Former Gitmo guard recalls abuse, climate of fear

[kpete]

Source: Associated Press

Former Gitmo guard recalls abuse, climate of fear

By MIKE MELIA, Associated Press Writer Mike Melia, Associated Press Writer – Sat Feb 14, 11:15 am ET

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Army Pvt. Brandon Neely was scared when he took Guantanamo's first shackled detainees off a bus. Told to expect vicious terrorists, he grabbed a trembling, elderly detainee and ground his face into the cement — the first of a range of humiliations he says he participated in and witnessed as the prison was opening for business.

Neely has now come forward in this final year of the detention center's existence, saying he wants to publicly air his feelings of guilt and shame about how some soldiers behaved as the military scrambled to handle the first alleged al-Qaida and Taliban members arriving at the isolated U.S. Navy base.

His account, one of the first by a former guard describing abuses at Guantanamo, describes a chaotic time when soldiers lacked clear rules for dealing with detainees who were denied many basic comforts. He says the circumstances changed quickly once monitors from the International Committee of the Red Cross arrived.

The military says it has gone to great lengths in the seven years since then to ensure the prisoners' safe treatment. "Our policy is to treat detainees humanely," said Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090214/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_guantanamo_prison_guard

[Oceansaway]

1. K&R....n/t

[saigon68]

3. Thugs and Hoodlums Led by War Criminals like Cheney

And the Chimpanzee

Shit like this was never investigated

WHO KILLED THIS GUY?

[marshall]

15. The military takes thugs and turns them into monsters

It sickens me the way these young people's souls are further poluted by the dehumanizing training that the military imposes on them. Thank goodness people like this man are able to hang onto a shred of their inherent decency.

[defendandprotect]

2. It has to be the "young" who go to war . . .

later on your know better --

These soldiers carried out illegal orders -- and were taken advantage of by corrupt

leaders.

Maybe they won't stop here, but begin to think about the whole issue of war?

[UpInArms]

4. more history: U.S. Soldier Brutally Beaten By Soldiers At Guantanamo

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/02/60II/main652953.shtml

Nov. 3, 2004

(CBS) Pictures from Abu Ghraib prison tell a story that has shocked the world.

There are no pictures of what happened in the prison camp at Guantanamo last year. But Correspondent Bob Simon has a shocking story -- and it's not about what Americans did to foreign detainees. It's about what Americans did to a fellow American soldier, Sean Baker.
Sean Baker has seizures an average of four times a week. 60 Minutes Wednesday went to see him a few weeks ago in a New York hospital.

Baker, a National Guardsman, was working last year as a military policeman in the Guantanamo Bay prison when other MPs injured him during a training drill. It was a drill during which Baker was only obeying orders.

"I was assaulted by these individuals," says Baker. "Pure and simple."

It’s all the more bizarre because Baker was considered a model soldier and he had served as an MP in Saudi Arabia during the First Gulf War.

<snip>

"My face was down. And of course, they’re pushing it down against the steel floor, you know, my right temple, pushing it down against the floor," recalls Baker. "And someone’s holding me by the throat, using a pressure point on me and holding my throat. And I used the word, ‘red.’ At that point I, you know, I became afraid."

Apparently, no one heard the code word ‘red’ because Baker says he continued to be manhandled, especially by an MP named Scott Sinclair who was holding onto his head.

"And when I said the word ‘Red,’ he forced my head down against the steel floor and was sort of just grinding it into the floor. The individual then, when I picked up my head and said, ‘Red,’ slammed my head down against the floor," says Baker. "I was so afraid, I groaned out, ‘I’m a U.S. soldier.' And when I said that, he slammed my head again, one more time against the floor. And I groaned out one more time, I said, ‘I’m a U.S. soldier.’ And I heard them say, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa,' you know, like he wanted to, he was telling the other guy to stop."

Bloodied and disoriented, Baker somehow made it back to his unit, and his first thought was to get hold of the videotape. "I said, 'Go get the tape,'" recalls Baker. "'They've got a tape. Go get the tape.' My squad leader went to get the tape."

Every extraction drill at Guantanamo was routinely videotaped, and the tape of this drill would show what happened. But Baker says his squad leader came back and said, "There is no tape."

...more...

[47of74]

5. We need to get that Supreme Court ruling overturned

I think you'd see the government getting a whole lot more cooperative if they knew that if the men and women of the armed forces could sue the piss out of them if they tried this shit.

