WAR ON TERROR
Nightmare at Guantanamo
As a Muslim, U.S. Army Chaplain James Yee stood tall for humanity while ministering to the detainees at Guantanamo Bay - to the point that he was arrested and falsely accused of treason.
By Brad Buchholz
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, March 23, 2008
One year after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. Army Chaplain James Yee ? a converted Muslim, born and raised in America ? was sent to the Guant?namo Bay detention facility with the assignment of a lifetime. His job: to minister to the prisoners there, in service to the United States.
It was harrowing work.
"We say that the war on terror is not a war against Islam, but that's not how it felt most days at Guant?namo," Yee writes in "For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire," his 2006 memoir. The environment at Guant?namo "excused, if not encouraged, open hostility toward Islam."
By almost every measure, Yee's tour at Guant?namo was a nightmare, offending his sensibilities as an American and a Muslim. For 10 months, from November 2002 to September 2003, Yee says, he bore witness to man's inhumanity to man as the Guant?namo prisoners were systematically beaten and humiliated by U.S. military police and interrogators.
Yee says he was horrified to see "religion used as a weapon" against Guant?namo detainees ? as prisoners told him of detainees being forced to bow down in the middle of a satanic circle in an interrogation room and profess that Satan was their god, not Allah. Detainees were mocked during prayer and taunted or teased sexually by American women while chained. At first, Yee thought it an act of compassion that Guant?namo detainees were allowed to keep a Quran in their cells. But the detainees begged Yee to have them taken away, he says, for American MPs took such delight in mishandling the books or breaking their bindings during random searches.
"I was not willing to silently stand by and watch U.S. soldiers abuse the Quran, mock people's religion, and strip men of their dignity ? even if those men were prisoners," wrote Yee, who became an in-house human rights advocate for the detainees. "It was my job to stop those behaviors ? it was my duty, even, since the day I took my oath as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army."
Yee, who was raised Lutheran but converted to Muslim shortly after graduating from West Point in 1990, brought his concerns to the command at Guant?namo, even to Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller. He advocated sensitivity training, trying to educate the military about Islamic culture. In the meantime, he bonded with Muslims in the American military and hosted prayer meetings for them at his apartment.
During his first leave from Guant?namo in September 2003, Yee was arrested and imprisoned in maximum-security brigs for 76 days. The military accused him of being part of a Guant?namo spy ring and suggested that it would seek the death penalty against him. Yee's wife and daughter in Washington were subjected to interrogation as well; the pressure became so intense at one point that his wife thought of suicide. Although charges against him were dropped in 2004, Yee believes the military might have wanted to discredit his reputation out of fear that he might one day share what he saw at Guant?namo.
Yee left the military in 2005 and was granted an honorable discharge. The experience has left him $260,000 in debt. The American-Statesman caught up with him by phone, three days before Yee spoke at the University of Texas School of Law about Guant?namo, human rights and the rule of law. Yee says, to his knowledge, there has not been a full-time Muslim chaplain at Guant?namo since his arrest.
Austin American-Statesman: How much is Guant?namo a part of your consciousness, on a day to day basis?
James Yee:Every day. Before I even check my e-mail, I will go to Google News and type in "Guant?namo Bay" to see what new developments have occurred. So this has become almost an obsession with my whole life: following Guant?namo issues. Perhaps that is a symptom of post-traumatic stress or something, you know? I'm actually looking into (PTSD) right now, as part of a claim with the Veterans Administration.
Why should Guant?namo be prominent in the American consciousness?
I look at Guant?namo as one of the darkest black spots on the history of my country. When Guant?namo shows up in the history books, our grandkids are going to be asking, "What was going on? How did we let this happen?" It's contributing tremendously to the anti-American sentiment in the international community. I believe the way we show the world how prisoners are treated in the custody of the United States helps others recruit terrorists, recruit people to extremist ideas. We're going to have to close Guant?namo in order to rectify the problems it brings today with regard to human rights and the rule of law, to help our country regain its reputation and respect.
When you first refer to detainees you met at Guant?namo in your book, you take great pains to refer to them as 'alleged al Qaeda' or 'suspected terrorists.' This language is not often used by the Bush administration or those who support Guant?namo. You're more likely to hear words like 'terrorists' or 'enemy combatants.'
The administration has already rendered these individuals guilty. They've been called terrorists. They've been called (by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld) "the worst of the worst." They've been called hardened criminals and trained killers. They've been referred to as people who would chew through the hydraulic lines of airplanes in order to bring the plane down, as captives. But when you look at the reality of the situation ? especially when I was there, from late November of 2002 through September of 2003 ? can we say that there were hard-core terrorists at Guant?namo? My answer is really, "No." The people there when I was there were not hardened terrorists. Of course, today, in a secret Camp 7, there are now 16 high-value al Qaeda suspects who may be potential terror suspects.
One of the most haunting images of the book is your first visit with a detainee at Guant?namo, a 15-year-old boy, who is reading a Disney picture book with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck in it. This image certainly flies in the face of the administration's larger inference of what Guant?namo is and who lives there.
Interestingly enough, that individual will probably be the first prisoner tried in these military commissions at Guant?namo. (Ahmed Khadr is accused of killing Sgt. 1st Class Christopher J. Speer, in Afghanistan, with a hand grenade.) He's a Canadian citizen, and I don't think it's good for the reputation of our nation when we may be setting some kind of precedent in choosing to try a juvenile as an adult for war crimes.
Just to be clear: You don't believe there were any terrorists among the detainees at Guant?namo during your time there?
When you really seek to define what a terrorist is, (to me) that's someone who is going to fly a plane through the World Trade Center or attack innocent civilians. That is a terrorist. But if you're in Afghanistan and a foreign military invades your country and busts down the door of your house ? and then you grab for an AK-47, a weapon that's in most households in Afghanistan, in order to defend your family ? I mean, that's not a terrorist. If some foreign army invaded the United States and busted down the door of my house, I'm going to grab whatever weapon I can to defend my family. Does that make me a terrorist? ...
The reality says a legitimate terrorist in our custody would not have been brought to Guant?namo. They would be brought to secret CIA black sites. We know these black sites existed ? and exist now ? because in late 2006, after the Supreme Court ruled against President Bush on tribunals, he took 14 of the highest-value al Qaeda out of the CIA black sites and brought them into Guant?namo in order to get the Military Commissions Act. That action was self-admittance by the Bush administration that we were operating CIA black sites. And just this week, we've learned another prisoner was moved to Guant?namo from a CIA black site. So we know they are still in operation.
When referring to the Guant?namo detention areas, you clearly and consciously used the word 'cage' in your book, again and again, as opposed to 'cell.'
When you look at an overhead shot of Camp X-Ray (the original detention area at Guant?namo), it looks like a place to keep animals. Perhaps a cattle stall. Or a pen. And in my experience at Guant?namo (in the newer Camp Delta), the people there would tell me over and over they felt they were being treated like animals. One of the prisoners I recall saying, "Look. We've seen the guard dogs you have down there. And we know that the facility they're kept in has air conditioning. ... We're being treated worse than the dogs are."
You wrote: 'I believed that the hostile environment and animosity toward Islam were so ingrained in the operation that Maj. Gen. (Geoffrey) Miller and the other camp leaders lost sight of the moral harm we were doing.' Could you define what you mean by 'moral harm'?
The general was so focused on gaining intelligence. He wanted information and didn't care how he got it. So he, in my view, gave almost free rein to the intelligence-gathering operation, allowing the interrogators to do anything they wanted to get information. The flip side of it was, the people that were in Guant?namo probably didn't have any valuable information. So it's as if you're beating a dummy, trying to get it to talk, when it can't. ...
I observed some very young adults (serving in the U.S. military) at Guant?namo, many who were right out of high school, many who had never had any serious position of responsibility, now given complete control over the lives of other human beings, the prisoners there.
And what did they do with this authority? Many abused it.
As a Muslim chaplain at Guant?namo, you tried, with mixed success, to persuade military leadership to expose U.S. military personnel to sensitivity training about Islam. What's the message you wanted to convey there, and would want to convey today, about the basis of Islam, or misconceptions about Islam?
In terms of misconceptions, what's most harmful is that Muslims are somehow naturally inclined to terrorism and violence. This is really harmful ? and it's a completely wrong assessment. Being ignorant about Islam is not bad. But characterizing something as "evil," coming from a place of not knowing, is very harmful.
I'm sure you're aware that there are some skeptical readers out there who will have a hard time believing that you were targeted and arrested out of a spirit of vindictiveness alone, that there's no way you were harassed and arrested (and accused of espionage) by the military simply for trying to bring a more humanitarian focus at Guant?namo.
Many people who haven't had military experience perhaps won't be able to understand that when you're told to do something in the military ? and it's wrong ? you're going to do it anyway. The military trains you to follow orders, not to question your commanders. You're supposed to trust your commanders to only give you lawful orders. So when you're told at Guant?namo that the Geneva Conventions don't apply, you're essentially throwing out the rule book. It's like telling a football team that there's no rules here. You can't be penalized. So you go out and face-mask and clip and do whatever you can in order to win.
You were detained between two and three months. You experienced sensory deprivation, you were shackled constantly, housed in a high-security facility. Does this give you special insight, or concern, about what kind of effect detention has had on those imprisoned in Guant?namo ? who perhaps, like yourself, were imprisoned unjustly ? for two, three, even six years?
Yeah. I was able to survive 76 days, by the grace of God. But two and a half months is a drop in the water compared to going on seven years in Guant?namo. Even in the first year at Guant?namo, I saw noticeable mental deterioration of prisoners.
There's no doubt that anyone who's been held in Guant?namo is never going to be the same. Certainly, there's some type of post-traumatic stress in each and every one of these prisoners who have been released. I've often raised concerns about the juveniles, the 12- to 14-year-old Afghans who were there. At the prime development stage in their life, they were held (without due process) and subjected to interrogation by the U.S. military. It's quite disturbing for me to think how their lives have turned out.
http://www.statesman.com/search/content/editorial/stories/insight/03/23/0323yee.html
