USS Cole Suspect Complains of Marks on Wrist; Victims Describe Their Torture
John Clodfelter’s son Kenneth was the first killed by the explosive-laden boat ramming the side of the USS Cole — but his was the last body to be found, 10 days after the al-Qaeda attack.
He said the defense is trying to paint al-Nashiri as a “nice guy, someone you want your daughter to bring home for Christmas.”
Particularly unsettling, Clodfelter said, is how al-Nashiri waves at the victims in the courtroom — as the suicide bombers in the boat that struck the USS Cole waved at sailors on the missile destroyer just before detonation.
“People so often keep thinking about them being al-Qaeda and they say very little if anything about the ship and the people that were on the ship that day,” he said, warning everyone in the press room “al-Qaeda has made it known that they want to kill as many Americans they can get their hands on.”
Senior Chief Petty Officer Joe Pelly, now retired, was aboard the ship that day and had to remove the bodies of his shipmates after the bombing.
“I don’t agree that he gets all these rights but, wonderful country that we have, we give it to him,” said Pelly, who added al-Nashiri appears to have it “pretty well here.”
“He doesn’t look like he’s hurting at all,” Pelly added.
But survivors of that dark day and their families carry plenty of hurt, as well as indignation over how their plight is treated in the media.
Pelly referenced a Jan. 5 Miami Herald article that led with the paragraph, “When victims of al-Qaida attacks want to talk to reporters at Guantánamo, retired Navy Capt. Karen Loftus squires the so-called ‘victim family members’ to Camp Justice’s press shed and introduces herself as their escort.” Loftus introduced today’s USS Cole victims.
“But you want to say he’s a victim,” Pelly said of coverage of al-Nashiri. “No doubt that he was tortured; that’s in writing. …What about the torture we have gone through?”
Not only were they unsure if their ship would be attacked again, but crew members could see jubilant partying on the coastline of Yemen the night of the bombing, he said.
“Torture: we lost 17 men and women,” Pelly said. “Torture: we had 39 wounded not counting the mental state of the survivors.” That includes his own post-traumatic stress disorder, affecting every day of his life but lost in the cacophony of court arguments about al-Nashiri’s claimed PTSD.
“He supposedly has PTSD from 2006 but nobody reports that about us,” he continued. “Think about survivors, the family members of the deceased — think about their PTSD.”
Navy Lt. Cmdr. Sean Dubbs was also on the USS Cole that day. “It’s disheartening the limited coverage this trial has receive is a question about whether those of us standing here are victims,” he said. “We’re standing right here and we’re living with it every day.”
“We will be an outspoken voice from now until justice is served,” Dubbs promised.
Retired Command Master Chief James Parlier asked the assembled media to “please don’t be biased.”
“Please take everything into context and use it out of fairness,” Parlier said. “…One thing I saw that I knew that it was coming is that they were going to make it a human rights issue with Nashiri.”
Parlier said he was proud to watch the USS Cole pull into port weekend before last, returning to Virginia after its seventh deployment.
“After those sonofabitches tried to take her out,” he noted, adding, “I am proud to be an American.”
Martins said the next hearings in al-Nashiri’s case are tentatively scheduled for April 14-19, allowing plenty of time for a competency evaluation plus a physical exam planned by the defense.
Al-Nashiri, who denies he was al-Qaeda’s chief of Gulf operations, faces the death penalty if convicted. He’s already been sentenced to death in absentia by a Yemeni court in 2004.
Navy veteran Pelly simply said, “If he’s competent, let’s nail his ass.”
“If al-Nashiri believes what he did is within his belief and that’s what Allah wanted or his god, well then man up, per se …and stop hiding behind our Constitution.”
Stay tuned to PJM for ongoing coverage of the Guantanamo tribunals.
Waah!
What we have here, and all over the place really, is a failure to label correctly. For starters, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (which in a step in the right direction, but a step too short, was changed from ‘Syndrome’ to ‘Disorder’), needs to be relabeled again as Post Trauma Complaints. Why? Because many of the formerly-called symptoms are completely subjective, i.e., they are self-described with no way to check their accuracy and differ from victim to victim.
