Guantanamo Wrecks Careers, Breeds Enemies

Guantanamo

Sooner or later, American generals will realize that the way to damage your career is to be assigned to the military prison at Guantanamo. The latest general to find out is Major General Jay Hood, commander at Gitmo between 2004 – 2006, who just got kicked out of Pakistan because Pakistanis don’t want in their country someone who sanctioned forced feeding of Muslim detainees.

From the New York Times:

When the Pentagon announced in March that Maj. Gen. Jay W. Hood would become the senior American officer based in Pakistan, it reflected the military’s aim to put a crisis-tested veteran in a critical job at a pivotal time in the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

But nearly two months later, the military has quietly canceled the assignment of General Hood, a 33-year Army veteran who was excoriated in the Pakistani news media for one of his previous jobs: commander of the United States prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

During General Hood’s command from 2004 to 2006, military authorities force-fed with tubes detainees who were engaging in hunger strikes at the Guantánamo prison, a step they justified as necessary to prevent the prisoners from committing suicide to protest their indefinite confinement. Also during General Hood’s tenure, reports that an American guard may have desecrated a Koran stirred wide protests in the Islamic world.

The decision to withdraw General Hood’s assignment has not been announced, but it appears to reflect the widening shadow that the military prison at Guantánamo is casting over American foreign policy. While the United States considers Pakistan a close ally in its counterterrorism efforts, the accounts by Pakistanis who have returned to Pakistan after being held at Guantánamo Bay have added to anti-American sentiment in the country.

Several leading Pakistani military and foreign affairs commentators denounced General Hood’s selection in recent weeks, calling on their new government to block his appointment. In interviews this week, American military officials said they had reluctantly concluded that General Hood’s effectiveness could be seriously hindered, and that his personal safety might even be at risk if he were to take up the post.

According to Secretary Gates, about 5-6 percent of detainees released from Guantanamo in recent years have later become involved in violence. One of those, a Kuwaiti who was captured in Afhanistan while allegedly fighting with the Taliban, was held at Gitmo from 2002 to 2005. Last month he blew himself up in Iraq:

The last words of a suicide bomber in Mosul were a rallying cry for Muslims to join the fight against Americans.

His taking-off point was his experience at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

In two accounts — a transcript of his conversation in a jihadist chat room and a suicide message on tape — both posted on Web sites devoted to Al Qaeda after his death, the bomber, Abdallah Salih al-Ajmi, 29, described his detention as “torture” carried out by infidels. He was in Guantánamo from 2002 to 2005.

The American military confirmed that Mr. Ajmi, a Kuwaiti, carried out a suicide bombing in Iraq last month. His relatives were the first to make public his death, and Kuwaiti newspapers reported on Thursday that he was one of three Kuwaiti suicide bombers involved in an attack in Mosul that killed several Iraqi soldiers.

Meanwhile, McClatchy’s lead article yesterday, Iraq military orders Sadr City residents to evacuate, covers the continuing siege of Sadr City. As Siun has been reporting, we seem to be creating conditions that could end in a massacre:

Iraqi security forces, after more than of 40 days of intense fighting, on Thursday told residents to evacuate their homes in the northeast Shiite slum of Sadr City and to move to temporary shelters on two soccer fields.

The military’s call indicated the possibility of stepped-up military operations and came as Iraqi security forces raided a radio station run by backers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr. In the southern port city of Basra, militants launched rockets that struck a coalition base, killing two contractors and injuring four civilians and four coalition soldiers. . . .

Already some 8,500 people have been displaced from the sprawling slum of some 2.5 million people, according to the Iraqi Red Crescent. For weeks, food, water and medical shortages have affected about 150,000 people, aid agencies said.

Two soccer fields in east and northeast Baghdad are expected to receive some 16,000 evacuees from the southeast portion of the city where the fighting has been most intense.

If you want to understand why John McCain’s belief that we can (1) pacify Iraq and then (2) peaceably occupy Iraq for a hundred years is not just naive but insane, just read through those stories, and then look at this picture by Petr David Josek of the AP, which appears in today’s Times with no story except for this caption:

Desperate for Food in a Baghdad Enclave: An iraqi woman gripped a truck on Thursday while waiting for food aid in Sadr City, where fighting has led to shortages.

Madness.

Related posts:

1. Pete Hoekstra: US Shouldn’t Close Guantanamo — It’s a “Great Place”
2. Taxi to Guantanamo: Uzbek Driver, Under 18 When Detained, Released to Ireland
3. CAP Report Calls for Postponement of Gitmo Closure
4. Rock and Rap Stars Join FOIA Request to Reveal How Music was Used in Torture at Guantanamo, Other US Facilities
5. The Bazaar for Deals at Guantanamo