Warning: This video has some truly disturbing stories from the Guantanomo Bay Detention Camp, where much "enhanced interrogation" (more commonly known as "torture") was performed. What is even more disturbing is that a front runner in the 2024 U.S. Presidential race is involved. Video is 37 minutes long. Summarized here:
- Ron DeSantis went to Yale and was in the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, making him a fraternity brother of George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Sidney Souers, first Director of the CIA.
- After graduation Harvard Law School, he joined the Navy and was assigned to the Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps (JAG) and was eventually transferred to Guantanamo Bay where he spent 10 months.
- Records documenting his time in Guantanamo are heavily redacted, so it is impossible to figure out what he did from there. Per some of his associates who were interviewed, DeSantis's job was to be an "Advocate for the fair and humane treatment of the detainees to insure the US military comply with the law" and was "charged with ensuring the detainees received rights afforded to them under the Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention."
- This testimony here come from one person, Mansur al-Dayfi. Al-Dayfi was detained at Guantanamo for 14 years without charge and was never brought to trial. He has been extensively interviewed and a PBS Frontline episode was done about him and he has proven to be a reliable witness about what happened in Guantanamo.
- Per al-Dayfi, DeSantis introduced himself as someone who was there to advocate for his rights. Al-Dayfi originally thought DeSantis was sincere and would do that, but later he said that the year DeSantis was there was in fact the most horrific year as far as the "enhanced interrogation" was concerned.
- During this time, many of the prisoners went on a hunger strike. A week into the strike, a military officer told them they they were going to eat, whether they wanted to or not. They were all force-fed huge Ensure. They were force fed many time more of this disgusting substance than was need to keep them healthy. The force feeding, infact, became another horrific form of torture. So much Ensure was forced into them it caused them to vomit violently.
- In one instance, al-Dayfi was in the presence of DeSantis and vomited violently onto DeSantis. Not sure if this was intentional on al-Dayfi's part (I would not blame him) but both knew that doing so would cause considerable further punishment for al-Dayfi. Covered with vomit, DeSantis was smiling and laughing about the incident.
- During DeSantis's time of oversight at Guantanamo, there were two prisoners who died. Before their bodies were returned to their home countries dismembered in such a way that it would be impossible to determine if their deaths were caused by torture.
- Having demonstrated just how ethically compromised he was, DeSantis was sent to Fallujah with the Special Operations Command Force and was the sole oversight person for this. This was in 2007, the height of US troop surge, the height of US casualtiese, the height of the most horrific human rights allegations. There are not that many details yet on what DeSantis did during this time and the documents would all be redacted, but we there will probably be more some whistleblowers and details forthcoming if DeSantis runs for president.
- There is more to this story, however, I am unable to go back and listen to it again, it is deeply disturbing, but if you listen to it and I missed something or got it wrong, please add or correct here.
It is a lot easier to understand how DeSantis has gone so far politically at such a young age. He has done a lot of "good work" to impress the powers that be. Many politicians have proven themselves to be dedicated war criminals when they assumed positions of power in the White House, State Department, CIA, etc. but DeSantis seems to have proven himself quite capable of this just out of college. He actually sat there face to face with a torture victim and laughed at him. If DeSantis is elected and sworn in on January 20th 2025 and promises to "uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution", I think then I will understand what it feels like to have your body filled with Ensure and vomit violently.