Joe has “bad dreams” and “irregularity”. Juan has “night trembles and flashbacks”[FB: whatever "flashbacks" means, memories I guess]. Izzy feels fear without an obvious cause and has headaches. Etc. It seems probable that the main cause of this ‘ailment’ is the desire for more free stuff from Uncle Sam. This news is related:
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/8830026-americans-disability-hits-new-record-192nd-straight-month
I recognize this might seem like an off-topic comment, but it seems poor labels are a problem underlying much of our political discourse and disagreements today. Red marks caused by handcuffs are guard-abuse? It seems to me any use of hand cuffs would cause some form of reddening, most especially if the prisoner is resisting forward motion.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s war against the truth
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2013/02/06/u-s-attorney-patrick-fitzgeralds-war-against-the-truth/
NEVER. TAKE. MUSLIM. PRISONERS.
That’s all there is and there ain’t no more.
Just one more case of Muslims playing Infidels like a drum.
Playing us like a drum is correct; that’s exactly what CAIR does and anyone else that follows quranic (read moronic)azdvice: “use their own rules against them” and “If al-Nashiri believes what he did is within his belief and that’s what Allah wanted or his god, well then man up, per se …and stop hiding behind our Constitution.” Well …. al – Knashiri IS “within his belief and that’s what allah wanted or his god”; trouble is … the quran is a creed of revengeful cowards; so to “man up” is not possible.
f.c.;
One need to look no further than Ft Hood, Texas to see your statement borne out. It appears the mighty US Army is afraid to try to “alleged” shooter in that massacre. Even money says that raghead traitor will never be tried.
Just one more example of why terrorists should be tried by military court, not civil courts. This civil court charade mocks justice and is comparable to a serial killer, rapist, torturer, crying he was injured while resisting arrest. To put either military, or civil, prison guards at increased risk for their own safety by demanding that they treat murderers with kid glove “sensitivity” is beyond absurd.
A self inflicted red mark from handcuffs on a killers wrist is newsworthy? When we shove his Hans in a meat grinder I might get interested.
To all my Navy friends and heroes that are still having to deal with the thoughts of this scum.
al-Nashiri needs to be glad I didn’t fly him into Cuba.
Reminding him of a famous quote from the movie ‘North by Northwest’
-
Spy Phillip Vandamm:
“Of course I am. Like our friends, I too believe in neatness, Leonard.
This matter is best disposed of from a great height, over water.”
Attention jihadists: The official policy of the United States vis a vis radical Islamic terrorists, and irregular soldiers of Mohammed shall remain FETEKE; find em, torture em kill em. Consider it tough love. Then, maybe those righteous leftwing lawyers can go back to chasing ambulances.
Sorry, I have a hard time feeling sorry for this sorry piece of excrement. I keep thinking about all the sailors he blew to pieces.
The double standard of these guys is despicable.
But even worse are their multicultural liberal enablers.
Over here in England we even have political prisoners whose only crime has been to say the unsayable.
See: “Two Racist Crimes” for more on this surreal story at:
http://john-moloney.blogspot.com/
It appears to me all moon god worshipers are hiding behind the Constitution to undermine American culture. Their 7th century laws do not belong in these United States.
Check all Mosques for weapons, and C-4. Just like Iraq, and Afganistan. Yea, I’m way off base on this one.
When all is said and done, can we execute the lawyers too?
Pal, I’ll tell you what’s torture. It’s watching Herr Obama take apart this nation brick by brick.
The USS Cole was not the victim of a terrorist attack. It was the target of a combat operation. In fact, this may be considered an example of an Iraqi-Al Qaeda operation. Consider that the Cole was en-route to maintain the sanctions regime against Iraq. Why is it so hard to recognized that Al Qaeda acted as a loyal ally, and took out the Cole in support of Iraq’s long-term war against the West?
That’s what military allies DO.
“Combat operations” are undertaken by the state actors of a hostile polity. The Cole was in a friendly port when it was hit by the irregular actors of a stateless entity that has no mandate but to attack. Not even a remotely similar beast.
The very fact that these vermin are still alive is an insult. Instead of letting them beat us with our rules, follow THEIR rules and saw their heads off with rusty hacksaws, with plenty of video to get the point across.
I just don’t get why we’re having trials for these animals. Take them outside and shoot them in the back of the head. Its better than what they do to our people. Hell, I’ll even provide the ammunition. I reload and its about 15 cents/round. And if they can’t find a .40 S&W pistol they can borrow mine. And if they have issues finding someone to do it, I’ll do it for travel expenses.
And yes, I can sleep at night. Putting down feral animals isn’t a problem.
Sexual assault reports rise at military academies. How is Pentagon responding? The Pentagon cites policy changes following the release of a study that found a 65 percent increase in reports of sexual assault at military academies between 2010 and 2011. By Anna Mulrine, December 28, 2011
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2011/1228/Sexual-assault-reports-rise-at-military-academies.-How-is-Pentagon-responding
There came a time when I was rearing my then teenaged son that I said to him, if you find yourself at the police station or the hospital every weekend you are making some big mistakes that have big consequences. Mr. al Nashiri, actions have consequences. You find yourself at risk for abrasions from handcuffs because you blew a hole in a US Navy ship and killed and injured American sailors. Stuff happens!
A 30-06 leaves a small hold and no marks. It costs less than a buck and it is the last word on the topic. These captives are foreign military people captured while trying to kill our people. they need to be treated as the evil they are. as mentioned, a 30-06 will do the job.
Oh poor baby, the cuffs were too tight and his little hands got numb and his little wrists developed red marks: Oh, the torture! Maybe they forgot to double lock the cuffs so the idiot couldn’t ratchet them down some more and make them tighter? Maybe the idiot did that on purpose for the sympathy vote?
The problem is this scum is still alive he should have been executed publicly in front of his scumbag buddies after he was doused in a bath of pig’s blood.
If it were up to me, that crybaby jihadist scum would have red marks around his neck, not his wrists, and they would be more than just “marks”.
Oh, Boo Hoo Hoo!
His cuffs were too tight.
The Horrors.
He’s lucky he’s not taking the dirt-nap he deserves.
Truly, there are too many lawyers in the world.
This guy is the leader who “blew up” a bomb next to a U.S. Navy ship. Crewmen were KILLED! Since our system of law gives MORE RIGHTS to the bad guy than the victim, he gets to complain about little “boo boos” on his wrist. So the families of the dead sailors have to see and hear how this piece of camel dung gets more attention……c’mon…….If the slain sailors were able to give advice on what to do with this “rat.” I’m sure they wouldn’t say “don’t make the cuffs to tight.”
Let me get this straight. It’s perfectly fine for this “administration” to have a kill list and to murder by drone an American citizen for being THOUGHT a ‘terrorist’ with out proof. Yet, here is a KNOWN terrorist who carried out attacks on our American military, but he gets to whine and cry for ‘red marks’ made from having handcuffs on? He’s to be PITIED??
Strap him up and have a lottery of the victims of the USS Cole to see who gets to pull the lever!
And yet, this site continually denounces Obama’s policy of simply zapping these monsters with drones, which is obviously the correct solution to these problems.
Opposed to it, just cuz Obama is the one doing it, for no other reason.
Treat the scumbag as he would be treated under Sharia law. Stone him then cut his head off. Today!
“It’s perfectly fine for this “administration” to have a kill list and to murder by drone an American citizen for being THOUGHT a ‘terrorist’ with out proof.”
Oh gee whiz, the idiot takes a “vacation” in Yemen, constantly associates with known Al Quaeda operatives, have publicly and enthusiastically proclaimed his commitment to Islamic terrorism via many public statements and written proclamations….. That he and his diseased family were zapped and flash-fricasseed by a drone demonstrates EXACTLY what Bush did wrong in the Jose Padilla matter.
There, Padilla was publicly branded as an “enemy combatant” but was inexplicably and gently “captured” (for some bad reason that was never fully explained) when he disembarked from a commercial airline in Chicago.
Had he really been an enemy combatant, one would have expected that upon ambling a few steps away from the airliner door, the rest of the passengers would have been astonished and appalled as his head violently turned into a pink mist and they were covered with bits of brain matter and shards of his skull.
This farce and the Major Hassan case result from political correctness and the idea “our precious diversity”. We are the laughing stock of the Islamic world. This amounts to a massive display of weakness – first Bush and now compounded by Obama. Our enemies think we are weak and they are right.
how politely can I say that I really don’t give a damn if this suspect got a sore wrist or anything else. When folks like him kill some of ours, let’s just kill him back and be done with it.
Oh for goodness sake. And the judge is looking into it? How about telling the guy to stop resisting and then he wouldn’t have any “red marks”.