by albion » Wed Oct 05, 2005 6:02 pm
Am I paranoid, or is this a "limited hangout"?<br><br><br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>In New Book Ex-Chaplain at Guantánamo Tells of Abuses</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>By NEIL A. LEWIS<br>Published: October 3, 2005<br><br>WASHINGTON, Oct. 2 - James J. Yee, a former Muslim chaplain at the Guantánamo Bay detention center, says in a new book that military authorities knowingly created an atmosphere in which guards would feel free to abuse prisoners. <br><br>Mr. Yee, 37, is a former Army captain and a West Point graduate who was arrested and imprisoned in 2003 on suspicion of espionage. It was a case that, in the end, proved groundless, to the embarrassment of the Pentagon.<br><br>Mr. Yee was ultimately deemed guilty of minor administrative charges involving adultery and the presence of pornography on his computer, and given an honorable discharge. But those convictions, too, were later dropped.<br><br>The book, "For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire," offers Mr. Yee's first public comments on what occurred at the camp while he was there.<br><br>In the book, to be published this week by PublicAffairs, Mr. Yee writes that Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the prison's commanding officer - who would later become Mr. Yee's chief antagonist in pressing suspicions of espionage against him - regularly incited anger toward the prisoners with emotional slogans delivered to the troops.<br><br>Mr. Yee writes that when General Miller visited the prison, he would tell the guards sternly, "The war is on." That remark and similar comments, Mr. Yee writes, were designed to let soldiers know they were operating in a combat environment where it was understood that rules protecting detainees were relaxed and instances of mistreatment would be overlooked.<br><br>"Soldiers know that when you are in combat there's considerable leniency in the rules," Mr. Yee said in an interview, "and the leaders, including General Miller, wanted to put them in that frame of mind."<br><br>He said that General Miller told him that he remained deeply angry over the loss of military friends who were killed in the attack on the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.<br><br>[...] In the interview, Mr. Yee declined to discuss the details of the adultery and pornography charges against him, except to say they were used to humiliate him because the military was embarrassed over its handling of his case. He also does not go into the details of the charges in his book.<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/03/politics/03yee.html">www.nytimes.com/2005/10/0...03yee.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <p></p><i></i>
