She always told me, “Nobody likes a Tattle-tale!”
But I can’t find any reference to whatever it was he was arrested for. I found an editorial that essentially repeats his claim that he was arrested for whistle-blowing. Then why did they let him go?
There aren’t enough facts available to get a clear picture of what is going on here. I suspect that is because one side is clamming up (perhaps on the advice of counsel) because a law suit has been filed.
Regards,
Shodan
Well, if you agree he was actually imprisoned, then that leaves 2 possibilities. Either he was arrested on valid charges, or he was arrested on no charges. No charge has been published at all. So a lack of any valid charge at all is the simplest explanation, thus the one most likely to be true (Occam’s razor).
If you raise the complexity level just a bit and assume that some charge did exist, but has not been reported, then again we have to apply the razor and ask why. There’s no legal exposure in reporting a valid charge, but reporting a false charge is risky. You yourself noted the suspicion that someone is being hushed regarding the nature of the charge. Thus again, the most likely scenario in that case is a sham charge.
So basically the simplest and most likely explanations, in absence of other evidence, is that he was arrested for no charges at all, or on some sort of sham charge. If there’s no valid charge, then why was he arrested and held for over 90 days? A mistake? The simplest explanation is that he’s telling the truth.
Then I would ask again, what’s the sham charge that he was arrested for? He says it was whistle-blowing. Is that what they told him?
If he was arrested with no charge, why didn’t they make something up? If he was arrested on a sham charge, what was it?
I grant you, it seems like most or all of the reporting is based on one AP report, presumably from one person, and there doesn’t seem to be any follow-up to clear up anything the original reporter didn’t include in his story. The title of the OP seems to be saying pretty clearly that this guy was arrested and tortured because he blew the whistle on corruption - but we have only his word for it, and based on his law suit.
Maybe there isn’t another side to the story. But I don’t know that based on what we have seen to date. Too much like arriving at a verdict the minute the prosecution finishes its opening statement.
YMMV.
Regards,
Shodan
Why would they have to tell him what he has been charged with, Shodan? Isn’t being able to hold someone indefinitely without charge one of George Bush’s God-given rights as the Unitary Executive?
If you question why he was arrested, you hate America.
Why do you think they even have to make something up? One thing that is confirmed from the given links is that Vance was held as a “security detainee”. There’s practically no due process in these wartime military detentions, people can be locked up for no reason at all. Most detainees in Guantánamo haven’t even been charged with anything. For example, according to this cite, of the 400+ detainees in Guantánamo, only 10 have been charged and the Bush administration only intends to charge 70 of them. A number have been released after being detained years with neither charge, trial, conviction, exoneration, nor restitution. They don’t need a sham charge, in fact they don’t need any charge at all.
Then again, why did they let him go? If they just wanted to shut up a whistle-blower, why would he be silenced by 97 days in the clink?
Regards,
Shodan
even these days eventually some one notices that an American Citizen is being held w/o charges
Most anti-whistleblower behavior falls under the category of sweet sweet retaliation since it’s usually too late to silence the person. You can’t un-blow the whistle. In this case, detaining the whistleblower gives the crooks 97 days to figure out how to tie up loose ends and it serves as a great way of intimidating other would-be whistleblowers.
Of course I have also have to allow the possibility that it was one giant government fuckup, and the FBI simply said “we have a tip that Shield Corp reps are supplying insurgents with weapons, go arrest all of them as security detainees”, and it never occurred to them to protect the one tipster who was trying to actually stop the flow of weapons to insurgents. The idiocy of of the war machine might well be the simplest explanation of all as well as the saddest example of what things have come to.
Maybe the point is to send a message to anybody else who’s thinking about telling tales.
I am repeating myself here, but wouldn’t “coming up with a plausible excuse to disregard him” fall under the heading of “tying up loose ends”?
Also possible. So is my earlier scenario of someone getting caught in the cookie jar, and coming up with “I’m really a whistle-blower” to try to get out of it. Or maybe he was playing both ends against the middle.
Who can tell from this? And it seems to have dropped into the memory hole.
Regards,
Shodan
According to this link, Vance “was detained by U.S. forces and held without charges for more than three months at Camp Cropper,” and, “The U.S. military eventually released both Vance and Ertel without explanation, admitting that they had done nothing wrong.” It also says: