Stanley McChrystal: A History Of Condoning Torture? »
Posted By tehranchik 8 months ago in Political NewsAs Fred Kaplan noticed, the man Obama has just selected to be his new commander in Afghanistan has a history. It appears to involve some pretty horrifying toleration of rampant abuse and torture of prisoners
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tehranchik
Well, I'm from and live in the Pacific Northwest. I did live in the middle east during the late 70's and early 80 ...
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hyperbola8 months ago
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Not only torture and abuse of prisoners.
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A Double-Edged Sword
....General McChrsytal carries with him a dark side as well. One unit under his command, the now-notorious Task Force 6-26, which was assigned to find HVTs, or High Value Targets in Iraq, is credited with the ultimate death of Zarqawi. The problem is, along the way they faced accusations of running a secret camp that tortured prisoners, and they were implicated in at least two detainee deaths during torture sessions. Their camp, called Camp Nama, became something of a lightning rod after a “computer malfunction” destroyed upwards of 70% of their records and an investigation into their conduct stalled out.
More relevant to Afghanistan is GEN McChrystal’s involvement in the shameful coverup of Pat Tillman’s friendly-fire death. While he was named among the list of high-ranking military personnel believed to have covered up the circumstances of Tillman’s death, GEN McChrystal was “spared because he had apparently drafted a memo urging other officials to stop spreading the lie that Tillman died fighting the Taliban. He drafted that memo, however, after signing the award for Tillman’s posthumously-awarded Silver Star, the commendation for which claims, in part, that he was leading the charge against a Taliban assault. GEN McChrystal has never clarified why he signed an award for Tillman dying under enemy fire right before begging his colleagues and superiors to stop lying about Tillman dying under enemy fire....
http://www.registan.net/index.php/2009/05/11/a-dou... -
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hyperbola8 months ago
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We might also keep in mind that McChrystal was involved with our death squads in Iraq.
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B.Russells Tribunal Dossier
Introduction to the "Salvador option"
and Iraq's "Death squads" - PART 3 -
...At an April 4 Pentagon media briefing, Army Major General Stanley McChrystal boasted that the contribution of special forces to the US operation had been “unprecedented.” Another senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said more than 10,000 special operations troops were involved in Iraq—the largest number for any US war since Vietnam.
There was a revealing exchange when a journalist asked the following question:
“Can you help us to understand one of the points—one of the arguments made by the administration on the ‘war criminals’ tag? Obviously, the administration has seen a number of irregular practices on the part of the Iraqis. One of them in particular puzzles me. When they take off their uniforms and fight in civilian clothes, why is that a war crime? Because US Special Forces do it and did it in Afghanistan—they didn’t behave in the same way, but why is the act of fighting without a uniform considered a war crime?”
McChrystal could not answer the question, becoming flummoxed as he tried unsuccessfully to draw a distinction between the tasks being performed by US personnel and Iraqi civilians....
http://www.brusselstribunal.org/pdf/DeathSquads3.p... -
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hyperbola8 months ago
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Here is more on McChrystal's dishonesty in the Tillman affair.
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Tillman memo contradicted citation
...McChrystal acknowledged he had suspected several days prior to approving the Silver Star citation on April 28, 2004, that Tillman may have died by fratricide.
He said that suspicion led him to send a memo to top generals imploring "our nation's leaders," specifically "POTUS" -- the acronym for the president -- to avoid cribbing the "devastating enemy fire" explanation from the award citation for their speeches.
Despite numerous questions, the general never directly explained the discrepancies....
...Tillman's parents have been critical of the military's punishments surrounding their son's death. The Army waited about five weeks after it suspected friendly fire was involved before telling Tillman's family the true nature of his death.
McChrystal testified in a previous investigation that he had decided not to tell the Tillman family of friendly fire "based on my thought that providing incorrect information before an initial investigation was complete was not in line with normal policies." However, Army regulations require that families be notified when such an investigation is under way -- not when it is completed.
