Demanding some basic level of fairness at Guantánamo (as I did in December) isn’t just for pinkos.
In June 2007, Morris Davis, an Air Force Colonel and chief prosecutor in the Defense Department’s Office of Military Commissions, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times titled The Guantánamo I Know. Like Stashiu, a former GTMO psyche nurse whom I interviewed here in 2006, Col. Davis defended GTMO against what he considered to be unfair attacks:
LINDSEY GRAHAM, a Republican senator from South Carolina, is right: “The image of Guantánamo Bay and the reality of Guantánamo Bay are completely different.” It is disappointing that so many embrace a contrived image. Reality for Guantánamo Bay is the daily professionalism of its staff, the humanity of its detention centers and the fair and transparent nature of the military commissions charged with trying war criminals. It is a reality that has been all but ignored or forgotten.
Col. Davis explained that detainees are treated well, ridiculously well in many cases. They receive “culturally appropriate meals,” silence during prayer periods, and top medical care.
Like me, Col. Davis was no advocate of the view that detainees are entitled to all the same procedural protections that criminal defendants in the U.S. receive. He said that “the rights afforded Americans are not the benchmark for assessing rights afforded enemy combatants in military tribunals,” and added:
Some imply that if a defendant does not get a trial that looks like Martha Stewart’s and ends like O. J. Simpson’s, then military commissions are flawed. They are mistaken. The Constitution does not extend to alien unlawful enemy combatants. They are entitled to protections under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which ensures they are afforded “all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.”
Col. Davis argued that military commissions offer the basic judicial guarantees: things like notice of the charges and evidence, a right to be present, a right to counsel, and a right to respond to evidence.
My point is that Col. Davis is not some pinko who wants to give every enemy combatant all the rights Earl Warren was able to think up during the course of his judicial career.
But in October of last year, Col. Davis quit, alleging that “[t]here was a rush to get high-interest cases into court at the expense of openness” because of the upcomng 2008 elections. According to the Washington Post, Col. Davis
said he felt a sense of expediency over thoroughness was taking hold and that efforts to use classified evidence — a controversial idea that has drawn congressional concern — could taint the trials in the eyes of international observers.
Col. Davis spoke for himself in an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times in December, arguing that the supposedly impartial convening authority was performing prosecutorial functions, and engaged in a headlong rush to present the very sort of secret evidence that Col. Davis had argued in his NYT op-ed was not to be used in the commissions. Col. Davis also butted heads with the new convening authority over the issue of presenting evidence obtained by waterboarding — a practice that I also have condemned as inappropriate.
In response to a rebuttal by his ex-boss, Col. Davis wrote a piece that made it clear that he still believed that GTMO is filled to the brim with dangerous terrorists who need to be tried fairly:
[T]here are some incredibly bad men at Guantanamo, including a few that I believe deserve to be executed if found guilty. The problems with the military commissions process do not negate their culpability.
I explain all of this by way of background, so that you will see that Col. Davis is not one of these “don’t be mean to the terrorists” style leftists. So we ought to pay attention to him when he tells The Nation, as he did in a piece published yesterday, that the trials at GTMO are rigged so that acquittals are impossible:
[A] key official has told The Nation that the [Guantánamo] trials have been rigged from the start. According to Col. Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor for Guantánamo’s military commissions, the process has been manipulated by Administration appointees to foreclose the possibility of acquittal.
. . . .
[I]n an interview with The Nation in February after the six Guantánamo detainees were charged, Davis offered the most damning evidence of the military commissions’ bias–a revelation that speaks to fundamental flaws in the Bush Administration’s conduct of statecraft: its contempt for the rule of law and its pursuit of political objectives above all else.
When asked if he thought the men at Guantánamo could receive a fair trial, Davis provided the following account of an August 2005 meeting he had with Pentagon general counsel William Haynes–the man who now oversees the tribunal process for the Defense Department.
“[Haynes] said these trials will be the Nuremberg of our time,” recalled Davis, referring to the Nazi tribunals in 1945, considered the model of procedural rights in the prosecution of war crimes. In response, Davis said he noted that at Nuremberg there had been some acquittals, which had lent great credibility to the proceedings.
“I said to him that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process,” Davis continued. “At which point, [Haynes’s] eyes got wide and he said, ‘Wait a minute, we can’t have acquittals. If we’ve been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can’t have acquittals. We’ve got to have convictions.'”
Col. Davis seems like a solid man. He says the Bush Administration is rigging these trials.
Everyone — not just liberals, but everyone who cares about fairness — should pay attention.
[This is Part Five of my exclusive interview with “Stashiu,” an Army nurse who worked at Guantánamo, and who spoke on a regular basis with detainees with psychological and/or behavioral problems. Part One is here. Part Two is available here. Part Three is here. Part Four is here.
As before, these posts represent Stashiu’s opinions and experiences, and are not meant to represent anything or anyone else, including the opinions of the U.S. Army. Stashiu wants me to make it clear that nearly everything discussed here has been officially released. As to those parts that are based on his personal experience, he has been careful to respect operational security and confidentiality.
In today’s entry, Stashiu responds to press accounts of life at GTMO, and answers other miscellaneous questions.]
There have been a number of recent press accounts of life at GTMO — some favorable to the U.S., and some not. I asked Stashiu to take a look at some of them to tell me whether he believed they were accurate, based on his stay at Gitmo.
Atrocities: The Comfy Chair and “Smoke a Hooka”
Stashiu confirmed something not everyone realizes: detainees are still being interrogated at GTMO — and are apparently still giving up good information.
What harsh techniques are being used to extract this information? The answer to that question will shock you.
A couple of recent pieces in the media have suggested that some of the detainees actually enjoy their interrogations. For example, in a passage that reminded me of Monty Python’s “Comfy Chair” sketch (from the show about the Spanish Inquisition), Rich Lowry said this:
Interrogators rely on the soft sell. Detainees sit in a La-Z-Boy chair during interrogations, and beverages and movies are available to put them at ease. The most effective interrogator is said to be an older woman who adopts a nurturing attitude.
(All emphasis in this post is mine.)
