Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Et tu Mr. Yee?

The former Muslim chaplain that was the center of all the brouhaha over his hard-drive full of porn and classified info from Guantanamo has floated to the top again, this time in a interview about his new book in the NYT.

He isn’t doing any of his co-religionist a favor here. He reads like the worst stereotype you hear about an American Muslim. He believes all the bad things about his country, and is more sympathetic with the enemy captured in battle than he is with his nation’s military attempting to fight it.
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.
Come on Mr. West Point grad. You really believe that. It couldn’t be that the good General was trying to boost morale and explain the mission to his men in an isolated post away from the main battle having to deal with the nasty refuse from the battlefields of Afghanistan; where the soldiers would rather be than in GTMO. You really think that was his focus?
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.
Well, there is a shocker. While you were studying in Syria did you forget about who your countrymen were? You weren’t “deeply angry” yourself? You don’t consider that a normal thing?
Mr. Yee says the guards were constantly reminded of the Sept. 11 attacks by General Miller and others, and they "retaliated in whatever way they could" against the detainees.
So, in WWII, “Don’t remember Pearl Harbor – play darts.” Would that have been better? I can’t believe this guy came out of West Point. But then again, people change.
In the book, Mr. Yee writes that as he got to know prisoners through his chaplain duties, he became increasingly certain that many were not the hardened terrorists that the authorities had depicted them to be.
Glad you are such an expert. No one saw it but you. Poor widdle fellas. Evil infidels threw them in prison.
He writes that he rarely witnessed physical abuse of the sort that has since become a point of contention between the military on one side and human rights groups and defense lawyers on the other. But he says that in his tenure at Guantánamo, he regularly heard about prisoners being beaten and humiliated in their interrogation sessions.
He says he was told of the abuse by detainees and by Arabic-speaking translators who were present at many of the interrogations.
So, you believe what you didn’t see, and believe what anyone not in a U.S. uniform says. Very nice.

There are many great Americans in the military that are heroes and deserve all the respect of their countrymen; and just happen to be Muslim. Mr. Yee just spit a wad of chewed up pork rinds in their face.

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