NYT: American Soldier Tortured..... (By Americans)

[mefoolonhill]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/05/opinion/05KRIS.html


THE NEW YORK TIMES
5 June 2004

Beating Specialist Baker
by Nicholas Kristof

The prison abuse scandal refuses to die because soothing White House
explanations keep colliding with revelations about dead prisoners and
further connivance by senior military officers — and newly discovered
victims, like Sean Baker.

If Sean Baker doesn't sound like an Iraqi name, it isn't. Specialist
Baker, 37, is an American, and he was a proud U.S. soldier. An Air
Force veteran and member of the Kentucky National Guard, he served in
the first gulf war and more recently was a military policeman in
Guantánamo Bay.

Then in January 2003, an officer in Guantánamo asked him to pretend to
be a prisoner in a training drill. As instructed, Mr. Baker put on an
orange prison jumpsuit over his uniform, and then crawled under a bunk
in a cell so an "internal reaction force" could practice extracting an
uncooperative inmate. The five U.S. soldiers in the reaction force were
told that he was a genuine detainee who had already assaulted a
sergeant.

Despite more than a week of coaxing, I haven't been able to get Mr.
Baker to give an interview. But he earlier told a Kentucky television
station what happened next:

"They grabbed my arms, my legs, twisted me up and unfortunately one of
the individuals got up on my back from behind and put pressure down on
me while I was face down. Then he — the same individual — reached
around and began to choke me and press my head down against the steel
floor. After several seconds, 20 to 30 seconds, it seemed like an
eternity because I couldn't breathe. When I couldn't breathe, I began
to panic and I gave the code word I was supposed to give to stop the
exercise, which was `red.' . . . That individual slammed my head
against the floor and continued to choke me. Somehow I got enough air.

More.....

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. The guy has permanent brain injuries

and numerous seizures, which will probably continue for life. And they still haven't given him 100% disability yet? And the brass tried to cover it up? If they did this to an American soldier, what in the world have they done to the detainees at Gitmo?