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darin
04-18-2007, 07:56 PM
Surprising, but I cannot remember the last time I heard a major news organization carry something like this:



International law dictates that a nation at war can hold enemy combatants, Harris said. “We did it in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. “People debate whether or not these detainees should be tried, but it’s only a relatively small percentage of detainees who have allegedly committed war crimes who should be tried,” he said.
“The rank-and-file detainee here is simply an enemy combatant. He has no right to trial during the conduct of an ongoing war.” Interrogators conduct interviews with about 125 detainees to glean information that’s then cross-referenced with other intelligence to provide field commanders, homeland law-enforcement authorities and allied security personnel with valuable information that can be used in the war on terror.

Such information has broadened understanding of such terrorist activities as recruiting, training, financing, planning, and command and control, Harris said. “What’s available is information of a strategic quality,” said CPT Dan Byer, a JTF-GTMO spokesman. Although the detainees do not have regular access to TV, radio or newspapers, news spreads quickly in the detention camps. For example, detainees were celebrating within minutes of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation in November, according to the detention Facility’s deputy commander.

During recreation time, detainees play basketball or soccer, or use exercise bicycles or treadmills. They read from a growing library of thousands of books in a dozen languages. They choose from meals that meet religious requirements and varied dietary needs.

They are cared for by 100 medical personnel in a 20-bed facility similar to an American forward-deployed field hospital. Pre-existing medical conditions — often undiagnosed and untreated prior to detention — have been addressed. Detainees have been fitted with prostheses for battlefield injuries and given physical therapy. More than 300 operations have been performed, including hemorrhoid surgeries, hernia repairs and an appendectomy. Everyone over 50 was offered a colonoscopy to detect colon cancer. One detainee has had a cancerous tumor remove. (emphasis mine -dp)

Diabetes, high cholesterol, heart disease and blood-pressure issues have been addressed, camp officials said. The nature of the medical care has changed from treatment of the acute conditions many detainees arrived with to the preventive health measures familiar to many Americans. For four months in 2002 the detainees were held at austere Camp X-Ray, which was originally built because of an influx of Haitian refugees in the 1990s. The camp has been closed for four years. “It’s literally overgrown,” Leacock said. Yet, pictures of Camp X-Ray still frequently accompany media coverage of JTFGTMO.

Detainees were moved across the naval station to Camp Delta, which is actually a series of four camps. Camps 1 through 3 are maximum-security sites. Camp 4 is a communal living facility where up to 10 detainees share quarters — a reward for complying with detention-facility rules and coperating with interrogators.

The newest facilities are Camp5 and Camp 6, both modeled after domestic U.S. penal institutions. These air-conditioned buildings improve detainees’ living conditions and allow for improved security. “Everybody starts off at ‘compliant,’” said the deputy commander of the joint detention group, a National Guard lieutenant colonel. “If you break a camp rule or fail to follow the guards’ instructions, you become a ‘noncompliant’ detainee, in which case you lose what are considered comfort items, like a thicker mattress, tan uniform, extra shoes and playing cards. Regardless of whether they’re compliant or noncompliant, they still keep copies of the Koran.”

Also in consideration of detainees’ religion, arrows pointing east toward Mecca are painted in every cell, so detainees know which way to face when they pray. (Emphasis mine, dp) No detainee is held in solitary confinement. No one is tortured. Detainees are always able to communicate with other detainees, Leacock said.

And, in compliance with the Third Geneva Convention — displayed prominently in multiple languages throughout the camps — detainees are protected from visitors’ curiosity. In Camp 4, they abandon the recreation yard and return to their rooms until visitors are gone.

“These detainees have their political,religious and military leaders,” the lieutenant colonel added. “They have their messengers. They have their
memorizers; they have people who memorize guards’ names. They have their shock troops who will throw a ‘cocktail’ of feces, urine, vomit, blood, whatever, in order to get moved to a different block so they can communicate, and they have the people who are the mouthpieces who will speak for the leaders.

They’re very organized. They’ve been here a long time.” Weapons seized from detainees include a billy club fashioned from MRE wrappers, an intricate trash-bag garrote and a variety of crude shanks. The task force attempts to make the JTF-GTMO facility the most transparent detention facility in the world,Leacock said. “We’re here to show the world we’re doing the right things for the right reasons.”

Still struggling to correct the impressions created by Camp X-Ray, the task force continues to deal with consequences of the “Manchester Document,” seized in England in 2000. “It was basically their how-tobe-a-terrorist field manual,” Leacock said. Topics included the correct use of poisons, how to conduct assassinations and guidance on traveling incognito. A key chapter advises readers what to do if detained, Leacock said. The advice includes making accusations of torture, using lawyers to communicate and gathering information about camp operations. The JTF attempts to correct the misconceptions created by released detainees who use misinformation tactics found in the “Manchester Document.”

To a visitor familiar with state prisons in the United States, both Camp 5 and Camp 6 are superior to the facilities used to house American criminals. The other camps are more like county jails, said the Army NCO in charge of Camp 5.
Detention of enemy combatants differs from the imprisonment of criminal inmates, in that enemy combatants are not being punished and no one is trying to reform them. “This is not a penal colony,” Byer said. “They are not serving time for the things they have done. We have no desire to focus on rehabilitating war criminals or someone that fights for their country. This is not a correctional facility.”

GTMO’s isolation ensures force protection, decreases the odds of attack or escape, and protects the detainees from harassment. In dry seasons, GTMO looks like Arizona by the sea; in wet seasons, like South Florida with hills. The 45-square-mile naval station has been under American control since 1898, and straddles both sides of Guantanamo Bay.

Since 2002 the base’s population has climbed from about 2,300 to some 7,500. Almost every naval station building sports a fresh coat of paint, and many have been renovated. American taxpayers have invested $100 million in the detainee mission alone, JTF-GTMO officials said.
With the construction of new barracks, service members now live in
four-person rooms. Harris has moved aggressively to improve living conditions, institute family visits; and enhance morale, welfare and recreation. Although they are not being shot at, JTF-GTMO troops say their job has unique stresses. “We’re toe to toe, eyeball to eyeball with detainees on a daily basis,” Leacock said.

“The detainees threaten to kill us. They threaten that if they ever get out they’ll track down our families and kill them. They use every possible racial slur to try to drive a wedge between members of the guard force.”

Other challenges of the unaccompanied deployment include the world’s intense scrutiny, the rigorous operational security, detainee assaults on guards, the heat and humanely dealing with detainees who have such infectious diseases as hepatitis. “You’re doing doctoral-level work here,” said LTG H. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, speaking to JTF-GTMO members during a November visit. “You think I’m kidding? This is tough stuff.

You say more about what’s right about America just by being you and doing what you do every day. You are this nation’s best ambassadors to these detainees. If you think you’re not changing them at all, you’re kidding yourself, and if they think they’re going to take down a way of life that grows people like you, who are capable of doing what you are doing, then they’re kidding themselves.”



Download your own copy:

http://www.army.mil/publications/soldiersmagazine/pdfs/mar07all.pdf

darin
04-19-2007, 09:13 AM
what do ya think?

Gunny
04-19-2007, 09:23 AM
what do ya think?

I think it's like keeping wild animals in a cage. You can provide better care for them than they ever could on their own, but the second You turn your back, they'll bite the hand off that feeds them.

IMO, they have it far better than they deserve.

Mr. P
04-19-2007, 09:30 AM
what do ya think?

I think it'll be a cold day in hell before the major media will carry anything like this, unless they twist it to support their agenda.

Gaffer
04-20-2007, 08:44 PM
Never see any of this on the news. They would rather make up torture stories than tell the truth about gitmo.