War Crimes of General Stanley McChrystal
A little over a year before he was fired June 23, 2010, to submit observations potentially rebels in a profile in Rolling Stone, Gen. Stanley McChrystal was appointed by President Barack Obama as commander support of the war in Afghanistan. Previously, he served as chief of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. Most of what the General McChrystal has made a career of more than 33 years remain classified, including services between 2003 and 2008 as commander of JSOC, a black special operations commandos and Navy Seals, Delta Force to groundwater for years that the Pentagon has refused to acknowledge its existence.
Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh says the Bush administration issued a murder ring that he reported directly to former Vice-President Dick Cheney, and that Congress had no control over this whatsoever. JSOC team would go to countries, not to speak to the ambassador or the CIA chief, to find people on a list to be killed, run, and leave. There was a constantly updated list of targeted individuals, settled with the office of Vice President Cheney, who had committed acts of war or were suspected of planning military operations against the United States. Hersh says there was murder in a dozen countries in the Middle East and Latin America. "There is a decree signed by President Ford in the 70, which prohibits such action, it is not only contrary. It is illegal, immoral and against-productive," he added.
JSOC has also been implicated in war crimes, including torture of prisoners in secret "ghost" detention. Camp Nama in Iraq has been such a structure "ghost" hidden from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the international body of international law from the application of the Geneva Conventions, and given the right to inspect all facilities in which persons are held in a country is at war or under occupation. On July 22, 2006, Human Rights Watch published a report entitled "No blood, no foul" American torture practices in three facilities in Iraq. One of them was Camp Nama, accused one of the worst acts of torture, and managed by JSOC, under the leadership of General McChrystal. McChrystal, then major general, was officially established at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, but he was a frequent visitor to Camp Nama and other bases in Iraq and Afghanistan under his command.
An interrogator at Camp Nama described locking prisoners in shipping containers for 24 hours at a time of extreme heat, exposing them to extreme cold with regular soaking in cold water, lighting and the bombardment of loud music, sleep deprivation, beatings and severe. When he and other interrogators Colonel went over and expressed concern that this treatment was not legal and can be studied by the Division of the Army Criminal Investigation or the ICRC, Colonel them said he had "directly from this General McChrystal and the Pentagon that there is no way that the Red Cross could be in" The questioner said he was shown round the factory McChrystal Nama repeatedly. "I saw a couple of times. I know how it looks."
In explaining why no other media had covered the story, Hersh said. "My colleagues in the press is often not followed, not because they do not want, but they do not know who to call if I write something on the Joint Special Operations Command, which is apparently categorized reader how do they know? "The government will tell them everything I write is false or that I can not comment. It is easy for these stories to be rejected. I think the relationship with JSOC is re-Obama. It's more under control now. "
However, according to Press TV, the Obama administration's decision to appoint General McChrystal, the new commander in charge of the war in Afghanistan and the pursuit of military commission at Guantanamo Bay prisoners, unfortunately, are examples of Obama administration continues to follow in the footsteps of Bush.
Updated
Rock Creek Free Press reported in its June 2010 issue that Seymour Hersh, speaking at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Geneva in April 2010, had criticized the president and Barack Obama said that U.S. forces are engaged in "the execution of the battle. "" Those captured in Afghanistan are running on the battlefield, "said Hersh.
Student Researcher:
~ Cristina Risso (Sonoma State University)
Faculty Evaluator:
~ Elaine Wellin (Sonoma State University)
Sources:
Seymour Hersh, “Secret US Forces Carried Out Assassinations in a Dozen Countries, Including in Latin America,” Democracy Now!, March 31, 2009, http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/31/seymour_hersh_secret_us_forces_carried.
Seymour Hersh, “You Can’t Authorise Murder,” interview with Abbas Al Lawati, Gulf News, May 12, 2009, http://gulfnews.com/news/region/palestinian-territories/you-can-t-authorise-murder-hersh-1.68504.
PressTV, “McChrystal Was Cheney’s Chief Assassin,” May 16, 2009, http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=94884§ionid=3510203.
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