This allegation was corroborated by Mark Steyn. But for all we know, Steyn was on the same press junket as Lowry. So I asked Stashiu: are the detainees really pampered in interrogations? He said:
For some, they eagerly await days until “reservation” (interrogation) and there are frequently requests to see their interrogator. This is why I said that some fear to return home or they would be killed as traitors. They get to smoke (sometimes 4 or 5 packs at once, uggh!), watch new-release DVDs that have been screened by Intel so they don’t get current events, eat pizza or fast-food, listen to music, smoke a hooka, etc…. The better stuff they give up, the more the interrogators get for them. All of this has been previously released to the public, but you never hear about it in the MSM.
He emphasized that what he knew was based on what the detainees had told him:
I know just a little and it’s hearsay from detainees themselves. We were never allowed contact with the Intel folks. I’m pretty sure I mentioned it before, the leadership/administration didn’t want to give any appearance that the therapeutic relationship would be abused to exploit weaknesses. . . .
That’s also why the Intel folks objected to Colonel Bumgarner’s changes. While it did help settle the camp somewhat, it reduced the motivation to cooperate with interrogators. Just normal give and take between two sides with different objectives. Intel wanted information, Colonel Bumgarner wanted a safe and smooth-running camp. Not always completely compatible because of jihadi leadership influence.
I don’t know who the lady in [Lowry’s] article is. We would have avoided each other by policy.
Volleyball, Basketball, Soccer . . . and Ping Pong
Some people think that Amnesty International’s description of the camp as the “gulag of our times” is too harsh. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, for instance, recently rejected the “gulag” label, telling conventions of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion that Guantanamo is more akin to a holiday resort, complete with a volleyball court, basketball court, soccer field and library.
During my years of incarceration, I never once encountered the things Rumsfeld mentioned and never met anyone who had.
Mr. Begg, meet Stashiu. He says:
There was a volleyball court, a basketball court, and a soccer field… all available to detainees who were at the appropriate level in camp. If they were compliant, they were moved to Camp IV (the same one where the fake suicide attempt was used to lure guards into the feces-smeared floor [so the detainees could] assault them).
This was an open area where they had full use of these things, along with ping-pong tables, board games, and a running track (pretty nice one). None of this was for use by guards or other staff, only detainees. Again, all of this has been released to the media but you don’t hear about it.
The library had books in every language spoken by detainees and was for detainees only, but some languages had a limited selection. The library staff would go out to the blocks to checkout books and get books being returned. I don’t know if detainees were ever allowed to go to the library, but it’s possible. I did a lot of work with the library because we used recreational reading as therapy tools. They try very hard to get materials, but funding and the need for screening by Intel makes it a little difficult.
Mr. Begg wrote in his op-ed:
“We cannot allow the terrorists’ lies and myths to be repeated without question or challenge,” Rumsfeld said in his speeches. But where exactly have the “terrorists’ lies and myths” been repeated? Detainees at Guantanamo are denied access to media, human rights groups, U.N. representatives, even family members. The many reports of abuse have come from conscientious U.S. military personnel and FBI and CIA agents appalled by some interrogation techniques and camp conditions. Soldiers have been charged with a range of abuses against detainees, including killings (at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan) that I witnessed.
Stashiu had several things to say about that.
That is very misleading on several points.
First, the vast majority of complaints and allegations have come from detainees through a variety of conduits including the International Committee of the Red Cross, defense lawyers, detainees who were released (and I believe it has been reported that around 20 have been confirmed as returning to the battlefield), and family members receiving letters, among others.
This, incidentally, was the first reaction I had to the op-ed’s claims: haven’t we heard from the detainees themselves in a variety of ways? That fact alone renders Mr. Begg’s op-ed (and his entire book) suspect. Stashiu continued:
Second, the reports of abuse from military personnel are thoroughly investigated and perpetrators are punished. How many jihadis have been punished by peers when they violate the laws of war?
The “Gulag of Our Times”?
Stashiu continues:
Third, to call Guantánamo a “gulag” is not only inaccurate, it’s (in my opinion) reprehensible. In war, under the rules of previous conflicts, anyone found to be an unlawful combatant could be executed on the spot by the decision of the ranking officer. There did not have to be a trial or proof beyond a reasonable doubt, just reasonable suspicion. We (the United States) conduct war to a higher standard of conduct because of our culture’s respect for life and the rule of law. These are the types of things that are used against us, turning our strengths against us.
Currently, we are in Afghanistan and Iraq with the consent of their governments. I believe that, just like Hamas and Hezbollah attacks on Israel, any attack on U.S. Forces is technically an act of war against both the host government and the United States. . . .
Fourth, all anyone has to do is look at what happened at the authentic Soviet-era gulags and compare them to our country’s facilities, operating procedures, and personnel.
To Begg’s argument:
It seems odd, but Rumsfeld lamented in his speeches that too few people will recall how many Medals of Honor were earned in the “war on terror” versus the numbers of detainee abuses. But how can one man’s bravery possibly override the abuse of thousands — or even of one detainee?
Stashiu replied:
That’s like saying one doctor committing malpractice overrides all the good from doctors who save lives and help people. In my opinion, an incredibly stupid statement meant to dismiss Mr. Rumsfeld’s very good point.
Begg also spoke of a Vietnam veteran named Sgt. Foshee who complained to Begg about how the detainees were being treated. Stashiu had no basis to contest that, but reminds readers of a few points regarding the jihadis. His reaction to the op-ed as a whole:
General impression: Mostly propaganda; his claim to have been in solitary much of the time is very suspect. I know it couldn’t have been at GTMO, but he may have been referring to before his arrival in Cuba.
There were certainly activated reservists who were VietNam vets; I knew a couple. That part sounds like it’s mostly true to make the rest more believable.
When GTMO was opened, my understanding is that there was no effort made to disguise names either, so he may very well know SGT Foshee by his name, depending on the timeframe he is talking about.
I would emphasize that, by doctrine, the jihadis are told to: claim innocence; kidnapping; payment of bounties; abuse of all types; and a history of doing humanitarian work such as preaching, teaching children, building schools, etc… The usual monetary figure is a $5000 “bounty” (their word to me) from guys captured in Pakistan, but I heard that from detainees that I knew for a fact were lying through their teeth. While I can’t say if all of those claims were false, I just don’t know of any that were definitely true. I find it interesting that he immediately ties the story to VietNam.
Brutal Training Exercises
I asked Stashiu about this story, which deals with a man who was injured during a training exercise:
[Sean] 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.”
The exercise was taped, as all such exercises were — but the tape went missing. The suggestion is that, if we beat one of our own this mercilessly, God only knows what we did to the terrorists. I asked Stashiu about it. He said:
That was from before I got there, but sounds possible. IRF [Immediate Reaction Force] teams were routinely taped and that the tape is missing smells to me.
What the story doesn’t say is that there were cases of IRF teams being assaulted and the team members injured. One of the stories was that a detainee reverse-kicked the first member in line and broke his riot shield in two, then proceeded to lay out the rest of the team. When finished, he sat on the bunk and told the combat-camera “I just wanted to show you I could do it”. That was supposed to be from early on, but I honestly never saw the footage. I always meant to get over to see it, but never did. But several of the guards I worked with swore to me that they had watched it several times during their training.
I don’t think they use “practice” detainees anymore though, at least not that I ever saw or heard of. One of the after-action lessons learned I expect.
That being said, it would still have been an isolated incident and not policy. The goal of every forced cell extraction was zero injuries to detainees or guards. But it wouldn’t be the first time some inexperienced Lieutenant over-estimated his abilities to set up appropriate training. I would have expected the senior NCOs to keep the LT in line (many NCOs have a lot more practical experience than a new Lieutenant), but I don’t even know if it really happened. Just my opinion though.
KSM Comes to Gitmo
I noted that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was recently transferred to Gitmo. I asked whether Stashiu knew if he would be segregated. What effect might his presence have on other detainees? Stashiu replied:
I wouldn’t assume segregation and there isn’t any solitary confinement. Anything further would be speculation on my part and I assume you’d rather I stick mostly to what I know and saw. There is most likely a completely new rotation of guards and staff by now. I really don’t know anyone there now and doubt anyone working current operations would be free to discuss things, especially someone like KSM.
Cut Off from the Outside World?
I asked Stashiu whether the prisoners are aware of events outside of Gitmo. If so, how? I assume they have no computer access. What about TV? Do they get Al Jazeera, for example?
No TV, radio, or newspapers. Some of the rumors were remarkably accurate as to current events, so they did have some sources of information. I suspected much came from ICRC and defense attorney visits, or [was] possibly overheard from our own personnel, as did many of the people I worked with. Some rumors were hilariously outrageous, but we would not confirm or deny anything they told us, even though we laughed our butts off later. The “news” that Bush had been assassinated brought great joy to the detainees in camp on more than one occasion, although I’m pretty sure that one wasn’t accurate.
There have been accusations recently that prisoners are communicating with each other through their lawyers, or at least by marking notes to each other as legal material and therefore rendering it off limits. I asked Stashiu if he has any thoughts about that. Is it true? Can it be prevented?
Their legal documents are known as “Habeas Mail” and is off-limits except in extreme circumstances and any search must be approved (IIRC) by the Camp Commander and the JTF (Joint Task Force) Commander. Those searches frequently turn up contraband (both weapons and information) when they are done. I have my private opinion about the lawyers and their agendas/loyalties. It could possibly be prevented if Habeas Mail were routinely searched, but I don’t know if that would be legal or completely fair. I would like to know what the policy in our prison system is for legal communications. That may provide the best balance between safety/security and confidentiality.
No Females
I had never heard of any females being held at Guantánamo, and asked Stashiu if there are any. He said:
No female detainees in Camp Delta at all, as has been reported in the media. Many of the guard force and medical personnel are female though. No special effort [was] made (as far as I know) to prevent or include females in that assignment.
Detainees: Not All Arabs
In one of our conversations, Stashiu told me that Guantánamo has Chinese and Canadian prisoners. I admit that this surprised me, as I don’t think most people realize that anyone at Gitmo is anything but an Arab terrorist. I asked Stashiu to elaborate on this, and he said:
If you look at CagePrisoners.com, you can get a pretty good overview of who they say is, or has been, at GTMO. It is very slanted, so take descriptions and information with lots of salt, but reading between the lines is possible. In my opinion, the slanting is pretty ham-handed and obvious. Most people are aware, or have been, of David Hicks from Australia. I really can’t detail any specific individuals beyond what is publicly available though, or even how accurate CagePrisoners.com is.
What Are Stashiu’s Favorite Blogs?
I couldn’t help but ask Stashiu when he started reading my blog. I asked whether folks at Gitmo folks read blogs — and if so, which ones. Alas, Stashiu couldn’t shed any light on this, as he didn’t begin reading blogs until he returned to the States:
Never read a blog until the beginning of July. Somebody tipped me off to Protein Wisdom and I was hooked from the night of Deb Frisch’s meltdown. I’ve expanded my reading extensively from that starting point. Your site was bookmarked from the first time I read it and is one of the 8 or 9 (let’s see, PW, you, Teh Squeaky Wheel, Misha, Sweetness and Light, Conservative Fireman, Rightwing Sparkle, Villainous Company) I read every word of daily. There are a couple dozen that I will scan, including Blackfive, LGF, Ace of Spades, Hot Air, and Iowahawk, among others.
The Press and Accuracy
I know that Stashiu has a great deal of disdain for most Big Media journalists. I asked him if he had ever seen journalists at Gitmo, and if so, whether he had talked to any.
Saw them several times and briefly escorted a few. Never gave an interview as they were voluntary and there wasn’t any way I would volunteer. Any that asked me a question got an “I do my job in a way my family would be proud of and that protects American interests” response, no matter how unrelated to the question asked. I neither liked nor trusted them and refused to be baited. Same with ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross). My feelings about interviews didn’t come from anything anyone did while I was there. I had just seen too much of what I believed to be inaccurate information come out.
In conclusion, I hope that this series has been accurate, and that it has shed some light on the real Guantánamo. I come away with the impression that the place has minor flaws, like any other place. While there may have been abuses in the past — as evidenced by the detainees’ talking bad about the Army guys who used to run the place — that is mostly a thing of the past. It sounds as though, nowadays, Guantánamo is far from a source of shame; it is a place where folks like Stashiu work hard at a difficult job, and for the most part do it well.
Thanks to Stashiu
In particular, I want to extend my deepest thanks to Stashiu, a man for whom I have great admiration, and whom I hope to meet personally some day. I thank him for his service and for his extraordinary generosity in spending so much time with me, to make sure that these pieces have been accurate and interesting. In the course of putting these interviews together, I have had several telephone conversations with Stashiu — several hours total — and we have exchanged well over 100 e-mails. I feel that I have gotten to know him fairly well, and I think he is an absolutely stand-up guy. He didn’t have to tell us about Guantánamo, but I’m glad he did.
In my first post, I noted that a certificate accompanying Stashiu’s medal for service at Guantánamo stated that Stashiu “reflected credit upon himself, the United States Army, and the Department of Defense.” I think his interviews with me — with their candor coupled with a careful respect for confidential information — have reflected credit on the Army and the United States of America. I am proud to know this man, and proud of the job that he has done for our country.
P.S. Stashiu remains available to answer your questions in the comments. Because not everyone reads the comments, next week I may try to take the most interesting of the questions and answers and put them in a post. Many of you ask better questions than I ever thought of asking, and all my readers should see the answers.
[This is Part Two of my exclusive interview with “Stashiu,” an Army nurse who worked at Guantánamo, and who spoke on a regular basis with detainees with psychological and/or behavioral problems. Part One was published yesterday and can be accessed here. In today’s entry, Stashiu talks about his arrival at GTMO, and discusses the true nature of the detainees who are being held there.]
Stashiu Arrives At GTMO
Stashiu has been in the U.S. Army for 23 years, and is due to retire soon. Since September 11, he has been trying to get deployed to help fight the war on terror. After all, the reason he had joined was to be deployed. He was on the list to go to Iraq, but had been retained by his boss stateside for a long period of time because his boss liked his work and wanted to keep him around. His first chance at a deployment came with his assignment to Guantánamo. Finally, Stashiu was getting his wish, and he was excited.
Stashiu arrived at Guantánamo aboard a plane operated by Delta Airlines. Although military aircraft fly into and out of GTMO, the military also uses Delta to ferry passengers to and from Guantánamo Bay.
When you come in to Guantánamo Bay, Stashiu told me, you realize right away that you are entering a Communist country. Security is handled by military personnel, but there is a level of tension far different from that present at other places Stashiu has traveled to. It reminded him that Castro’s Cuba lay just around the corner — a malevolent place where the dying dictator has tortured and killed too many to count.
The facility is, as advertised, on Guantánamo Bay. Incoming personnel arrive at an air strip located on the leeward side, and take a ferry across the bay to the windward side where the detention facility is located.
As he approached the Guantánamo facility’s Camp Delta along Skyline Drive, one of the windy roads on the way to the camp from the ferry, Stashiu felt the scene seemed surreal. He knew he was about to take part in a historical set of events, and he was excited.
For reasons of operational security, Stashiu could tell me little about the physical layout of Guantánamo. When I asked, he said that there is
[o]ne large area called “The Wire” which houses Camps 1-4. Camp 5 is a separate facility modeled on a supermax. Camp 6 is under construction and will be similar to Camp 5. Those are the main detainee areas. There are some other areas that fall under Joint Task Force-One large area called “The Wire” which houses Camps 1-4. Camp 5 is a separate facility modeled on a supermax. Camp 6 is under construction and will be similar to Camp 5. Those are the main detainee areas. All of this is public knowledge.
That’s about as far as Stashiu was willing to go, but — in an ironic nod to the paranoid lefties — he did take care to say that there are “no super-secret torture chambers.”
Speaking with Terrorists Daily
Stashiu’s title was Division Officer for Behavioral Health Services, which meant he spent hours talking to terrorists about what makes them tick. He shares these insights with you in this post.
WELCOME MESSAGE: Welcome to Patterico’s Pontifications. This is destined to be the hottest blog since that one put out by that guy. You know who I mean.
Since then, I have had a run of luck beyond my wildest dreams. This blog has broken national stories, which have been cited in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, among other Big Media rags. Stories published here have been featured on national TV news networks and discussed by late-night comedians. I have published op-eds in the Los Angeles Times. The blog has broken a story that contributed to the downfall of a Congressman, published another national story that got a Big Media journalist reassigned, defended a federal judge against misleading accusations, and appeared on radio programs all across the country.
Most of these stories, I hasten to add, were based on tips from readers. Meaning it wasn’t really me who was responsible. It was you guys.
I’ve gotten to meet wonderful people through the blog — including guest bloggers, readers and commenters, other bloggers, and writers and other personalities I never thought I would be lucky enough to meet. Thanks to the blog, I met and became acquainted with Andrew Breitbart and many of his friends. I have gotten to hang out with people who have written or starred in some of my favorite movies; learned the identity of (and hung out with) talented undercover cop writers; met fearless journalists and talented novelists; and just had a fabulous time.
Over the years, I have amassed 723,852 comments, made on 16,566 posts, and 33,267,955 page views.
I’ve also experienced harassment of my wife and children; publication of my home address and pictures of my home; threats of violence and death; State Bar complaints; Google bombing of my name and job title coupled with scurrilous accusations; numerous lawsuit threats; one lawsuit filing, numerous workplace complaints . . . and I have been SWATted — all for expressing my views.
Hey, nobody said life was all peaches and cream. (Which is fine, because I don’t particularly care for peaches and cream.)
But on this 10th anniversary of the blog, I wanted to highlight some favorite posts of mine from the last ten years. I’m hoping that many of these posts are going to be new to recent readers. My favorite posts tend to give the reader something unique, whether it’s original journalism breaking national stories, exposing of tendentious media bias, or just some personal observations about my family and life in general.
This post can’t possibly be comprehensive, or it would be too long. This is just a collection of a few of my favorite posts from the last ten years.
I hope you enjoy them.
THE DOG TRAINER YEAR IN REVIEW
I probably became best known for my scathing year-end reviews of the Los Angeles Times, which I used to call the “Los Angeles Dog Trainer” — a term stolen from Harry Shearer. I stopped doing this review after 2009, in part because the paper seemed less relevant, and in part because in 2009 I was transferred to a new and very demanding unit in my office, and I soon found that I could no longer muster the time and energy to do a Year in Review.
Nevertheless, I have toyed with the idea of doing a 2010-2013 roundup, and possibly a round-up of the top stories from ten years of L.A. Times bashing.
(By the way, if you have trouble getting links in older posts to work, go here for tips on how to deal with that problem.)
THE GINSBURG CONTROVERSY (MARCH 2004)
I believe the first national story I broke on this blog was about Justice Ginsburg giving a speech to the National Organization for Women’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, days after ruling on a case in which that organization had filed an amicus brief. Justice Scalia had come under fire for supposedly speaking to a group that had a case pending before the Supreme Court, and I believed that the news media should give equal time to a liberal Justice doing the same thing.
In some ways arguably the most epic post I have ever written, my post exposing Glenn Greenwald’s sock puppetry relied heavily on the Wuzzadem sock puppets to carry the narrative. It is still cited constantly and I’m often told it is among my readers’ favorite posts.
MY INTERVIEW WITH STASHIU (OCTOBER 2006)
One of my favorite sets of blog posts was an interview I did with Stashiu, a Gitmo psych nurse who regularly spoke with some of the worst terrorists in the world. Stashiu talked to me for hours about Guantanamo, and the piece has held up over the years — and Stashiu has been a reliable friend of the blog ever since. My interview with Stashiu was published in five parts:
Part One: Introduction. Stashiu tells us about a terrorist who threatened to a) have Zarqawi (who was then still alive) cut off the heads of Stashiu’s family while he watched — and then b) cut off Stashiu’s head.
Part Two: Stashiu arrives at GTMO, and tells us what the terrorists are like.
Part Three: Hunger strikes, suicides and suicide attempts, and mental illness. Stashiu opines that the suicides were a political act.
Part Four: Treatment of the detainees, and the detainees’ treatment of guards. Also, desecration of the Koran — but by whom?
Part Five: Stashiu reacts to Big Media pieces about GTMO.
THE KOZINSKI MATERIALS (JUNE 2008)
In June 2008 the L.A. Times revealed that Judge Alex Kozinski had placed bawdy material on a web server accessible by the public. I obtained the material and published it in multiple posts. I revealed that it was generally humorous material, and that one of the most inflammatory accusations, that he had a video of “bestiality,” was nothing of the sort. I also published a letter from his wife which was cited in the Associated Press and other publications, and was widely credited for helping reverse the tide of opinion against him.
An admission that Cyrus Sanai made to me that his complaint against Kozinski was part of a “litigation strategy” was cited by the Ninth Circuit — with a citation to the URL of my post and everything! (Incidentally, that decision represented the second time that this blog affected the contents of a Ninth Circuit opinion. The first occurred in May 2004, and was described here.)
FAKE DOCTOR ROXANA MAYER (AUGUST 2009)
Thanks to a tip from a reader, this blog uncovered evidence that there was a phony pro-Obama operative at a 2009 town hall meeting on health care reform. A “Dr. Roxana Mayer” in a white physician’s coat claimed to be a pediatrician, and spoke up in favor of health care reform — but this blog revealed evidence that she was a fake. I wrote her and confronted her with the evidence and she admitted it.
In 2010, a campaign of blatant Astroturfing appeared in publications around the country, with the same pro-Obama letters appearing in countless publications under different names. I added to the evidence here, here, here, and here.
Michelle Malkin, one of my favorite people in the world whom I have never met, mentioned this blog on Hannity (fast forward to 4:25):
WEINERGATE (JUNE 2011)
I blogged quite a bit on Weinergate, but the posts of mine that advanced the ball the most were posts about his communications with a real-life underage girl, here, here, and here. I later learned that these posts played a key role in his decision to resign.
SWATTING AND BRETT KIMBERLIN CONTROVERSY (MAY 2012)
One of the oddest things that has happened to me is undergoing a pattern of harassment from a set of crazed trolls surrounding Brett Kimberlin. As I was experiencing this harassment, I was SWATted — something I can’t prove is connected, but which seemed to be. Enjoy the short version of the story — and then bookmark the long version, which is very dense and truly repays repeated readings.
In February 2005, less than two years after I started the blog, I published an op-ed in the L.A. Times that savaged the L.A. Times for the way they bury corrections of significant errors. The piece was called The Correct Way to Fix Mistakes. I wrote another op-ed in August 2005, about the way the paper had lionized Cindy Sheehan while papering over her omissions, contradictions, and disturbing radicalism.
In 2007 I was invited to participate in an online debate with liberal Marc Cooper about the future of the paper, at the L.A. Times web site. The feature was called a “Dust-Up” and the five entries are collected here.
My radio appearances started with Clint Taylor, who was doing a show at a student-run station out of Stanford.
Once, in February 2008, my father-in-law was driving to work in Kentucky, and was taken aback to hear me on NPR, talking about how I was likely to vote for John McCain even though I thought he was a horrible candidate. (When you listen to that clip and hear that I was pulling for Romney, please remember that he was running against McCain, whom I have always, always hated.)
I talked SWATting on local station KABC with my pal John Phillips in November 2012. I was on KFI during drive time in June 2006, talking about the SWIFT terror financing program, on a day when Michelle Malkin filled in for John and Ken.
I appeared on the local public radio show “Which Way, L.A.?” with Warren Olney twice. The second time was in July 2008, to discuss my L.A. Times “Dust-Ups” with Marc Cooper. The first was in June 2008, when Eugene Volokh and I tore L.A. Times reporter Scott Glover to shreds for his misleading coverage of the contents of Judge Alex Kozinski’s web server.
