Because young soldiers like Specialist Brandon Neely will be counting on us to make certain that they are never put into the position of being this government’s torture tools again.
From Neely’s account given to the Guantanamo Testimonials Project of the Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas:
…As far as the Geneva Convention, we were told the reason we had to live in an old trash dump in tents was due to the fact we could only live one step above the detainees. I did not understand this, as we were told on numerous occasions they did not fall under the Geneva Convention.
…
The only thing I can recall being told about the detainees that would arrive was that they were captured fighting the Americans in Afghanistan. And that they were known terrorists. And that many of them helped in the planning of the 9/11 attacks. We would be coming face-to-face with the worst people the world had to offer.
…
But, as the months went on, one or two of us would actually question what was going on here, the way the detainees were being treated and if they were actually terrorists or not, but being no-ones, and young, and dumb, we never questioned anything further; just did our time until we went home.* * *
Marine humvees with .50 caliber guns mounted on them led the bus to the camp…You could hear the Marines screaming at them “Shut the fuck up! You’re property of the United States of America now.” We were not allowed to step onto the bus. The Marines would push them towards us down the bus stairs and we would catch them. The first person who got off the bus, I will never forget. It was a man with one leg. He was later called Stumpy by everyone… Grabbed by the escorting MPs, Stumpy was jumping on one leg, MPs screaming at him to walk faster towards the holding area when, from inside the bus, someone threw his prosthetic leg out onto the ground. Myself and my partner were next. The second detainee came off the bus. We grabbed him like we were trained and took him into the holding area, yelling at him to get on his knees and to shut up.
…
I am not a totally innocent person as far as what happened inside the wire. I am very ashamed to admit it and tell you that I was involved in the very first [Internal Reaction Force] incident at Camp X-Ray…On the first day we had been taking detainees from the in-processing center to their cages for quite a while when myself and the guy that was my escorting partner grabbed the next detainee to be taken. He was an older man… I noticed he was really tense, shaking really bad, and not wanting to walk or move without being forced to do so. We made our way to Alpha Block to the cage he would be placed in. He was instructed to go to his knees, which he did. My partner then went down and took off his leg shackles. I still had control of his upper body, and I could still feel him tensing up. Once the shackles were off my partner started to take off the hand cuffs. The detainee got really tense and started to pull away. We yelled at him a couple times “Stop moving!” Over and over. Then he stopped moving, and when my partner went to put the key in that first handcuff, the detainee jerked hard to the left towards me. Before I knew it, I threw the detainee to the ground and was on top of him holding his face to the cement floor.
At this time my partner had left the cage. The block NCOIC (or Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge) was on the radio yelling code red which meant emergency on the block. Before I knew, I was being grabbed from behind and pulled out of the cage by the IRF team. They grabbed this man and hog-tied him. He laid there like that for hours that day before he was released from that position.
A couple days later I found out from a detainee who was on that block that the older detainee was just scared and that when we placed him on his knees he thought he was going to be executed. He then went on to tell me that this man had seen some of his friends and family members executed on their knees. I can remember guys coming up to me after it was over that night and said “Man, that was a good job; you got you some”.
I did not feel good about what I did. It felt wrong. This man was old enough to be my father, and I had just beaten up on him. I still to this day don’t know who was more scared before and during this incident me or the detainee.
I remember seeing him the next day when I walked into camp. His face was all bruised and scraped up. I was young and didn’t question anything back then. As I do nowadays. But even then, when I was as pissed off as anyone there, I felt ashamed of what I did. As the years have went on and the more I learn the more guilt I feel. This is one of the incidents from my time at Guantanamo that haunts me.
