Somebody Shoot Me…
Enemy POW lawyer Clyde Stafford Smith
..Right After You Shoot These Scumbag Lawyers.
Terror Suspects’ Beards Are Safe Now
Miami Herald
By Carol Rosenberg
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — Guards earlier this year stopped cutting the beards off unruly war-on-terror detainees, according to the military, confirming for the first time a practice that enraged Muslim captives and their American advocates.
Prison commanders withdrew the policy of ”beard trimming” in May, said Army Col. Bill Costello, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command in Miami.
From 2005, he said, it had been an approved “disciplinary action for severe physical assaults against the guard force, to include the throwing of feces, urine, semen, vomit, blood and/or saliva.”
But, he said, beard trimming “was not designed as a religious punitive measure, nor was it ever carried out by interrogation personnel.”
The issue cast a spotlight on religious tensions behind the razor wire at the Pentagon’s showcase detention and interrogation center: Detainees and attorneys have long protested policies they said were designed to humiliate Muslim captives. The U.S. says its respects Islam while providing safe and humane detention to allegedly dangerous al-Qaeda members and sympathizers.
‘Beard shortening’
”Some of the beards are long — you can hide a bazooka in there,” Navy Capt. Patrick McCarthy told reporters during an October visit by reporters in which he defended what he called an earlier policy of “beard shortening.”
Countered New York attorney Martha Rayner, who represents a Yemeni client named Sanad al Kazimi, 37, whose beard was cut in October 2006, allegedly for throwing urine and feces at the guards: “They do it to humiliate. As punishment. It is how they truly can humiliate a Muslim man — shave his beard.”
Beard-cutting has long been controversial at the Guantánamo prison camps, which opened in January 2002 to detain and interrogate war-on-terror captives scooped up around the globe and airlifted to Cuba from Afghanistan. Captives arrived at Camp X-Ray clean-shaven and their hair shorn from their heads for health reasons, according to commanders.
Soon, tours for reporters and visiting business leaders pointed to captives’ long, flowing beards as proof of respect for their religious identities. The tours also showcase a range of Muslim amenities — halal food, prayer beads and rugs — as well as Korans in a variety of languages.
Captives countered, through their lawyers, that they so feared their guards would defile their Korans that some returned them to commanders rather than leave them behind in their cells when they went to recreation or attorney meetings.
During a recent media tour, the military said that about 90 of the roughly 330 detainees had returned their Korans.
Meanwhile, the military denies that the guards ever shaved off a captive’s beard entirely as part of its disciplinary measures for ”non-compliant detainees who assaulted the guard force” and “may have had their beards trimmed because it represented a threat to the operation of a safe and humane detention facility.”
Added Costello: “Beards were trimmed to within inches, not clean-shaven.”
Detainees can shave
But he said detainees can shave themselves entirely, if they want, during their shower periods.
Veteran Guantánamo attorney Clive Stafford Smith said one of his youngest clients — Mohammed Gharani, 18, of Chad — was punished by having his first beard completely shaved off in February.
High-value captive Majid Khan protested that Guantánamo guards shackled him and shaved off his beard for refusing to return his breakfast tray on Nov. 15, 2006.
Khan is a 1999 suburban Baltimore high school graduate who was seized in Pakistan and held for years in secret CIA detention. Although the U.S. alleges he plotted unrealized attacks on U.S. gas stations and water reservoirs, he has not been charged with a crime.
He told the panel he was so upset by his treatment at Guantánamo that he twice tried to commit suicide by gnawing through arteries in his arm.
”They just came in with eight guards and took me to main rec and forcibly shaved my beard to humiliate me and offend my religion,” he told a panel of military officers April 15. “While they were shaving my beard, the female Navy head psychiatrist was watching the whole thing.”
Navy Adm. James Stavridis, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, ended the policy in May in consultation with detention center commanders, Costello said.
He declined to say why, and whether the admiral received a specific protest.
Nazi comparison
Earlier this year, Washington attorney David Remes circulated a Holocaust-era photo of a Nazi cutting a Jew’s beard, and likened it to the Guantánamo policy.
”I don’t think that anyone who is doing this [at Guantánamo] understands the historical association,” he said.
