Navy: Guantanamo (commanding) officer relieved of duty

[Mika]

Navy: Guantanamo officer relieved of duty
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-07-09-gitmo-leader_x.htm

MIAMI (AP) — The commanding officer of the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was relieved of his duties Saturday after he was accused of inappropriate management practices, a Navy spokesman said.

Capt. Leslie J. McCoy, who had commanded Guantanamo since March 2003, was the subject of an investigation into inappropriate personnel and administrative practices unrelated to the base's detention camp for suspected terrorists.

"His release and reassignment are in no way related to the detainee operations taking place in Guantanamo," said C. Patrick Dooling, spokesman for Navy Southeast Region based in Jacksonville.

Dooling would not elaborate on the allegations against the officer.

[fishnfla]

1. We can handle the truth, really

*code red*

[DS1]

8. There's no such thing as a "code red"

It's Hollywood bullshit at its finest.

[BornLeft]

13. Uh how about "blanket party"? blah n/t

[DS1]

15. Much different event - incomparable

[BornLeft]

17. Yeah tell that to the recipient.

shipmates throw a blanket over a sleeping sailor, then procede to beat the shit out of them. Really a world of difference.

AQC 1979-1990

[DS1]

18. As opposed the command to do so coming from a full-bird

That's the difference. It's also what makes a "code red" bullshit.

[BornLeft]

19. Ok so bullshit meaning

they do not happen? Or if it was ordered by a officer they do not exist?
I can almost guarantee you the person getting it does not care who was the perpetrator. I am not sure but you seem to suggest this does not happen. So if the ones torturing Iraqi's were not being ordered to do so by command it is bullshit and therefore is not true? Please help out a little here. The act itself should not be trivialized.

[DS1]

20. They happen all the time

I've witnessed a few similar things myself, I'm calling the bullshit on the "command" to haze coming from a base Colonel, it's absurd. These things are thought up, rationalized, and carried out by the lower enlisteds.

[BornLeft]

21. And from my dealings with

them a "wink wink" from command, no you can't do that. Of course officially they are condemned and zero tolerance and all that bullshit. Just like the tortures.

[joanski0]

2. This commander must have been

one of the good guys. If he was a "yes" man, they would have kept him.

[Jack Rabbit]

3. Not likely

If he were one of the good guys, we'd be hearing quite a bit different stories coming out of Guantánamo.

It sounds like he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar or something like that. It might not be that serious, but it was serious enough to relieve him of command. It won't do his career any good.

[Trevelyan]

5. Has Anyone Kept Up With Mysterious Deaths of US Personnel at Gitmo

Can't remember where I read it but their have been four suspicious deaths of US personnel. One was of a medical person they claimed died while mountain climbing on the island but his family said he was afraid of heights.

It sounds like the tragedy of one of the Franklin Scandal children Troy Boner, whose brother was killed supposedly playing Russian Roulette and Troy said his brother was afraid of guns but this convinced him not to testify and he was murdered in 2003 when he began to talk of the FBI telling him to rescind his testimony about Bush, Sr. and Larry King and to disappear.

I can't find much on Alisha Owens the brave abused child who went ahead and testified despite the supposed suicide of her brother by hanging in his prison cell though she was given 15 years in prison for perjury when she was about 16 years old. She had been out on parole but was re-arrested when the Gannongate story broke and Whistleblower with photos of Congresspersons and Bush Sr. with children that were taken by the FBI and "disappeared" moved Rusty Nelson to another state over the protests of his attorney John DeCamp who also wrote The Franklin Scandal and who stated that there was no reason to move Mr. Nelson to another state and his client's life was in danger.

Protect our whistleblowers by talking about them online. Sibyl Edmonds has a petition and several articles on her site JUST A CITIZEN and has requested that people do this for her and one of her articles is I'M JUST GAGGED, I'M NOT DEAD YET with many targeted questions to ask about 911 since she is STILL under gag order as to what she witnessed as a translator for the FBI who warned of 911 attacks and her testimony was redacted from the bogus 911 Commission chaired by long time Bush family contributor Keane.