* * *
There are a couple things that I remember seeing first-hand that come to my mind and that I believe were totally unjust and just plain abuse. I am not sure of the dates or times when they occurred, but it wasn’t too long into the beginning of Camp X-Ray.One night I was assigned to Charlie Block as a block guard. The medic was handing medication out on the block. He made his way over to one detainee on the block and instructed him to drink a can of Ensure (a lot of detainees were given this since they were underweight and malnourished). The detainee refused to take the Ensure… The [Officer In Charge] then made his way to the block … and the conclusion was that the detainee could not refuse any medications at all…
The call was made on the radio for the IRF team… The detainee just stood there, facing the IRF team. BOOM! the Number One Man hit the detainee with shield causing him to fall to the cement floor of the cage. Quickly the whole team was on top of the detainee. I could not see exactly what they were doing. They stood him up and hand-cuffed him to fence in the cage. The person who had the shield held the detainee’s head so he could not move. The medic then entered the cage with the can of Ensure. Once he entered the cage he looked up and saw me. He then motioned for me to move over to my left (his right). So I moved over. I did not think anything about it. He then opened the Ensure can, grabbed the detainee by the neck, and started to pour it down his throat. The detainee was attempting to move his head, and he wouldn’t swallow any of it. The Ensure just ran down his face all over him.
The medic looked up one quick time and punched the detainee twice on the left side of his face with his right fist. The medic then just turned around and walked out of the cage like nothing happened. The detainee was then un-handcuffed from the cage and laid down on the cement in the cage. He was then hog-tied. He laid in this position for a couple hours.
When the whole incident was over I turned around and noticed the guard tower where the Marines were stationed watching over and realized that the medic had placed me in front of the view of the tower and I had not even realized it.
I later learned through other detainees on the block the reason the man refused the Ensure was that he thought he was being poisoned.
* * *
One day, while on duty at Camp X-Ray, I was assigned to escorting duties… On this day the call came for the IRF team to come to Bravo Block… The situation on the block was that a detainee had called a female MP “bitch” a couple times. For punishment, the IRF team was called upon to enter the cage and hog-tie the detainee. The female MP was very upset, yelling “Whip his ass!”The IRF team, along with the camp OIC, approached the detainee’s cage and told him to stop yelling and lay down so he could be restrained. The detainee … went to his knees and placed his hands on the top of his head. The lock was taken off and the cage door was opened. The Number One Man on the IRF team tossed his shield to the side and, with a quick run towards the detainee, hopped in the air and came down on the back of the detainee with his knee (the Number One guy on the IRF team was no small guy). This caused the detainee to fall to the cement floor of the cage with the Number One Man on top of him. Then the whole IRF team was on top of him hitting, punching, and kicking him…
While the IRF team was still on top of the detainee someone yelled for the female MP that was called a bitch. She entered the cage and she punched the detainee a couple times in the head and then left the cage. Everyone in the cage stood up and the detainee laid there cuffed-up but motionless and unresponsive…
Later that night, after we had been off for a while, the IRF team came back from the hospital. They would go on and talk about how they hit and punched the detainee and how they held him down so the female MP could hit him a couple times… [T]he camp OIC of this incident would joke many times about how he never heard his name and “war crimes” in the same sentence so many times in his life.
…No one was reprimanded for what happened.
* * *
When an IRFing took place a camera was supposed to be present to capture the IRFing. Every time I witnessed an IRFing a camera was present, but one of two things would happen: (1) the camera would never be turned on, or (2) the camera would be on, but pointed straight at the ground. In the incident on Bravo Block I spoke about I found out through talking to people and hearing them joke that the video of the incident was destroyed.
