| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front |
| Probe Into Breaches at Guantanamo Expands |
| 2003-09-25 |
| EFL to the new stuff. WASHINGTON - An investigation into possible security breaches at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for terror suspects has expanded to a third member of the military, Pentagon officials said Wednesday. "We don’t presume that the two we know about is all there is to it," Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters. No surprise here, sadly. A member of the Navy who was also part of the small military community at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp is under investigation in the security probe but has not been arrested, Pentagon officials said. They did not identify the service member. So far, charges have been filed only against Senior Airman Ahmad I. al-Halabi, 24, who worked as an Arabic language translator for the detainees. Al-Halabi denies the charges, said his lawyer, Air Force Maj. James Key III. "Lies! All lies!" He is also accused of not reporting unauthorized contacts with the Syrian Embassy, but Key said those contacts were to arrange for a trip to Syria to get married. Al-Halabi had his plane ticket for that trip with him when he was arrested July 23 after arriving in Florida from Guantanamo Bay, Key said. Nabbed him just in time, did we? Syrian government spokesmen denied links to the airman, who was arrested in July, more than six weeks before the arrest of the chaplain, Army Capt. Yousef Yee, 35. Yee has not been charged but is being held in a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., on suspicion of breaching Guantanamo Bay security. Yee also has ties to Syria: He learned Arabic and studied Islam there for four years in the early 1990s. Al-Halabi lived in Syria at the time but he was still a boy; he traveled with his family to the Detroit area in 1996 and went to high school in a Detroit suburb. Wotta coincidence. The two men served at Guantanamo Bay at the same time and knew each other, though the extent of their relationship is unclear, said military officials and Key. Was one of them the controller? Word of Yee’s Sept. 10 arrest leaked over the weekend, and military officials acknowledged al-Halabi’s arrest Tuesday after CNN first reported it. Air Force Brig. Gen. Bradley S. Baker had ordered al-Halabi’s preliminary court hearing closed, but the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals ordered some of the proceedings to be opened, Key said. Wonder why? Al-Halabi was a supply clerk before being pressed into service as a translator at Guantanamo Bay, according to Key and military records. He is accused of failing to report improper contacts between prisoners and unidentified other members of the military. Al-Halabi is being held at a prison on Vandenberg Air Force Base in southern California. Authorities have imposed restrictions on him including banning al-Halabi from speaking Arabic, Key said. That means he has to speak to his father through a translator when the father visits, Key said. Al-Halabi also has talked on the phone - through translators - to his fiance, who remains in Syria, Key said. He said al-Halabi’s family is shocked at the allegations. Why don’t we get the future Missus Little Woman to come over for a vist? I’m sure we could find something to talk about. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #6 But then again, it may be possible that the military knew all along that Chaplin Yee was a dicey guy. They wanted him in Gitmo as a means of getting messages out from the detainees to the Al-Qaeda types in the rest of the world, and by following those spies, rounding up the terrorists. The more I read this, it looks like that Yee's arrest burned the operation. It may be that Customs was in on it, but then again, it is possible that Customs, not knowing about the Airman mentioned in the article above this one, arrested Yee and inadvertently spoiled the operation. I don't know. This is going to make for some interesting history in about 40 years. |
| Posted by: Ben 2003-9-26 4:12:02 AM |
| #5 This is lifted in full from Hit and Run. --- Whenever Pipes repeats his catchphrase—"Militant Islam is the problem; moderate Islam is the solution"—I say, "Thanks for that glimpse of the obvious, Dan!" But apparently it's not obvious enough. Senator Chuck Schumer's grandstanding over the arrest of Capt. James J. Yee has had the salutary effect of publicizing how the armed services train and select Muslim chaplains. Yee's chaplaincy was sponsored by the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veteran Affairs Council, a subgroup of the American Muslim Foundation (AMF). U.S. Customs agents, Schumer notes, have investigated the AMF for possible financial ties to terrorism. The AMAF Veterans Affairs Council is one of three Muslim organizations that trains or sponsors military chaplains. Assorted fuckups in this Washington Times story don't inspire a lot of confidence, but it does raise two interesting points: that another of these organizations, the Graduate School of Islamic Social Sciences, was raided last year in the same investigation as AMF; and that the Pentagon seems to be indifferent to considering organizations whose pasts are a little less, well, checkered as candidates for the chaplain-sponsoring business: For months, the Universal Muslim Association of America, which is aligned with Shi'ite Islam, has tried to become an endorser of Muslim clerics in the military and federal prisons. But the group says it has been ignored, despite its warnings that the Wahhabi form of Islam is being propagated to troops and prisoners. "We would like to become an endorser before any more damage is done," said spokesman Agha Jafri. "The Defense Department should have been aware that there are two main forms of Islam and that it was only Wahhabism that is being represented." I find that last comment puzzling. (My understanding is that Sunnism and Shi'ism are the two main forms of Islam; within Sunnism there are four schools of jurisprudence, and Wahhabism is a development within one of those schools—the Hanbali.) But it sure seems like there must be better candidates to help with accommodating Muslim practice in the service. Whether you believe Sgt. Hasan Akbar was a little lost lamb or a righteous brother wreaking vengeance on Amerikkka, this is a matter of more than incidental concern. |
| Posted by: growler 2003-9-25 11:56:43 AM |
| #4 Think Al-Halabi's "fiance" will be making the trip over for moral support during the trial? Yeah, me neither. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-9-25 10:01:23 AM |
| #3 Not sure that you can call what the airman did as turning on his country. He was working against our country and for the interests of his country. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-9-25 8:49:59 AM |
| #2 Now, let me get this straight. It was American Arrogance (TM) which caused this soldier to turn on his country, and not an act of racist treason. Right?!? |
| Posted by: badanov 2003-9-25 5:20:44 AM |
| #1 We already know of the 5th column in this country....it's the 6th - political correctness- that we need to start dealing with forcefully. No doubt in my mind, that PC is the main reason why we are facing this situation. |
| Posted by: Rex Mundi 2003-9-25 2:49:02 AM |