense counsel in the U.S. Navy, meaning he both prosecuted and defended people in military courts.
He served on the USS Nimitz CVN-68, based in Bremerton, before becoming a member of the Naval reserves in 1995.
Williams, 43, felt that Hartmann was admitting torture is now an acceptable interrogation technique in the United States -- an admission that did not sit well with him.
"There was this saying in the Marines: 'We don't lie, cheat or steal, or tolerate people who do,' " Williams said. "And that sort of echoed through the Navy."
Williams felt that resigning from the reserves was not enough to demonstrate his dissatisfaction. He wrote to the Gateway hoping to set an example, echoing his same reason for joining the Navy two decades ago: "It was my way of serving the public," he said.
In his letter, Williams likened the use of torture by the United States to techniques used by the Spanish Inquisition, Nazi Germany and the Khmer Rouge. He also wrote that he hopes "the truth about torture, illegal spying on Americans and secret renditions is coming out."
Williams doubts that much will come of his letter of resignation and acknowledges that his life in Gig Harbor -- which consists of practicing personal injury law and spending time with wife and young son -- will not change much.
"I suspect (the Navy is) probably going to be fine with it," he said. "I doubt they would keep me in voluntarily."
He also states that, although reserve officers only perform military service once a year, he "probably would have stayed on if this hadn't happened, both for sentimental value and if something big happened where I was needed."
Outrage over CIA scandal
Below is an excerpt from the letter Andrew Williams submitted to The Peninsula Gateway. For the entire letter, see Letters to the Editor 16A.
"Thank you General Hartmann for finally admitting the United States is now part of a long tradition of torturers going back to the Inquisition. In the middle ages the Inquisition called waterboarding "toca" and used it with great success. In colonial times, it was used by the Dutch East India Company during the Amboyna Massacre of 1623.
"Waterboarding was used by the Nazi Gestapo and the feared Japanese Kempeitai. In World War II, our grandfathers had the wisdom to convict Japanese Officer Yukio Asano of waterboarding and other torture practices in 1947 giving him 15 years hard labor. Waterboarding was practiced by the Khmer Rouge at the infamous Tuol Sleng prison. Most recently, the United States Army court martialed a soldier for the practice in 1968 during the Vietnam conflict."
Sound Off...What do you think? Join the discussion.
Copyright 2007 Knight Ridder . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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So... anybody think somebody in the US will ever get convicted to 15 years of hard labor ? (to be fair, a lot of that might have been those "other torture practices")
On the Knight Ridder discussion forum, some have already dismissed the story on the grounds that Williams was just a lawyer, and that he already had a career outside of the military. So while the resignation undoubtedly took some courage, it is not as striking a symbol as one might hope for.
Any high-ranking career officers care to step up?
15 years nothing. I want to see the leadership of this government sent up before the Hague for war crimes.
Ugh. The majority of the comments on that article are really depressing.
By the way, the U.S. Army Field Manual does SPECIFICALLY forbid water torture (sorry, I refuse to use the Owellian "waterboarding") as well as the cold cell and other techniques that are now part of US policy.
The United States is spreading a lot of something, but it sure isn't "democracy."
Froborr: "15 years nothing. I want to see the leadership of this government sent up before the Hague for war crimes."
I couldn't agree more!
In case anyone wants to read the entire thing: http://www.gateline.com/opinion/story/295.html
On the Knight Ridder discussion forum, some have already dismissed the story
Because, y'know, anything they didn't have to do must have been an easy choice to make.
I take the post title as further proof that Fred reads the comments. Seeing as how we have a proclivity toward four- or five-hundred comment threads a few times a week, might I suggest you might want to get out more, Mr. Fred? Take a walk. Meet a girl. Take over the government and tell us all how to spend our money and be appropriately compassionate (TM). Y'know, live a little...
Those morons who say he didn't give anything up are clueless. Walking away from a career, and one which demands so much of one (body, and soul) because the institution is failing itself.... that's a hard row to hoe.