* * *
When new detainees arrived to the camp, a detainee on Alpha Block began to yell so loudly that you could hear him all over camp. Every time we would take a new detainee to Alpha Block he would get even louder. Eventually, the IRF team was called in to restrain this detainee… By the time the IRF team was coming off the block and I was walking back towards Alpha Block I noticed a couple of the guys had blood on their arms, hands, and uniforms. They were washing their hands with water. The detainee was escorted off the block to medical, where he was given stitches for multiple lacerations to his head. Later that day I came back on the block and saw the cage this detainee was IRFed in. The cement floor was a dull red color from the blood. You could tell at one point before it was washed out that there was a lot of blood on the floor of that cage.* * *
Everything in the Camp changed once the [International Committee of the Red Cross] showed up. At first detainees were not allowed to talk or get up and walk around inside their cages. They were not even allowed to cover themselves up when they used the bathroom in their buckets. They were told to sit in the middle of the cage unless told otherwise or face punishment. They did not even know where they were at. They would ask and we would just lie to them and tell them they were in Russia or some other place. Many times they would ask about what happened to their country, and many of the soldiers including myself at times would tell them their country was destroyed by a nuclear bomb. Once the ICRC came they were told where they were at, allowed to talk, allowed to get up and walk around. The chain of command was really careful when the ICRC was around.* * *
I don’t believe the IRF team was used for the right reasons at all. At least the people on the team used it for the wrong reasons. It was their way to beat up on someone who was smaller and weaker than them. I have often wondered why you would need 5 healthy, grown men, in riot gear, to go take a down a detainee who was most likely underweight and very weak.
…
Upon arrival, detainees were screamed at throughout the whole process. They were told to shut up, walk faster, and what not. Some guards would call them “Sand Niggers.” I never heard that phrase until I was at Guantanamo. Detainees would be told that their country had been nuked and nothing was left, and that their families were dead. I know of some guards even telling detainees they could be executed at any time. This all was being said on the blocks by fellow MPs.
….
Just because many of us were guards at Guantanamo does not make us automatically bad people. I know for a fact one or two people, including myself, felt sorry for these people–and very ashamed of what we were taking part in. But what could we say? If we questioned anything or talked out against what we thought was wrong, we would have been ridiculed. And who knows what else we would have had to face. So we kept our mouths shut and went work every day, counting down the days until we could return home to our families and just could forget about this time we spent in Guantanamo.
…
I also want it to be known that we were told by the United States Army that, if we did not sign this piece of paper that stated we would not talk to the press, write a book, or make a movie, we could not leave and go back home. This happened the day before we left.
…
I often think of the detainees who have been released or continue to be caged there like animals. I don’t think people realize these caged individuals’ lives have been changed forever. The innocent people who were wrongfully held have lost so much. Some of them have lost family members, jobs, and money. And for what? No matter what happens in their future, they will not be able to get that lost time back that we took from them.… President Barack Obama has said the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay will be closed within a year. That’s great, but what are WE as the United States of America, the people who kidnapped and tortured these people going to do for them? Just send them home like nothing happened? In the USA if you are sentenced to prison and later on you are found not to be guilty through DNA or what not you are given compensation. Are we going to give compensation to these individuals that were so wrongfully held for so many years? We should. We started this mess and it’s time we attempt to help this people move on with their lives. The sad part of this all is the people who are responsible. Former President George Bush and Former Vice President Dick Cheney will never be held accountable for the decisions they made. It’s the detainees and the guards like myself that will have to live every day with what they went through, saw, and did while there.
I don’t understand those who say we should only look forward, especially as so many of them are the most avid supporters of Israel, which would not exist but for the collective guilt of a world that closed its eyes to the Holocaust until after 6 million were dead.
All of the industrialized nations of the earth are responsible for what has happened at Guantanamo, because none of them did anything beyond speaking out against this crime against humanity. None of these countries used the slightest bit of military or legal or political leverage to force BushCo’s hand and stop the detention or torture of even a single individual. Even Sweden – Sweden! – took an active role in the U.S. “extraordinary rendition” program.
Obama does not want to look vengeful or retributive – or, perish the thought, weak – by standing up against the imperialistic tendencies that made us an international pariah during the Bush/Cheney tenure.
President Obama, closing Guantanamo and repudiating torture are not enough.
In order to truly rehabilitate this country, and to once again make these war crimes the hallmarks of only dictators and thugs, we must prove that we recognize the absolute immorality and illegality (not to mention unconstitutionality) of torture, extraordinary rendition, detention without charge and extrajudicial punishment.
Just as there should never again be a victim abused like Mamdouh Habib, there should never again be a soldiers misused like Brandon Neely.
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