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From http://www.billmon.org
| quote: | Last night a reporter who is chasing the Abu Ghraib torture story emailed me an autobiographical sketch of Joe Ryan, the conservative talk radio personality turned military interrogator who provided this inside look at life inside the prison. (As lived by the Americans, I mean. The prisoners are just now getting a chance to their sideof the story.)
The bio was provided by the KSTP -- the Minneapolis radio station that, up until recently, had been posting Ryan's diary on its web site. Joe, it seems, is an ex-Special Forces intelligence specialist turned contractor employee -- whether for CACI International or some other firm is not made clear, although my understanding is that CACI was the only firm providing interrogators at Abu Ghraib. I'm guessing Ryan's background is reasonably representative -- professionally and probably ideologically -- of the contractors involved in the scandal (although there's no direct indication in his diary that he himself participated in any of the abuses.)
Anyway, here's Joe in his own words:
For those of you who do not know my military and civilian background, let me give a little bio to maybe clarify how I look at things while I am here.
I was in Air Force Junior ROTC in high school and went to University of Colorado for two years on Air Force ROTC scholarship. I decided that Aerospace Engineering was not for me and left college.
I enlisted into the Army as a PFC for an interrogator position with an airborne slot. My language wish list consisted of Russian, German, or Spanish. In the army's omnipotence, they chose to send me to the Foreign Service Institute in Washington, DC to learn Swahili. My first assignment was with 3rd Special Forces Group where I was in-processed a whole 13 days prior to going on my first deployment with a team to Uganda. I have spent time in 10 African countries with the teams and earned my "S" identifier after completion of selection and qualifying course for weapons specialist (18B), but was never released by MI branch since I was one of two Swahili linguists in the army, so carried the 18B as a secondary specialty. I went through the DOD Strategic Debriefer Course, Israeli Interrogation Course, and the SCAN Course. In 1994, I went into Haiti with two SF teams into La Cayes on the southern peninsula. After securing our objective, we were informed the invasion was canceled. This meant no further reinforcements for 28 days and forever resentful to the philandering president. In Haiti I performed more than 80 interrogations and conducted the force protection assessments.
Since MI Branch would not release me, I reclassified to 98C (Signals Intelligence Analyst) so I could advance my career. So a Swahili linguist was sent to Korea for a year upon completion of the school. The blessing is that I met my wonderful wife in 98C school and spent the year in Korea with her. I was in charge of the two Trojan Spirit systems for the 2nd Infantry Division.
Needing a desk to try on for size, I went to work for the National Security Agency for the last 17 month of my active duty. As the only military person in the department and the only one to have spent time in Eastern Africa, I had four civilians making MUCH more money than I working for me during the height of the Sudanese civil war.
I wanted to move to Colorado or back to California when I got out of the military. My wife was from Minnesota. Due to typical martial negotiations, we moved to Minnesota, which as usual, the wife made a great decision. I left the army and finished my degree in Political Science while working as a security technician supervisor for the St Paul Companies. I have since moved on to manage workers' compensation claims for the county employees in Minnesota.
A week before Thanksgiving of 2003, I found out that I was facing a potential recall to active duty after enjoying civilian life for 5 years since I was former special forces. In order to avoid going back to active duty, I signed on with a defense contractor and am now over here as an interrogator.
Now in reading Joe's account of himself, one phrase kind of jumped out at me:
I went through the DOD Strategic Debriefer Course, Israeli Interrogation Course, and the SCAN Course. (emphasis added)
I spent the better part of the morning doing Google and Nexis searches to see what I could find out about the "Israeli Interrogation Course," without much luck. I did find a bio blurb for an ex-MP turned security contractor who claimed to have attended something called the "Israeli Interview and Interrogation School" while in serving in the Army. But Google and Nexis didn't yield anything on that one, either.
The potential Israeli connection to the interrogation regime at Abu Ghraib is of some interest, since, as I explained here, some details of the treatment inflicted on the prisoners resembles the known practices of Israel's General Security Service (aka Shin Bet). There have also been numerous reports -- including one by Sy Hersh -- suggesting that the Israeli security forces and/or the Israeli Defense Force are deeply involved in advising Centcom on its conduct of both the war and the occupation.
If anyone has any information about the "Israeli Interrogation Course," or the "Israeli Interview and Interrogation School," I'd be interested in hearing it. I'm guessing it's probably spme kind of program offered at the Army Intelligence School at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, based on Israeli doctrine and perhaps taught by Israeli instructors.
Just as a footnote, it's ironic to note that while the USA appears to have adopted or modified such techniques as the “Shabach position," the "Frog Crouch," and the "Fake Execution," most of these practices have been banned in Israel -- at least in theory -- by decision of the Israeli Surpreme Court. While Israeli human rights groups acknowledge that "torture lite" still continues in Israeli prisons, despite the ruling, they say it has at least forced Shin Bet operatives to think twice before resorting to such practices.
Our American military interrogators, on the other hand, not only appear to have adopted torture lite as their standard operating practice, they've also crossed the line into outright torture and execution, if this haunting passage from Sy Hersh's story -- which in turn is based on the Army's own internal investigative report -- is accurate:
Two Iraqi faces that do appear in the photographs are those of dead men. There is the battered face of prisoner No. 153399, and the bloodied body of another prisoner, wrapped in cellophane and packed in ice. There is a photograph of an empty room, splattered with blood.
Try as I might, I can't get that image out of my head. I wonder if the American interrogators present during that particular line of questioning can.
Update 4:15 PM ET: Here's an interesting excerpt from the Taguba report, excerpted in the LA Times:
In general, U.S. civilian contract personnel (Titan Corporation, CACI, etc….), third-country nationals and local contractors do not appear to be properly supervised within the detention facility at Abu Ghraib. During our on-site inspection, they wandered about with too much unsupervised free access in the detainee area… (emphasis added)
It would be interesting to know the identity of that "third country." |
http://billmon.org/archives/2004_05.html
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| quote: | Originally posted by davedresden
oh my fucking god i die,
dave |
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