I had the honor of appearing on the Stage Right Show with Larry O’Connor, including this March 2010 show where I mocked Brett Kimberlin’s business partner Brad Friedman, and got to talk to my commenter and pal daleyrocks. Larry O’Connor pretended to be Friedman on that show, which was a riot. I was on the Stage Right Show a month earlier, in February 2010, also on the same show as Friedman. That one was great because Andrew Breitbart called in to help me yell at Brad.
I have made several appearances on Pundit Review Radio, which was broadcast on WRKO in Boston. In a July 2006 appearance I discussed the SWIFT program targeting terrorist financing. In a November 2006 appearance I discussed a story where I proved that the L.A. Times had misreported details about an alleged airstrike in Ramadi. And in an October 2005 appearance I discussed my opposition to the Harriet Miers nomination, in which I played a fairly active role.
In March 2009 I was on the Northern Alliance Radio Network with Captain Ed and Mitch Berg.
I even went on a show called “Hoist the Black Flag” with Ace and Jeff Goldstein — in April 2006 and July 2006, to discuss the Hiltzik story.
I have also had radio personalities read my stuff on the air. Before he got into an insane feud with me for calling him out on some misstatements he had made, Mark Levin read my stuff. Rush Limbaugh read from my Cindy Sheehan L.A. Times op-ed in October 2005, and from a DRJ post on Obama’s tax plan in October 2008.
ENDORSEMENTS
I have some favorite quotes about me from people over the years, but the one I will never forget is from Tony Snow, who once commented:
Thanks for the wonderful write-up. It’s always fun visiting the belly of the beast. Meanwhile, keep up the great work. Love the blog.
“Love the blog.” Tony Snow said he loved the blog! Awesome. Of course, the post about his appearance on Bill Maher is probably the only entry he ever read, but still. Pretty cool. (He actually left a second comment about an hour later, responding to a Bill Maher sock puppet. But the Tony Snow comments were for real.)
PERSONAL REFLECTIONS
My dad died in 2005. He used to read my blog every day. I remembered him here. After he left, I dreamed about him, and this post about one particularly vivid dream remains one of my favorites. I have wished him a happy birthday every March 17 since the blog started. It’s hard to imagine that he was reading the blog for fewer than three of the last ten years.
But possibly my favorite post from this blog is one about not taking things for granted. It’s a post I wrote as the one-year anniversary of my dad’s death was coming up, and I guess it made me reflect. Anyway, that post is the only one I’ll quote at length here.
In the post, I talked about a night that we took our infant daughter to an acoustic concert, hoping she would sleep through it. If she cried, the plan was for me to take her to the car, where I would watch her for half the concert, and then call my wife out to sit for the second half. I never called her, but spent the whole concert in the car watching my daughter sleep. I wrote:
The night it happened, I didn’t mind being in the car with my daughter. But if I could go back now, there’s no question that I would want to be there.
Not only would I stay in the car with her — I would make the most of the experience, realizing that I had a precious chance to see her at that age again. I would try to commit every moment to memory.
And then I realized: some day, years in the future, I might be asking the same question about my life today — this very minute. If you could have this moment back to live over again, what would you do?
The rest of that evening, I pictured myself as having been sent into my body from the future, to relive the moments I was experiencing. And I saw everything differently. I sat on the couch and watched television with my arm around my wife — all the while imagining myself as an old man, transported back in time to relive that moment. And all of a sudden, what otherwise might have seemed like a mundane moment seemed like a privilege. I felt like the luckiest guy in the world, just sitting there with my wife.
I’ve tried the trick all weekend, and it really changes your outlook. Just sitting around with a sleepy child in your arms is great any way you look at it. But if you picture yourself as someone whose child has grown up — if you imagine yourself as an older man, who would give the world to be back in that chair with that child in his arms — it makes you realize how important the moment is. And you appreciate it more.
Even when times are tough — or seem tough — keeping this perspective in mind can help change the way you look at your life.
Thanks for spending part of the last ten years with me. I hope you keep reading.
UPDATE: A special thanks to all the guest bloggers who have helped me during the years, including DRJ, Karl, Jack Dunphy, JD, Aaron Walker, Morgen Richmond, WLS, Justin Levine, Dafydd ab Hugh, See Dubya, The Angry Clam, Xrlq, Teflon Don, Charlie (Colorado), and several others. You kept things going when I couldn’t, and contributed many worthwhile posts.
Our old friend Stashiu3 has a blog. As regular readers will remember, Stashiu3 was a psych nurse at GTMO, whom I interviewed in 2006. His blog is Stashiu’s Space. Check it out.
In an interview with me last year, Gitmo psyche nurse Stashiu said:
There were a few detainees there who werent actually fighting against the Coalition, but they were fighting their own government and would have been executed if we returned them there. Since we are not allowed to ship someone where we have reason to believe they would face torture or death, they are stuck at GTMO until we can find a country to accept them without killing them. But they were combatants of some sort.
Many Americans may be surprised to hear that interrogations at Gitmo are now optional. (Via Allahpundit, in a fascinating post with a link to Fox News’s Steve Harrigan getting waterboarded.) But I don’t think it will come as a great surprise to those who read my series with Stashiu, the Army nurse who was stationed at Gitmo. Remember what Stashiu said about interrogations:
For some, they eagerly await days until “reservation” (interrogation) and there are frequently requests to see their interrogator. This is why I said that some fear to return home or they would be killed as traitors. They get to smoke (sometimes 4 or 5 packs at once, uggh!), watch new-release DVDs that have been screened by Intel so they don’t get current events, eat pizza or fast-food, listen to music, smoke a hooka, etc…. The better stuff they give up, the more the interrogators get for them. All of this has been previously released to the public, but you never hear about it in the MSM.
It’s optional, but I suspect some of the detainees are still opting to participate.
There’s an interesting story by Andrew Selsky in the Associated Press on Gitmo at this link. The whole thing is worth reading, but readers of this blog will be particularly interested in this passage:
An Army nurse who said he worked at its medical facility for a year until last May wrote in a blog that he wouldn’t hesitate to kill a former detainee if he saw him in his town.
“I can tell you that if I ever saw a detainee face-to-face here in the States, I would immediately assume that I was targeted and do my best to kill them without further warning,” wrote the soldier, who would be identified only by his nickname, Stashiu.
Here is a roundup of links to the five installments of my interview with Stashiu, a Gitmo psyche nurse who has spoken with the terrorists for hours.
Part One: Introduction. Stashiu tells us about a terrorist who threatened to have Zarqawi (who was then still alive) cut off the heads of Stashiu’s family while he watched — and then cut off Stashiu’s head.
Part Two: Stashiu arrives at GTMO, and tells us what the terrorists are like.
Part Three: Hunger strikes, suicides and suicide attempts, and mental illness. Stashiu opines that the suicides were a political act.
Part Four: Treatment of the detainees, and the detainees’ treatment of guards. Also, desecration of the Koran — but by whom?
Part Five: Stashiu reacts to Big Media pieces about GTMO.
UPDATE: Thanks to Instapundit for the link. If you like, you can go to Part One and read straight through; at the bottom of every post is a link to the next installment. Or you can sample the various parts according to the descriptions above.
[This is Part Four of my exclusive interview with “Stashiu,” an Army nurse who worked at Guantánamo, and who spoke on a regular basis with detainees with psychological and/or behavioral problems. Part One can be accessed here. Part Two is available here. Part Three is here.
As before, these posts represent Stashiu’s opinions and experiences, and are not meant to represent anything or anyone else, including the opinions of the U.S. Army. Stashiu wants me to make it clear that nearly everything discussed here has been officially released. As to those parts that are based on his personal experience, he has been careful to respect operational security and confidentiality.
In today’s entry, Stashiu talks about the United States’ treatment of the detainees at Guantánamo — and the detainees’ treatment of U.S. personnel. If you read to the end, you might also learn who has been abusing Korans at Gitmo.]
I asked Stashiu how he felt detainees at Gitmo were treated. He said:
As humanely as possible. Many times with more respect than was deserved based on their behavior. Taking things personally or retaliating against something a detainee did was not only against the rules, it was frowned upon.
Stashiu added that in that setting, there was strong peer pressure not to be the guy who made everyone else look like monsters, so most people took special care to behave in a professional manner.
I asked if he was aware of any abuses.
There were occasions when a guard lost his cool and overstepped… every one I heard about resulted in a courts-martial or other punishment, but there weren’t that many overall (maybe 4 or 5).
Detainee Attacks on Guards
Indeed, it sounded like a great deal of the violence and brutality came from the detainees, not the guards:
Consider that flinging “cocktails” of urine, feces, saliva, sperm, vomitus, and combinations thereof was threatened daily by detainees and performed several times each week. Also, verbal abuse from detainees was very common. . . . This was in addition to physical assaults on guards with everything from shanks, kicks, elbows, and a variety of rather clever makeshift weapons.
(All emphasis in this post is mine.)
Despite these attacks, Stashiu said, guards behaved professionally:
I was always impressed with the professionalism and restraint shown by a very (chronologically) young guard force.
The attacks on military personnel could be brutal, he explained:
We were told about one female medic who had to have major reconstructive surgery on her face following a detainee assault. She was too close to the beanhole (door opening) and the detainee was able to reach out, grab her head, and pull her face-first into the steel frame of the door, shattering most of the facial bone structure.
As medical personnel we would occasionally forget that these were detainees and treat them as we would regular patients. The guard force was usually very alert and prevented us from inadvertently risking ourselves, but this happened too quickly for anyone to prevent. Of course, we were all very careful about proximity for a long time after that.
To answer what I feel is the intent of your question, the primary goal of every leader, subordinate, and camp policy was to treat detainees as humanely as possible, while protecting everyone’s safety. Intel and all that was secondary.
My standard answer to family and friends is, “I did my job in a way that would make you proud and protected our country and way of life.” I don’t burden them with any details beyond that.
I pressed for more detail on incidents of excessive force against, or mistreatment of, the detainees. How many such incidents occurred while Stashiu was there? Were the detainees injured badly? Were the offenders court-martialed? What happened to them?
There were maybe 4 or 5 incidents that I heard of. At least one resulted in a courts-martial. The rest were punished because no matter how provoked you were, that was the job. I am not aware of anyone who messed with a detainee without being struck first, but being struck was not a license to retaliate. We were only allowed enough of a response to defend ourselves and disengage or contain the detainee. Any gratuitous response was worth at least a field-grade level non-judicial punishment (fairly harsh and pretty damaging to a career, but not necessarily a career-killer).
Did Stashiu do physical exams in any way as part of his examinations? Did he ever see signs of physical abuse?
We did physical assessments at admission (short of what most would consider a physical exam, but relatively thorough and included vital signs, visual inspection, and questions about history and what brought them in to us.) I saw one injured detainee from a forced cell extraction who had vigorously resisted because he was paranoid and delusional (definitely not faking). He later explained to me how the minor injury happened and told me he didn’t blame the guards. He did remember the incident, but was not in complete control of his behavior at the time. Nothing broken or sutured and quickly treated. No indications of abuse ever came to my attention or I would have reported it.
I asked if any detainees had just disappeared while Stashiu was stationed at Guantánamo? To his knowledge, did any die under suspicious circumstances?
None disappeared or were otherwise unaccounted for to the best of my knowledge. Nobody died under any circumstances, suspicious or otherwise, while I was there.
A Terrorist’s Complaints
One of the men who has notoriously attempted suicide many times — and who has registered numerous complaints about mistreatment — is Juma Al Dossary, who reportedly has 13 suicide attempts and is still being held at Guantánamo.
I looked up Juma Al Dossary’s Wikipedia entry, linked immediately above, and learned that Al Dossary had written a letter protesting his innocence and claiming that he had suffered the following indignities:
cigarettes being extinguished on his body
being made to walk on barbed wire
being urinated on by GI’s
I knew that I couldn’t ask Stashiu about his specific conversations with specific inmates, but I did ask him whether he had ever heard any inmates claiming to have suffered any of the above-listed indignities while Stashiu was stationed at Guantánamo. He replied that he had not heard of any happening while he was there, from detainees or anyone else.
Inmates did sometimes complain of past indignities that occurred when the Army ran Guantánamo:
They really talk bad about the Army guys who opened the camp. Most say it got better after they left and the Navy took over most things. Others claim they continue to be tortured and treated as less than human because they weren’t given a second cup of coffee with breakfast.
Whenever any inmate complained of any mistreatment to Stashiu, even when it was in the past, Stashiu always checked to see whether it had been reported before. In every case but one, it had been. The one time he encountered a new complaint of mistreatment, it was reported and later ruled to be unfounded.
Medical Treatment Better Than Our Own Soldiers Receive
I asked Stashiu to tell me about the medical treatment the U.S. provides to the detainees. He said:
The medical care available and given exceeds what the active-duty get. Dental care is same-day or next-day (deployed personnel can’t get dental except for emergencies). The smallest complaint is assessed immediately, frequently with a transport to the detainee clinic or hospital (they have both immediately available) for a thorough evaluation and comprehensive treatment if needed.
Anyone needing care beyond the camp’s ability (which was extensive) would immediately be transported by ambulance to the Naval Hospital. I did not witness a single ambulance run for anyone besides a detainee.
Religious and Cultural Desires Respected
I asked Stashiu about the United States’ accommodation of the detainees’ religious and cultural desires:
Their religious and cultural desires are met if at all possible. (We did refuse to loan a detainee a helicopter because he wanted to complete Hadj, his spiritual walk to Mecca, even though he promised to return… but short of that, I believe most accom[m]odations were made). Korans in the language of their choice, reading materials, three meals each day (about 4200 available calories when you include snacks) that took into account cultural norms, food preferences, and medical requirements, all of which has been repeatedly reported in the media. GTMO was the first time I ever heard someone claim that they could only eat hamburger buns and not regular bread.
I asked Stashiu to respond to a recent L.A. Times article about Guantánamo, available here, which claims that some recent disturbances are attributable to guards’ insensitivity to the detainees’ religious beliefs. The article also suggested that the lack of Muslim chaplains is a problem. He said:
[P]eople go above and beyond to try and avoid even the perception of disrespecting the Muslim faith. Unfortunately, no matter what you do, some accusations are going to be made. My personal opinion is that it is usually an attempt to manipulate the guards or follow the Manchester Document, not out of any real belief that anyone did anything wrong. How many accusations are sincere? Very few (again, IMO).
As far as having Muslim chaplains goes, I don’t believe it would help much in the long run, or even the short. I believe it’s just another attempt to use up resources and manpower that wouldn’t dissuade any of the detainees from disrupting everything they possibly could. But that is just my opinion. You remember we spoke in very general terms about when Camp X-ray was started and how disruptive things were? I’m almost certain there was a Muslim chaplain there at that time.
Yes, Virginia . . . Detainees Really Do Abuse the Holy Koran
I asked Stashiu if he had ever flushed a Koran. I meant it in jest, but he answered seriously — and provided one of the more interesting tidbits of all our conversations:
The only Korans I saw, or even heard about, being placed in toilets, torn, or thrown onto the tier were done by detainees. The guards and medical staff never even touched the Koran if at all possible. We always called for an interpreter (a Muslim one, not all were) or the camp librarian to handle any Koran. The only times I witnessed a guard touch a Koran was during a search for contraband where there was probable cause that some would be found. Those were witnessed by an interpreter or the Cultural Advisor. Even when a detainee threw their Koran onto the tier, it stayed until we could get an appropriate person to collect it. We were always cautioned to be exceptionally careful about Korans because of the previous (and subsequently disproved) accusations.
Whoa. The part I have bolded above caught me by surprise. Stashiu saw detainees mistreating the Koran? I followed up with a question about that, and he replied:
Saw Korans thrown on the tier or torn, but these were by individuals without complete control of their behavior, such as a psychotic episode. Heard about two Korans in toilets by the same type of detainee prior to being admitted for psychiatric restabilization. We were very careful about Korans because of the previous media reports, even though they had been discredited.
I trust Stashiu and see him as a very honorable and trustworthy guy. When he says he saw an inmate mistreating a Koran — regardless of whether that inmate was mentally ill — that gives me confidence that similar stories I had read in the media are true. It’s not propaganda being pushed by the government, folks. Detainees at Guantánamo do indeed abuse the Koran at times.
Media Inaccuracies
I asked Stashiu what the biggest inaccuracies are in the press coverage (and public discussion in the U.S.) of what goes on at Gitmo. He said:
I believe the biggest one is obviously the alleged torture and abuse. If anything, we were hypersensitive to even giving the appearance of abuse and this was taken advantage of time and time again.
I asked Stashiu if there were any changes that he would make regarding prisoner treatment. He said:
Echelons above reality to my pay grade, but I would actually like to see things become stricter across the board. Set a fair policy and don’t make exceptions for anyone. I think the population would test limits at first, but once things became routine, there would be far fewer problems in the future.
What Surprised Stashiu About GTMO?
I think it’s appropriate to end with this. I asked Stashiu: what was the most surprising thing about your life at GTMO? He replied that, while you might think it would be something about the detainees, to him the most surprising thing was actually the behavior of the Navy Master-at-Arms — the guard force for Guantánamo. Stashiu said that these guards are generally 18 to 20 years old, and are consistently showered with human waste products thrown at them by detainees — yet as a general rule, they stay remarkably professional and do not allow themselves to be antagonized. Stashiu found their behavior the most impressive part of his stay at Guantánamo.
Tomorrow: Stashiu responds to press descriptions of GTMO, and answers your questions. Also: he describes interrogation techniques so coercive and cruel, detainees request them by name!
Kevin M on Two Opposing Conservative Views on Ukraine
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About Patterico
Pronounced "Patter-EE-koh"
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The statements made on this web site reflect the personal opinions of the author. They are not made in any official capacity, and do not represent the opinions of the author's employer.