Captives claim the military magnified their humiliation by videotaping the beard-cutting. The military declined a Herald request for a copy, and would not allow a Herald reporter to view one.
Detainees’ lawyers said the policy had waned for a while and then saw a resurgence after the command staff was rattled by clashes between detainees and guards in the most lenient camp on the base, which the military cast as a foiled uprising.
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Hang him, slit his throat, let it bleed out. Fucking traitor.
November 6th, 2007 at 4:24 pmI soooooooo want these people in charge of this counry.
I am thoroughly disgusted that I actually have to see this crap. I was young when the Vietnam War ended, so I don’t remember any of the crap like this that was going on back them. Unfortunately, I have to live through a repeat performance.
I guess moonbattery is the price of freedom.
November 6th, 2007 at 4:53 pm“Veteran Guantánamo attorney Clive Stafford Smith said one of his youngest clients — Mohammed Gharani, 18, of Chad — was punished by having his first beard completely shaved off in February.”
LMAO
only in America are their stupid attorneys
November 6th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Fine….OK…..the bunny-humping lawyers win…..I’ll treat them like they treat their prisoners and saw off their heads while it’s filmed by the local Al Jazeer network. Happy now?!?
November 6th, 2007 at 6:14 pmWhat a bunch of absolute bullshit!
It is not mandatory for Islamic men to have beards. It is not punishable if they do not have them either. If our guys want or need to shave them for hygenic or disciplinary action so f’n what! Viper Driver has that right, they will saw off people’s heads if they had them prisoner. WTF!
I am much more concerned with how our people are being treated while they hand out food and the koran in gloves to these prisoners.
“From 2005, he said, it had been an approved “disciplinary action for severe physical assaults against the guard force, to include the throwing of feces, urine, semen, vomit, blood and/or saliva.”
I think our guys should sue each and every one of them and their attorneys for their behavior and the absolute health hazard they present to them.
November 6th, 2007 at 7:18 pmthe reason for recidivism in this country among criminals is linked to the way we are forced to coddle violent thugs who wish their captors great harm. should we sympathize with criminals who throw feces and urine at guards when they complain that they are humiliated everytime they are punished as a response?
I would hate to hear what these lib lawyers would call a humane form of punishment!
1.perhaps we should give them a timeout? 2.Or should we restate the rules to them while making them go to bed without dessert or watching tv?
Oh wait a minute they would call number 1 psychological torture and number two would be called starvation and sensory deprivation.
I say take away their korans(the source of their rage)feed them 3 meals a day of rice and lamb alone, place them all in solitary, and pump in soothing buddhist chant. get what info you can out of them, then cut off their genitals(using anesthesia of course)give them breats implants and send them to live in Iran.
just a thought!
November 6th, 2007 at 11:47 pmMore BS! What is wrong with us when we bend over backward to accomodate people that only wish us harm? What ever happened to the idea of providing the bare necessities to them?
Our moral high road is only exploited to the nth degree; it is never appreciated or commended!
November 7th, 2007 at 6:43 amSo this guy is concerned that the jihadis are humiliated by having their beards trimmed? What about the humiliation of having some whacko throw his piss, shit and spooge on you?
It makes me wonder why we ever bothered taking prisoners at all.
November 7th, 2007 at 12:26 pmIf the lawyers did win these prisoners’ release, and the prisoners got their wish, the first thing they’d do is saw off the heads of their liberal lawyers who sport liberal Western beliefs and lifestyles that are anathema to them.
November 7th, 2007 at 1:19 pmThese paid liars are just as much a threat to this country as is the Islamofacists. Round them all up and give them the same brand of “justice” that OBL would give to them.
November 8th, 2007 at 9:13 amIt needs to be the policy of our citizenry that anyone helping the enemy is part of the enemy, and act accordingly.
And really, the only difference between a jihadi and a rabid gorilla is that I’ve never seen a gorilla with a beard.
November 8th, 2007 at 7:28 pmThe original reason for Turbans and head scarves was to prevent the spread of head lice,still a problem in the Middle east,they also infest beards. Anyone who has been through a boot camp,or incarcerated would know this. I’m sure they were deloused prior to incarceration.
November 9th, 2007 at 2:25 pm