James Yee spoke at the University of Evansville on Monday as reported by the Evansville Courier Press in an article with the inane title “Ex-soldier has faith in values.” Actually, I guess it was somewhat effective in that I clicked through to see just what the heck “faith in values” might mean.
Yee was a soldier who was the subject of abusive treatment by the military. He was a Muslim chaplain for the military and ministered to inmates at Guantanamo. He criticized the un-American way in which the prisoners were being treated and, by way of reward, was charged with sedition and spying. Those charges were dropped, presumably because the Army couldn’t make its case. Then, presumably to embarrass and smear him, charges of adultery and pornography on a government computer were leveled against him.
Yee writes that he was kept in solitary confinement for seventy-six days, and that he was forced to undergo sensory deprivation. He also wrote that General Geoffrey Miller routinely incited the guards to hate the detainees. He alleges serious mistreatment of prisoners. Yee argues that most of the detainees had little or no intelligence value[.]
From the Courier Press article:
Yee said he believes three factors led to the charges that were brought against him: He is a Muslim in a society that often misunderstands the faith, he is of Chinese heritage (he was once referred to as “Chinese Taliban,” he says), and he openly questioned the treatment of detainees.
“I was advocating for our American values, but that disturbed some people in Guantanamo,” he said.
Of course, there’s always the possibility (a pretty damn good possibility) Yee is full of shit also.
Anything’s possible, I suppose. You wouldn’t have thought that Bush, Cheney, and Powell were full of shit when they told us we had to go to war NOW NOW NOW; and yet, here we are.
I fail to undertand how theres “a pretty darn good possibility” Mr. Yee is lying.
The military/Feds have not submitted any sufficient evidence to refute his stories, nor produced sufficient character witnesses to question his credibility.
I mean I suppose some people would accept him as a liar to insulate their own insecurities and ideology… oh.
Maybe he’s full of shit.
Maybe our government’s cadre of graduates of televangelists’ vanity law schools is so inept that they can’t prosecute anyone effectively anymore. Just look at how they keep forgetting to give the Ted Stevens defense team evidence, threatening to result in dismissed charges for someone on the Bush team.
Or maybe the government went after this guy because he was a critic, and kind of a funny-looking Muslimy one at that. Maybe they thought he didn’t see America the way they do. Maybe they asked “Who is the REAL James Yee?” and just assumed the answer had to be “spy”.