[Diclotican]

6. UpInArms

UpInArms

This is horrible, and i would no doubt a second, this have happened too.. Specially when the man, who was model soldier and in "Perfect health" now hare seizures four times a wee, at average. And he is an New York Hospital...

But thing about it. If they can do this with an american, who are stationed on base, then you can just imagine what they can do with the prisoners of the Xray Camp...

This is a model case when the soldiers are going rampant, because the LEADERS both at Guantanamo Bay, and the upper leadership, in Pentagon let it happened. This is a model case where soldiers, who are touth to behave "bad" by their superiors, and in this case, it goes the whole road to Rumsfeld - and more possible also the whole road to both Vice President Dick Cheney, and President George Walker Bush jr. This is in any cases a case where soldiers have been learned that it is okay to attack, assault everyone they seen as "enemies" and where the responsibility between the commanders, and they who attacked this man is blurred at best - or not existing at all... The former US Administration have more than just "condone" the use of torture, they have active supported in, and when some of the truth came out, it was been told to the world as some bad apples.. It is never just some bad apples, it is a line of command here, who in best of cases end in the Secretary of Defense, who utill 2004 was Donald Rumsfeld. And I would guess that mr Dick Cheney had a foot into this too. And that after the pictures from Abu Girab was shown to the world, some of it was toped, because they just doesn't want to let everyone know the truth. Because if the truth about Abu Girab had been known, and the truth about everything else who had been known to the american public, no republican cheating in the world, would have given GWB a new mandate.. And now when the truth is coming, one drip of a time, the evidence alone should be more than enough for prosecuting the whole GWB Administration for criminal acts, acts again humanity... Mr Obama, take off the silk globs you have today, and show US and the World that you have more than just word in your arsenal.. Mr Obama, take off your "I would try to work with republicans"; Hit them hard, hit them good, and let the Republican Party disintegrate into nothing.. Most moderate Republicans have been running out of the Party anyway, so it is just extremes in the Party now.. Let the republicans kill them self, with the dam truth about the last 8 year. It would be more enough to prosecute and convict most of the criminals, and put them where they belong, in a small prison cell..

This story is horrible, but I would guess that even so, this is no exception and I would almost bet my next salary to everyone, that it is many soldiers, who have been treated this way, many who have invalid for the rest of their life - or dead and they who are getting the body are told that no open casket is allowed, and that they just had to except that they had been killed in the line of fire - even if they had been posted nowhere near a war zone..

If someone wanted to dig true and get to the truth.... It would be explosive, and many, many americans would be shocked to hear, that from the top of the government, this misuse of soldiers have ben excepted, and given a nod, from the highest levels..

Diclotican

Sorry my bad english, not my native language

[bonito]

7. The neocon wars have the hallmarks of the IDF

Do they not.

[Indenturedebtor]

10. I'd say "what???" but I'm sure that I'd then have to read your resultant global conspiracy drivel

Save that crap for your local Klan meeting please.

[bonito]

11. You're either one of two things

Dumber than you sound or part of the problem.

[Indenturedebtor]

17. Oh no you got me! When I'm not eating Christian babies I'm plotting my new world order

Christians could never be capable of such horrible things without those evil Joooos pulling their strings. :eyes:

[UpInArms]

8. Diclotican, when I read the opening post, about the boy

holding down the head of the old man ...

it reminded me of the news story that I posted - because that is what the soldiers did to this soldier - because that is what they were trained and told to do -

to torture, maim, kill the souls and destroy the bodies of the prisoners at Guantanamo

the truth needs to be across the front page of every paper regardless of the pain it will cause to the families that have soldiers in their midsts - because the shame of serving under the orders that mandate torture, that disregard the Geneva Convention and suck the life's blood of the US Constitution and the ability of every citizen to hold their head up proudly, with honor has destroyed us all.

edited to add:

thanks so very much for being a part of the DU community, Diclotican - you are a treasure

[Diclotican]

12. UpInArms

UpInArms

It is very sad to read this post, because it means that a soul is broken, because it means that many others out there, who we do not know, and who we maybe never will know also is broken.. It means that not just a body of a prisoner is broken, but also a soul, who maybe never recover, but for the next 30-50 year would be in shatter... This has happened to many others, who was misused and tortured by their government at past.. The US of today, is more and more looking like Germany of the 1930s, not that I believe mr Obama to be the next Hitler. But because the last Administration was using many of the same techniques that the nazi st was using.. Torture in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s was not just a tool to get information, even that Gestapo var excellent of doing that - but to inflict pain, and to scare the rest to follow order.. In Germany they managed to scare the most of the people, and in many of the occupied country, the GESTAPO was infamous, and a force of evil. Many people refused even to use the sidewalks to the buildings where GESTAPO was housed in most occupied country and City's..