[Trevelyan]

4. DOES THIS MEAN THAT BUSH IS BEING OVERRULED BY CONGRESS

What happened to the new and more horrible 150 photos of the torture prisons, including the rape of children by the US military that were due to be released Thursdays 2 weeks ago but they held back "because of the 4th of July holiday" (!??!!) but were to be released July 22 or 26th.

Since the neat timing of the London blasts so Bush doesn't have to talk about the real reasons for the summit and certainly looks like revenge and warnings to those who released the Downing Street Minutes and Memos, and Britain was to begin pulling out of Iraq and the National ID Card is disapproved of by 80% of Britain and Tony Blair sounding like mafia bush said he would jam it down their throats (paraphrase from The White Rose Society.com UK branch).

[reprobate]

12. Awww. Just more coincidences. What a coincidence, huh?

[manic expression]

14. That's such crap

hiding the truth of the US' actions because of 4th of July? That is so incredibly wrong, not to mention personally insulting.

[Trevelyan]

6. Soldier lifts lid on Camp Delta

For the first time, an army insider blows the whistle on human rights abuses at Guantánamo

Paul Harris in New York
Sunday May 8, 2005
The Observer

An American soldier has revealed shocking new details of abuse and sexual torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay in the first high-profile whistleblowing account to emerge from inside the top-secret base.

Erik Saar, an Arabic speaker who was a translator in interrogation sessions, has produced a searing first-hand account of working at Guantánamo. It will prove a damaging blow to a White House still struggling to recover from the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib jail in
Iraq.

In an exclusive interview, Saar told The Observer that prisoners were physically assaulted by 'snatch squads' and subjected to sexual interrogation techniques and that the Geneva Conventions were deliberately ignored by the US military.

He also said that soldiers staged fake interrogations to impress visiting administration and military officials. Saar believes that the great majority of prisoners at Guantánamo have no terrorist links and little worthwhile intelligence information has emerged from the base despite its prominent role in America's war on terror.

Saar paints a picture of a base where interrogations of often innocent prisoners have spiralled out of control, doing massive damage to America's image in the Muslim world. Saar said events at Guantánamo were a disaster for US foreign policy. 'We are trying to
promote democracy worldwide. I don't see how you can do that and run a place like Guantánamo Bay. This is now a rallying cry to the Muslim world,' he said.

Saar arrived at Guantánamo Bay in December 2002, and worked there until June 2003. He first worked as a translator in the prisoners' cages. He was then transferred to the interrogation teams, acting as a translator.

Saar's book, Inside the Wire, provides the first fully detailed look inside Guantánamo Bay's role as a prison for detainees the White House has insisted are the 'worst of the worst' among Islamic militants. His tale describes his gradual disillusionment, from
arriving as a soldier keen to do his duty to eventually leaving believing the regime to be a breach of human rights and a disaster for the war on terror.

Among the most shocking abuses Saar recalls is the use of sex in interrogation sessions. Some female interrogators stripped down to their underwear and rubbed themselves against their prisoners. Pornographic magazines and videos were also used as rewards
for confessing.

In one session a female interrogator took off some of her clothes and smeared fake blood on a prisoner after telling him she was menstruating. 'That's a big deal. It is a major insult to one of the world's biggest religions where we are trying to win hearts and minds,' Saar said.

Saar also describes the 'snatch teams', known as the Initial Reaction Force (IRF), who remove unco-operative prisoners from their cells. He describes one such snatch where a prisoner's arm was broken. In a training session for an IRF team, one US soldier posing as a prisoner was beaten so badly that he suffered brain damage. It is believed the IRF team had not been told the 'detainee' was a soldier.

Staff at Guantánamo also faked interrogations for visiting senior officials. Prisoners who had already been interrogated were sat down behind one-way mirrors and asked old questions while the visiting officials watched.