He has my every sympathy, respect and support. If he ever shows up someplace with so much as a lapel pin; I'll stand up and salute.
No reservations.
I'm glad for the man. Would that ten thousand like him resign on their principles the same way.
Oh, 04:19 was me - I think my cookie vanished when I hit "Preview".
Good for Cmdr. Williams!
Unfortunately, about all that someone in the military can do to protest is to resign.
I worry about those who don't.
I happen to know anecdotally (close correspondence with several JAG members who were high school friends that stayed in touch) that dozens of lesser JAG have already resigned in protest to either waterboarding or the revocation of habeas corpus. They won't get the recognition that Williams will (mostly because they weren't ranked as highly; Lt. Cmdr. is a big deal), but there is a definite undercurrent of unease among our nation's JAG corps.
Good on him, though, for making an issue of morality, as well as law, out of Hartmann's testimony. It's true that we've condemned people in the past for similar practices,
Geds: I take the post title as further proof that Fred reads the comments.
And I am plenty tickled that a throwaway Firefly reference became not only a shorthand in the thread itself but part of the title for another post. I feel like a real Slactiv(suffix) now.
This type of news is what keeps me in this country. We've clearly gone down a very dark and dangerous path, but there are a lot of people who are quietly tugging us back in the other direction.
BDH indeed!
This type of news is what keeps me in this country.
AMEN!
I'm a little saddened that there isn't someone more high profile, but it's still terrific news. Every veteran I know will be extremely proud to read this.
I take the post title as further proof that Fred reads the comments. Seeing as how we have a proclivity toward four- or five-hundred comment threads a few times a week, might I suggest you might want to get out more, Mr. Fred?
Seriously, how does anyone do that? Personally, I like the bare aesthetics of this site, but when reading the comment threads, it's not only hard to keep track of where you are (lots of scrolling up & down), but I get headaches staring at the screen that long. Damn you fellow commenters for being so fascinating!
I have one window with tabs for each of the posts I'm following, then I click the bottommost timestamp, which sets the URL to the anchor for that comment, then hit reload - so the reloaded page goes straight to the last comment before I reloaded.
I have one window with tabs for each of the posts I'm following, then I click the bottommost timestamp, which sets the URL to the anchor for that comment, then hit reload - so the reloaded page goes straight to the last comment before I reloaded.
Except for the tabs (I prefer opening new windows so that I can use the same button combination to jump from one Firefox window to another as I use to jump from a Firefox window to, say, iTunes), that is *brilliant* and I'm going to use that method from now on.
On the Knight Ridder discussion forum, some have already dismissed the story on the grounds that Williams was just a lawyer, and that he already had a career outside of the military. So while the resignation undoubtedly took some courage, it is not as striking a symbol as one might hope for.
Y'know, lots of people assume that having a law degree (any law degree) guarantees you a gold-plated job that pays in the six figures at a top law firm. Ain't so. Most law firms are looking for 20-somethings fresh out of law school and willing to work 80 hours a week, rather than a 40- or 50-something lawyer with experience in military justice rather than, say, intellectual property law or something more relevant to life in the civilian world. Yes, there are jobs to be had, but switching careers in your 40s or 50s isn't quite as rosy a picture as non-lawyers tend to believe. (My dad's a retired Navy JAG.)
Too bad Lawyer Williams isn't intellectually honest enough to admit that the US military has a long history of waterboarding, too - we had congressional hearings on our killing of Filipino POWs via "the water-cure" almost exactly 100 years ago.
Nothing was done about it then, either, except for a few slaps on wrists.
After all, we were bringing them liberty and civilization.
the downside is that the remaining military is now a smidge closer to being Pure Distilled Evil.
Pardon my ignorance, but what does "BDH" stand for?
Thanks y'all, and may y'all have a happy new year. :)
Bill K: Pardon my ignorance, but what does "BDH" stand for?
If you pop over to the TFWOT comments, you'll find that BDH stands for Big Damn Hero. The more specific context is that it describes someone who goes above and beyond, who displays extraordinary courage and goodness at a level it would be unrealistic to expect in everyone all the time.
Bill K, it stands for "Big Damn Hero." See the comments in the previous thread (TFWOT).
to add to the BDH reference, I think (as do others above) that it likely started out as a quote from Firefly (the tv show). The quote from ths show:
Mal: Well, look at this! Appears we got here just in the nick of time. What does that make us?
Zoe: Big damn heroes, sir!
Mal: Ain't we just?
Too bad Lawyer Williams isn't intellectually honest enough to admit that the US military has a long history of waterboarding, too - we had congressional hearings on our killing of Filipino POWs via "the water-cure" almost exactly 100 years ago.
Nothing was done about it then, either, except for a few slaps on wrists.
After all, we were bringing them liberty and civilization.
I read about that on Andrew Sullivan's blog (which is where I get most of my waterboarding news, come to think of it), and I think there was some pushback from those practices. Like judges or legislators making it illegal from then on. Did the people involved really only get a slap on the wrist ?
Even if they did though, the moral to that story to me isn't that Americans do Evil Things (though some people obviously need to be made aware of this), but : Americans decided a hundred years ago that what this administration is doing is unacceptable. So they should stop waffling already.
My paranoid side wonders if the waterboarding is part of a larger PMD push toward theocracy. There are so many things that seem to have sinister meaning when put together - torture used specifically against Muslims, the hiring of Blackwater whose chief holds fanatical Dominionist beliefs, Bush's "crusade" slip of the tongue after 9/11, the Air Force Academy becoming a Jesus Camp, the increasing evangelizing and harassment against non-Christian members of the American military, the Bush Administration's ties with educational institutions (Regent University and Patrick Henry College) that openly advocate theocracy, the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives favoring fundamentalist charities at the expense of even other Christian charities...did I miss anything?
Too bad Lawyer Williams isn't intellectually honest enough to admit that the US military has a long history of waterboarding, too - we had congressional hearings on our killing of Filipino POWs via "the water-cure" almost exactly 100 years ago
The guy throws away a career in hopes of exposing current abuses, and you demand more of him?
The guy throws away a career in hopes of exposing current abuses, and you demand more of him?
Most Americans know about the Spanish-American War, but few know about what happened in the Phillipines in the years that followed the war. I wouldn't be surprised if Williams didn't know.
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Andrew Williams, who was a legal officer and defense counsel in the U.S. Navy--he both prosecuted and defended people in military courts--has resigned.
"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.
A lot of us join you in your sadness, Andrew.
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.
In the interview, Graham asked Hartmann how the uniformed legal community should respond if the Iranian government used waterboarding to torture a U.S. soldier into disclosing when the next U.S. military operation would occur.
Hartmann responded: "I am not prepared to answer that question."
For Williams, a former naval Lieutenant Commander and member of the Judge Advocate General's Corps (JAG), this answer went against "every training I had as an attorney" and as a member of the military.
BushCo doesn't think little things like that matter. Easy fix: Just rewrite the manuals in question.
Williams, 43, felt that Hartmann was admitting torture is now an acceptable interrogation technique in the United States -- an admission that did not sit well with him.
"There was this saying in the Marines: 'We don't lie, cheat or steal, or tolerate people who do,' " Williams said. "And that sort of echoed through the Navy." [...]
In his letter, Williams likened the use of torture by the United States to techniques used by the Spanish Inquisition, Nazi Germany and the Khmer Rouge. He also wrote that he hopes "the truth about torture, illegal spying on Americans and secret renditions is coming out."
The next step is to do something about it. And to thank people like Andrew Williams for speaking out.
Good on him! Its a bloody shame it has to come down to resignation, but he's got a hell of a lot more of my respect than many of these other bastards.