The truth about this must, and should be on the front page of every news stand, EVERY new channel in the US should give this much air time as possible, and the documents of what was happened between 2000 and 2008 should be know public. The truth would hurt the US, and the population, that is true, but today the hiding of the fact is hurting unknown numbers of souls, who deserve to get the truth out, not just because they are in deep pain, but because it is JUST to do it. If US want to play a leader in the future, they MUST get the JUSTICE out, even that it will be painfully to hear the truth about everything and that many soldiers, who have "Just followed order" can face long prison times.. In the Nuremberg Trial it was put down as a Principle, by France, United Kingdom, USA and Soviet Russia that you can be find guilty, even if you have just "followed order" from your leaders.. Now it is time for the United States of America to prove that THEY would FOLLOW THEIR NUREMBERG agreement, when it came to individual responsibility when it came to war crimes, and crimes against humanity..
If the US had been on trial, in a Nuremberg like setting in the ICC just on this two counts, US could face the verdict guilty.. On the other count.. Planning to wage a war of aggregation, I would guess that ICC would also make US a quality part.. But off course, this is up to they who are Judges, and who also would have the legality to do it.. But it doesn't look nice if this case ever had been make public, or put to ICC..

And like in Germany, who the documents of criminality was made public, the horror was there to all to se, and in the end Germany is one democratic, and free country today. Much thank to hat they got a fair case in Court, and the fact that the allied tryed their best to de-nazifice the country.. The West was maybe more good of that, but regardless the Germans learned that the Nazis was bad, and that the Nazis never must again be allowed to get power - and it have worked...

You are welcome, I am Lucky to had find DU, and to be welcomed here as I was in the early setting. And I hope I can be here for a long time:)

Diclotican

Sorry my bad english not my native language

[libodem]

14. This is such an important story

because it documents that abuse was business a usual. Something that frustrates me are the right-wing radio talkers who dismiss the brutality as fiction. It should be taken seriously and those responsible for the policies should be punished.

[tanyev]

19. Holy crap.

That's appalling.

[Seldona]

9. It's been known for a long time what happens in prisons left unchecked.

http://www.prisonexp.org/

How *Bush chose to run the 'War On Terror' lead to the formula for every kind of depraved behavior to develop. I'm not defending anyone involved at any level. I am just saying whoever ran this HAD to know.

[humbled_opinion]

13. But, But, But,

We did it to stop Terra... Terra....Terra.... /s

[underpants]

16. Boehner and Duncan Hunter on the great treatment Gitmo detaineess receive

http://crooksandliars.com/node/25438

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/22/gitmo-boehner-detainees/

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x236261

[bluesmail]

18. Open For Business ...... Going Out Of Business (eom)

[liberalsince1968]

20. What is Obama doing to punish those responsible? N-o-t-h-i-n-g.

WHY?

[truthisfreedom]

23. You've got 49 posts and you want to stir shit? Obama's been working his ass off.

And I highly doubt you're a liberal.

He's been in office for less than a month and he's accomplished more than bush did in 8 years.

[Senator]

24. "Obama's been working" ?!? Or just talking?

Obama has been cowering on torture for literally years -- when his treaty-bound duty as a US Gov't official was to report and ACT to stop ongoing torture and war crimes. There is no exception for wanting to win the next election.

Treating atrocities like political business-as-usual is what we prosecuted people for at Nuremberg. (Ironically, Obama himself is now immune from prosecution as a head of state.)

And he hasn't "accomplished" anything on torture and war crimes -- yet. Unless you count his continuance of bushcheney legal positions both here and in the UK.

PS: Feel free to count my posts before responding.

---

[wroberts189]

21. circumstances changed quickly ......

circumstances changed quickly once monitors from the International Committee of the Red Cross arrived


hmmmmm

[snot]

22. kpete: I just want to say, I find myself rec'g an awful lot of your posts. Thank you.

[crikkett]

25. SEVEN YEARS!!!

:cry: