Tag: Detainee Abuse

TBC: Morning Musing 2.18.15

I have 3 articles – 2 longer ones – but all 3 good reads.

First, a great piece on ACC and the Pentagon:

The Pentagon & Climate Change: How Deniers Put National Security at Risk

Rear Adm. Jonathan White, the Navy’s chief oceanographer and head of its climate-change task force, is one of the most knowledgeable people in the military about what’s actually happening on our rapidly heating planet. Whenever another officer or a congressperson corners White and presses him about why he spends so much time thinking about climate change, he doesn’t even try to explain thermal expansion of the oceans or ice dynamics in the Arctic. “I just take them down to Norfolk,” White says. “When you see what’s going on down there, it gives you a sense of what climate change means to the Navy – and to America. And you can see why we’re concerned.”

Jump!

‘Black Shirts’: The Guantanamo Bay ‘Extreme Repression Force’

Crossposted from Antemedius

The picture at left,  from The First Statement of David Hicks,  at  the UC Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas, depicts an Immediate (or Initial)  Reaction Force (IRF) training exercise, demonstrating the manner and formation in which an IRF team would rush at a detainee, slamming the detainee to the ground. Normally, however, members of the team would be wearing body armour, helmets and shin guards,  and would be accompanied by dogs.

‘Soon after arriving at Guantanamo Bay, it became apparent that physical force would be used against the detainees. This was done most openly by the Initial Reaction Force (“IRF”), which consisted of a group of approximately half a dozen soldiers, wearing body armour, helmets and shin guards, and carrying shields and accompanied by dogs. The IRF team would rush in to a cell and slam the detainee to the ground, at which point, in the majority of cases, the soldiers would also strike or kick the detainee”, said Hicks in his opening statements taken from an affidavit filed in the United Kingdom in support of his efforts to retain his British citizenship, in that article.

The remainder of David Hicks  ‘first statement’ goes on to describe much worse treatment of Guantanamo detainees.

I also witnessed many other types of physical abuse of the detainees. I witnessed a Saudi detainee being beaten by an Army guard while at Camp X-Ray. The Saudi, whose name is Jumma, was arguing with a guard by the name of Smith, who was a member of the IRF team and wore kneepads and IRF gear. This incident happened close to when I was transferred from X-Ray to Camp Delta. Jumma was ordered to lie on his stomach in his cell. Jumma lay down as ordered, but continued to argue with Smith, who became very angry, jumped up and came down with his knees on Jumma’s back. Smith then grabbed Jumma by the head and slammed his face into the concrete 10 to 20 times.