Like several other officers involved in the case, McChrystal testified that he did not know about the rule.
After a year-long inquiry that ended in March, the Pentagon's acting inspector general found that McChrystal should be held "accountable for the inaccurate and misleading assertions" in the Silver Star award recommendation; and for failing to notify the officials processing the award that friendly fire was likely.
"The P4 message did not request or suggest any action to correct the information in the award recommendation package," wrote Thomas Gimble, then the Pentagon's top investigator.
Gimble recommended that the acting Army secretary "address and take action" against McChrystal and one subordinate for failing "to submit an accurate Silver Star recommendation." McChrystal was the highest-ranking of nine officers Gimble recommended be "held accountable" for their involvement in the aftermath of Tillman's death.
But the Army cast that aside Tuesday when it overruled the Pentagon's recommendation...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/topstories/2007-08-03... -
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hyperbola8 months ago
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Acts of Conscience
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As President Obama taps Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal to run the Afghan war, do these revelations, divulged to Esquire at great personal risk by an elite Army interrogator two and a half years ago, imply the new commander's aiding and abetting of torture?....
....Garlasco works for Human Rights Watch, a group that started in 1978 to monitor the Soviet Union and recently expanded its mission to include America's war on terrorism. With a partner named John Sifton, in the past year he has helped expose the secrets of CIA prisons and extraordinary renditions and discovered Captain Ian Fishback, the decorated West Point graduate whose account to the Senate Armed Services Committee last fall pushed the Congress to pass a historic and politically charged amendment banning torture. Now Garlasco is chasing after a fresh story of prisoner abuse committed by members of the United States military. Until now, the Bush administration has insisted that all prisoner abuse has been caused by low-ranking rogue elements. But the man Garlasco is coming to meet has a story about abuses at a secret camp used by Task Force 121, the ultimate Special Ops team, the elite titanium tip of Donald Rumsfeld's spear. Their names are state secrets. Their work is closely monitored and highly systematized. And they acted under the supervision of ranking officers and even — in one extraordinary instance that Garlasco expects to be exploring tonight — with the direct encouragement of lawyers from the Army's Judge Advocate General's office....
...But at the very same time the Army was cleaning up Abu Ghraib under scrutiny, Jeff arrived at an elite secret interrogation facility near Baghdad where nudity and hooding and stress positions were still routine, where ranking officers knew exactly what was going on and promised to protect the interrogators at all costs.... This was Camp Nama, the home of Task Force 121, ...-
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hyperbola8 months ago
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It was a point of pride that the Red Cross would never be allowed in the door, Jeff says. This is important because it defied the Geneva Conventions, which require that the Red Cross have access to military prisons. "Once, somebody brought it up with the colonel. 'Will they ever be allowed in here?' And he said absolutely not. He had this directly from General McChrystal and the Pentagon that there's no way that the Red Cross could get in — they won't have access and they never will. This facility was completely closed off to anybody investigating, even Army investigators."
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Given Task Force 121's history, that was a remarkable promise. Formed in the summer of 2003, it quickly became notorious. By August the CIA had already ordered its officers to avoid Camp Nama. Then two Iraqi men died following encounters with Navy Seals from Task Force 121 — one at Abu Ghraib and one in Mosul — and an official investigation by a retired Army colonel named Stuart Herrington, first reported in The Washington Post, found evidence of widespread beatings. "Everyone knows about it," one Task Force officer told Herrington. Six months later, two FBI agents raised concerns about suspicious burn marks and other signs of harsh treatment. Then the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency reported that his men had seen evidence of prisoners with burn marks and bruises and once saw a Task Force member "punch [the] prisoner in the face to the point the individual needed medical attention." Despite this record, The New York Times has reported that as late as June 2005, the Army dropped yet another investigation into torture at Camp Nama because of the confusion created by the use of "battlefield pseudonyms." The confusion extends to the name of the task force itself, which is also known as Task Force 6-26 and Task Force 145....
http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0806TERROR_102
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