Saar also describes the effects prolonged confinement had on many of the prisoners. He details bloody suicide attempts and serious mental illnesses. One detainee slashed his wrists with razors and wrote in blood on a wall: 'I committed suicide because of the brutality of my oppressors.'

Saar details a meeting with an army lawyer where linguists, interrogators and intelligence workers at the base were told the Geneva Conventions did not apply to their work as the detainees could not be considered normal prisoners of war. At the end of the meeting the group was told: 'We still intend to treat the detainees humanely, but our purpose is to get any actionable intelligence we can and quickly.'

But Saar said that many, if not most, of the detainees were rarely interrogated at all after their initial arrival. They just sat listlessly in their cells for months on end. He believes that many of them were either simple footsoldiers caught up in the war in Afghanistan or elsewhere, or innocent men sold out to the Americans by local enemies settling a grudge or looking to collect reward money.

Saar accepts that some genuine terrorists have been held at Guantánamo. 'There are individuals there who I hope will never be set free,' he said, but he contends that they are in the minority. 'Overall, it is counter-productive,' he said.

Saar was an enthusiastic supporter of George Bush in the 2000 elections but he has changed his world view after being exposed to Guantánamo Bay. 'I believe in America and American troops,' he said, 'but it has drastically changed my world view and my politics.'

Saar left the army and has become a hate figure for some right-wing groups which say he and his book are unpatriotic. But Saar believes exposing the abuses of Guantánamo will lessen the damage done to America's reputation in the long run. 'The camp is a mistake. It
does not need to be that way. There should be a better way, more in line with American
morals,' he said.

[Moderator]

10. Trevelyan

Per DU copyright rules
please post only four
paragraphs from the
copyrighted news source.


Thank you.


DU Moderator

[WhiteTara]

22. by the way,

Welcome to DU.
:hi:

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. I have two books by my bedside: The Marine Corps Code of Conduct and the

King James Bible. I take my orders from my commanding officer Colonel Nathan R. Jessup and the Lord our God.

;-)

[Disturbed]

9. Has it been verified that...

Gitmo was planned before 911 Attack and the contract was for Haliburton?

If so, this place will never be shut down until the Bush Regime is out of power.

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Contract_that_spawned_Guantanamo_prisons_awarded_to_Halliburton_during_Cheneys_tenur_0621.html

Contract that spawned Guantanamo prisons awarded to Halliburton during Cheney's tenure as CEO
John Byrne

Experts say firm may have built secret camps
A contract awarded to a Halliburton subsidiary in June 2000 while Vice President Dick Cheney was still at the helm of the firm spawned the detention centers at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, RAW STORY has discovered.
The contract, which allocated funds for emergency construction capabilities at worldwide locations, authorized the Defense Department to award Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root any number of specific naval construction deals abroad.

Advertisement: Story continues below

Pegged at an estimated maximum of $75 million in 2000, the deal mushroomed to $136 million by 2004. Some $58 million was dedicated to detention centers at Guantanamo Bay alone, with another $30 million in a second contract.

Specific contracts for the Guantanamo facilities were not inked until February of 2002. Cheney served as chief executive of the company from 1995 until July 2000, leaving shortly thereafter to join the Bush campaign.

The original deal, signed under Clinton, was also used for typhoon damage and breakwater repair of military bases abroad. After the invasion of Afghanistan, the Administration drew upon the open-ended agreement to construct detention centers at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay naval base for suspected members of Al Qaeda.
In 2002, the Pentagon said that additional options might reach $300 million. Security experts believe the Bush Administration may have carved out funding from the original agreement to build other secret detention facilities sprinkled across the globe.

[leesa]

11. Scary.

[PurityOfEssence]

16. Time for a visit from Sodomist 1st Class Fang

Gitmo's the ultimate paradise for thugs: no laws, no oversite, no responsibility.

Makes ya wonder what the hiring criteria are...