Op Ed Re: Gitmo "suicides"/Homicides

Fayetteville NC Observer – Published, Sun Jan 31, 2010

Latest Gitmo shocker makes waves

By Chuck Fager
Fayetteville

Who would have guessed it?

The case of the three Guantanamo prisoners found dead in June 2006, who were originally called suicides but maybe weren't, has many angles.

And one unexpected twist is that it might bring long-parted schoolmates together again.

In the early 1970s, "Billy" McRaven and Scott Horton were students at Theodore Roosevelt High School in San Antonio.

I talked with Horton in New York City last week. He explained that he and Billy were both from military families. McRaven wound up in the Navy while Horton went to law school. Each advanced in his profession.

Today, McRaven is an admiral. And he's commander of the Joint Special Operations Command.

JSOC, as it's called, may be the most secretive of the many secret groups based at Fort Bragg.

JSOC reputedly brings together such units as the Army's Delta Force, the Air Force's combat controllers and other clandestine units for missions the rest of us are never supposed to hear about.

Keeping busy

While details are few, indications are that, in recent years, JSOC has been particularly busy.

And how are they doing? Well, when the Washington Post's Bob Woodward asked the former president in his book, "The War Within," the reply was simply, "JSOC is awesome."

Whatever that means operationally, JSOC has also been extremely adroit in avoiding media or congressional scrutiny.

But could that start to change? This is where Adm. McRaven's old schoolmate enters the story.

Since high school in Texas, Scott Horton has successfully practiced international law, including human rights cases in many countries.



But he is no radical. When the "war on terror" began after 9/11, he told me, he was not an antiwar skeptic or a pacifist.

In fact, he had friends in both the military and intelligence agencies.

It was the off-the-record, uneasy reports from these contacts that got his attention - alarmed talk of disappearances, torture, secret prison sites, a disregard for all the laws and rules of war. A cascade of deeds to make any honorable American soldier ashamed.

"This wasn't a question of occasional abuse," Horton told me. "In any prison system, you'll have some abuses. But this was a matter of torture as policy. Policy coming down from above."

And torture, as has been noted in this paper before, is a federal felony. It's also a war crime under international law.

These informal reports were followed by one public shock after another. There was Abu Ghraib, torture flights (most taking off from North Carolina), "black site" prisons, coverups (Pat Tillman, anyone?).

Following up these and other cases turned Scott Horton into one of the most determined and tenacious human rights attorneys and investigators working the ongoing "torture beat."

Dropping a bombshell

You ask me, we need more like him. The official probes of torture, such as they may be, are proceeding at a languid crawl behind tightly closed doors. Either that or they have yielded reports most notable for coverups, blackouts and whitewash.

Then earlier this month, Horton dropped a triple-barreled investigative bombshell into this set of polite croquet matches.

It came in a detailed report for Harper's Magazine, charging that the 2006 deaths at Guantanamo were not suicides at all.

Instead (Bombshell No. 1), the three prisoners had been murdered, probably during torture.

Furthermore (Bombshell No. 2), the killings likely occurred at a previously undisclosed "black site," on the edge of Gitmo itself. It's been dubbed "Camp No," as in, "No, it does not exist." But it does.

And not least, as for where the culpability lies, Horton says all fingers of available information point at (Bombshell No. 3) JSOC.

Which brings us around to Adm. McRaven, Horton's old classmate.

Horton's report has been featured in hundreds of papers around the world (including this one). But so far it has been met with shifty "non-denial-denials" in Washington, and the SOP of stony silence from JSOC itself.

Horton's charges were backed up by the testimony of conscience-stricken soldiers, former Gitmo guards. They knew about Camp No, and they also knew that the original suicide story was false.

Horton told me he's since talked to more potential witnesses.

But despite this persistence, will Horton's new report get any real traction?

So far, the U.S. torture impunity express has been chugging along without a bump, scarcely noting the change of conductors a year ago this month.

To Congress?

Horton says he's hoping for public hearings in Congress. If his witnesses had the chance to tell their version of what happened, it might break through the coverup. And JSOC might even be obliged to answer some uncomfortable questions in public.

If it did, though, and abuses were uncovered, Horton told me he would want them fixed. He's not out to get JSOC abolished. "There's a proper place for it in limited, very dangerous wartime situations," he insisted.

"But it looks as if JSOC's been shielded from scrutiny and accountability, so when mistakes have been made, they haven't been corrected."

Congress seems a weak reed to lean on these days, but Horton is not giving up.

I wish him luck. But maybe a more direct approach would also be worth a try. Here's my scenario:

"Adm. McRaven, your old homey Scott Horton is on the line. Yes, that Scott Horton.

"Sure, he's got some issues. But like your former commander in chief, he too says that JSOC is awesome.

"It's just that the truth, especially about Camp No - that, sir, would be awesomer."

Chuck Fager, the director of Quaker House in Fayetteville, is the author of the books "Selma 1965: The March That Changed The South" and "Eating Dr. King's Dinner: A Memoir."

GI Resister Cliff Cornell: Free At Last!

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Sunrise at Camp Lejeune, NC. Quaker House board member Curt Torell and I (Chuck Fager, QH Director)are here to make a pickup.

It's cold, freezing. We're headed for the brig, to pick up Cliff Cornell, who is due to be released at 0730.












We arrive on time, at the side gate. Cliff isn't there yet, so we wait, huddling into ourselves against the cold.
Turning around I notice a pickup truck parked a few feet away.

What's this? A close look is in order . . . .


I see. And there's more . . . .

John Wayne? Oh, wait . . .

Intriguing. But enough of that, because there's action at the gate:






One more step . . .

And Cliff is Free! (That's him in shorts.)



Shorts? It's what he came in with. Fortunately, Curt brought him some long pants and a jacket.

Then it's on the first tastes of freedom: breakfast at Bojangles, a Pepsi, and a cigarette.(We didn't take a picture of the cancer stick.)






By lunchtime we're passing by Quaker House enroute to the next level of enjoyment . . .

. . .namely a look at the smash new film "Avatar." Cliff is a sci-fi/fantasy fan, and afterwards his review of the film, in full, is: "Awesome."

Around 4 PM Friends and friends gather for a welcoming reception at Quaker House.

A highlight was watching the YoutTube video just posted by folks from the War Resisters Support Committee in Toronto. It brought tears to Cliff's eyes, and you can watch it too, right now:



As things were winding down, Cliff made a brief YouTube appearance of his own, greeting all who have been supporting him through these long months (and years). It's here:



Cliff will head out for home in Arkansas in a day or so, and get on with his life. We wish him the best in this continuing journey, and want to add or thanks to all who have helped out with the support of his difficult stand of conscience.

Merry Wartime Christmas Eve . . .

Afghanistan Bomb kills paratrooper

Fayetteville NC Observer December 23, 2009
A Fort Bragg soldier on his second deployment to Afghanistan was killed Friday when his vehicle struck a homemade bomb, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
Sgt. Albert D. Ware, 27, of Chicago, died in the Arghandab River Valley in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan.
He is the 10th soldier from the 82nd Airborne Division’s 4th Brigade Combat Team killed since the brigade went to Afghanistan in the summer.

Canadian Soldier Killed In Afghanistan . . . .

Washington Post - ‎2 hours ago‎
AP KABUL -- The NATO-led military mission in Afghanistan says a Canadian soldier has been killed in the southern part of the country. ...

Afghanistan: Latest British Casualty Named . . . .

Telegraph.co.uk - ‎2 hours ago‎
UK Special forces comrades have paid tribute to Lance Corporal Tommy Brown, the Paratrooper who became Britain's fourth fatality in four days in Afghanistan. ...

NC-Based Marine killed in Afghanistan . . . .

San Jose Mercury News - ‎1 hour ago‎
AP CAMP LEJEUNE, NC—The Department of Defense has identified a North Carolina-based Marine from California killed in Afghanistan.


US admits failure in curbing drugs in Afghanistan....

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 Press TV
The US administration has admitted that Washington has failed to curb narcotics production and trafficking in Afghanistan.
The US State Department on Wednesday criticized Washington's 2-billion-dollar plan to combat the drug trade in Afghanistan for poor oversight and lack of strategy.


Afghan police mistakenly kill parliament member . . .

Lo Angeles Times, Dec. 24
The lawmaker and his son are killed in an ambush that had been set to find a wounded insurgent commander in Baghlan province, in Afghanistan's north.

National police hunting for a wounded insurgent commander mistakenly ambushed a vehicle carrying a member of the Afghan parliament, killing him and his son, provincial officials said Wednesday.

President Hamid Karzai ordered an investigation of the incident, which took place overnight in Baghlan province in Afghanistan's north.

Taliban fighters and other insurgents have made significant inroads in the province over the last year. A new NATO supply route runs through the area, making it a magnet for militant strikes.

The lawmaker, Mohammad Yunos Shirnagha, was returning home after a late-night meeting with constituents when the shootout with police erupted, said Gen. Kabir Andarabi, the provincial police chief.

The War At Home . . . .

Baltimore police locate where Fort Bragg soldier was shot

Fayetteville NC Observer
Baltimore police have located the crime scene where a Fort Bragg soldier was fatally shot Sunday night while home on leave from Afghanistan.
Detectives initially were unable to determine exactly where Pfc. Clifford J. Williams, 22, was shot in a sport utility vehicle because of the weekend's huge snowstorm, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Wednesday.
"It's premature to speculate on any type of motive," Guglielmi said.
Police said Williams was shot on the way home from grocery shopping.
Williams' wife was at the crime scene but not in the vehicle as earlier reported, he said.
News reports said investigators believe a single gunman approached the vehicle and shot Williams through the driver's-side window. . . .
Williams went to Afghanistan in April and was scheduled to return to Fort Bragg in April 2010. The deployment was his first.


U.S. steps up special operations mission in Afghanistan

By Julian E. Barnes
December 16, 2009

Reporting from Washington - The U.S. military command has quietly shifted and intensified the mission of clandestine special operations forces in Afghanistan, senior officials said, targeting key figures within the Taliban, rather than almost exclusively hunting Al Qaeda leaders.

As a result of orders from Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and allied commander in Afghanistan, the special operations teams are focusing more on killing militants, capturing them or, whenever possible, persuading them to turn against the Taliban-led insurgency.

The number of raids carried out by such units as the Army's Delta Force and Navy's SEAL Team Six in Afghanistan has more than quadrupled in recent months. The teams carried out 90 raids in November, U.S. officials said, compared with 20 in May. U.S. special operations forces primarily conduct missions in eastern and southern Afghanistan.

A welcome Message: Saying NO to the Af-Pak "Surge"

We held a vigil on December 3 2009 in downtown Fayetteville NC, near For Bragg, to express dissent from the Afghanistan-Pakistan "surge" announced earlier this week.

Turnout peaked at ten, not bad for here, especially since we haven't had one in months. Most peace folks in town have been quiet for awhile, in the wake of last year's election.

But we had a BIG surprise when we lined up and showed our signs: they were POPULAR.

Traffic was busy around the traffic circle where we gather, and the cheers, thumbs up, smiling honks and waving peace Vs overwhelmingly outnumbered the few thumbs down from passersby. Even a couple carloads of GIs in uniform joined in the acclaim.

The conclusion? It looks like there is VERY LITTLE enthusiasm for this "surge," even among the troops here.

To be sure, soldiers at Ft. Bragg will follow orders; that's what they do. But could this lack of enthusiasm result in an uptick of GI resistance??

Stand by for updates . . .

Take Up Obama's Burden--With Apologies to Kipling

Apropos of the Afghanistan escalation plans, I recently re-read Kipling's 1899 poem "The White Man's Burden."
Much of it still rings eerily true compared to what's being pressed on Obama today. So I prepared this humble update, which is offered herewith.
Beneath it are some stanzas of Kipling, which show his prescience, even 120 years, and several versions of political correctness later.
If this doggerel speaks to you, please pass it on, link to it, spread it around!

Chuck Fager


The New Person’s Burden, 2009

(with apologies to Kipling)

No more the White Man’s Burden,
That phrase won’t fly today.
It has to be re-packaged
If we’re to make it play.

Let’s speak of “the Imperative,”
And “nation-building” too,
A bow to Nine-Eleven
Should help to push it through.

Be sure to mention brand-new schools,
Young girls who shed the veil;
The sacred war for “hearts and minds’ --
How could we let that fail?

The Afghans, they can’t help themselves,
Else they’d be done by now.
But Bagram and Guantanamo,
Will help to show them how.

So take up Obama’s burden,
Send our best of every hue
To a fruitless war in a distant land --
Say they died for me and you.

The drone strikes here, the rockets there,
The Rangers’ slashing blade;
The bodies in a village square
Mark progress that we’ve made.

What if it takes a score of years
A flood of casualties?
At tunnel’s end a light will show
Our exit strategies.

We’re sure to win this Afghan war,
Our generals know it well.
But what’s the toll, the price-tag there?
On that, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

So fie on the poppy-growing warlord,
The scheming Taliban.
Where England stumbled, Russia failed–
We’ll triumph: Yes, we can.

-- By Chuck Fager
[As read on the Mike Malloy radio show on October 5, 2009. Thanks, Mike!
One correction: Mike Malloy described me as a Vietnam Veteran;
I am not. But I say YES to the troops who served there, as I also say NO to that war.]

- - - - - - - - - -

The White Man’s Burden, 1899

Rudyard Kipling

Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.

Holder-Prosecutor Update #1

Glenn Greenwald of Salon is on top of the Holder/prosecutor story (or more likely, trial balloon):
He says:

. . .such an approach -- targeting low-level interrogators while shielding high-level policy-makers from prosecution -- would be "something close to the worst of both worlds." That's true not only because it would replicate the disgraceful whitewashing of the Abu Ghraib prosecutions. It would do that, but even worse, it would bolster the principal instrument of executive lawlessness -- the Beltway orthodoxy that any time a President can find a low-level DOJ functionary to authorize what he wants to do, then it is, by definition, "legal" and he's immune from prosecution when he does it, no matter how blatantly criminal it is.

. . . just as was true for the Abu Ghraib abuses, many of the worst instances of detainee abuse cannot be extricated from -- but rather are directly attributable to -- the torture policies authorized at the highest levels of the government. To target low-level interrogators while shielding high-level policy makers would further bolster America's two-tiered system of justice, in which ordinary Americans are subjected to merciless punishment while the most powerful elites are vested with virtual immunity from the consequences of their lawbreaking. . . .

Prosecuting only obscure "rogue" interrogators while immunizing powerful, high-level officials would not be an act of courage but of cowardice. It would not strengthen the rule of law but would pervert it further. And rather than deter future lawbreaking, it would signal -- yet again -- that our most powerful political officials are free to break the law with impunity.

However, Scott Horton, one of the top accountability activists, is more hopeful that such a probe would not be as narrow:


One source told me that he would be surprised if Holder “set blinders” on the special prosecutor. Still, the scope of the investigation would clearly be limited to the authorization and use of Bush-era “enhanced interrogation techniques” such as waterboarding, longtime standing, stress positions, and prolonged sleep deprivation. Moreover, President Obama’s assurance to CIA officials who relied on the opinions of government lawyers in implementing these programs, an assurance that Holder himself repeated, would have to be worked in. That suggests that the focus would likely be on the lawyers and policymakers who authorized use of the new techniques.


Yet Horton is also restrained and tentative about the prospects:

Observers caution that even if a special prosecutor is appointed, actual indictments would still be far off. The Bush torture policy was implemented with the advice of lawyers well skilled in the ways of Washington bureaucracy. Any prosecutor would face considerable legal obstacles in bringing charges. A review of the torture memoranda themselves shows that a consuming concern was thwarting the possible bringing of charges by a future prosecutor. Now, perhaps, the defenses they devised may be put to the test.

How is this report going over in the MSM? Here's the blogger Digby on its reception on the major Sunday Beltway pundit show "This Week":

Stephanopoulos reported on This Week that the possible Holder investigation is going to be very narrow and will not pursue policy makers or anyone who took orders directly from the policymakers. He's going after "rogue interrogators" who inflicted more torture than was strictly allowed.

The Village roundtable all gasped in horror anyway because who knows where such an investigation might lead and as Cokie [Roberts] complained, it would mean that the whole town would be mad at each other again and nobody wants that! "Everybody hates each other and the poison gets very thick." She did finally come down on the side of following the ru le of law even though it would make her uncomfortable at cocktail parties, but it was a close thing.

Bob Woodward was very upset at the idea that the government can't keep secrets because "we need them!" Besides, Holder shouldn't be like Janet Reno and just initiate investigations willy nilly. (He seems to think that Reno authorizing independent counsels to investigate her own president for trivial political reasons is the same thing as investigating whether the previous administration tortured prisoners.) They all chuckled at the notion that Holder was really independent and if he is, that means he's a rogue interrogator himself.

George Will thought it was all just a bunch of balderdash because nothing bad ever happened during the Bush administration. Sam Donaldson said that reporters should probably pursue stories and Donna Brazile added that these things were coming out anyway so they might as well be investigated.

They all snorted and giggled and laughed throughout the whole segment about how silly it was to be upset that the CIA lied because well, that's what it does. And they all thought it was a ripping good joke that Cheney kept everything secret because well, everyone knows that's what he does. Hahahahaha.

And then they talked about Michael Jackson. >>

Greenwald comments:
That's a major reason why we have such a depraved and lawless political class.

Maybe a Special Prosecutor for Torture??

    From the NY Times on July 13. Some comments follow:

New York Times -- July 13, 2009
NEWS ANALYSIS
Obama Faces a New Push to Look Back
By SCOTT SHANE

President Obama is facing new pressure to reverse himself and to ramp up investigations into the Bush-era security programs, despite the political risks.

   Leading Democrats on Sunday demanded investigations of how a highly classified counterterrorism program was kept secret from the Congressional leadership on the orders of Vice Presid ent Dick Cheney.

  Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who is the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Fox News Sunday called it a “big problem.” Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, on “This Week” on ABC, agreed that the secrecy “could be illegal” and demanded an inquiry.

  Mr. Obama said this weekend that he had asked his staff members to review the mass killing of prisoners in Afghanistan by local forces allied with the United States as it toppled the Taliban regime there. The New York Times reported Saturday that the Bush administration had blocked investigations of the matter.

    Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is also close to assigning a prosecutor to look into whether prisoners in the campaign against terrorism were tortured, officials disclosed on Saturday.

    And after a report from five inspectors general about the National Security Agency’s domestic eavesdropping said on Friday that there had been a number of undisclosed surveillance programs during the Bush years, Democrats sought more information.

  That makes four fronts on which the intelligence apparatus is under siege. It is just the kind of distraction from Mr. Obama’s domestic priorities — repairing the economy, revamping the health care system, and addressing the long-term problems of energy and climate — that the White House wanted to avoid. . . .

 The attorney general would prefer to keep such an inquiry narrowly focused and assign it to a line prosecutor, if possible, rather than appoint a special prosecutor, the person [an inside source] said. >>

This last sentence flashes with warning lights, I believe, for two reasons:
    A. Such a "narrowly focused" inquiry could well end up going after no more than the 2010 version of Lynndie England, small-fry underlings, while letting the bigger fish skate. Definitely a BAD idea. And
    B. A "line prosecutor" can be more easily controlled and quieted than an independent prosecutor, who would be, at least to some extent, "independent."
   So this report contains some potentially very good news, but needs to be treated guardedly. High stakes stuff, and even if Holder pulls the trigger, our task will not be lessened, because pressure needs to continue on many fronts, if there's to be any hope of actually dismantling the TIC (Torture Inductrial Complex), rather than giving a few low-level spooks a slap-on-the-wrist and leaving the overall structure and operation in place.
Note that 
<<>Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who is the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Fox News Sunday called it a “big problem.” >>
Feinstein is a big player in this; she's already conducting a secret inquiry. She's also Establishment all the way; but maybe her probe has uncorked such a seething bottle of liquid poop that it's more than even she can handle behind closed doors.
The fact that the article identifies four separate investigations underway is also encouraging: to avoid the smokescreens and pierce the coverups, we need to press for numerous investigations. The Times failed to mention al the foreignprobes underway too, from the UK to Poland. The MSM may not pay them much attention, but they are NOT irrelevant.
More to come on this.