GTMO: DeSantis, CIA Torture Report
Was Ron DeSantis Involved in Torturing Prisoners in Guantanamo Bay?
Ron DeSantis has some explaining to do. The Governor of Florida owes the people an explanation about his involvement in war crimes. He was a JAG officer in the United States Navy starting in 2004 and legal advisor to detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base from March 2006 to January 2007. A legal aid to prisoners from the War on Terror which began in 2001. When anger amongst Americans was high, as some sought retribution and revenge. Some even chose to enact it upon other humans.
On March 23, 2023 Tore Maras, a former intelligence contractor and current host of the Tore Says podcast, was on The Conservative Daily Show with Joe Oltmann and Apollo. Both Tore Says and Joe have extensive backgrounds in our military and intelligence communities. One of the topics discussed was Ron DeSantis’ 2023 interview with Piers Morgan, a CAA asset, in which Desantis claimed that he was an uninvolved Junior Officer during the forced feedings documented in the CIA Torture Report on Guantanamo Bay. Tore comments:
If that’s not even spoken on Piers Morgan, he’s lying. Cause he (Ron DeSantis) was present when that happens. I was accidentally present (for a similar situation at a different location), because I was supposed to be sitting with the interpreters.
I filed a report. I didn’t know that was happening. I filed a report. Because I was a private contractor, I just said this was unnecessary.
I just want people to know that when we’re talking about force feeding and what DeSantis says “I was a junior officer, I didn’t…” it’s like, that’s B.S. because it’s the juniors that were in charge of that stuff. It’s not the higher up people that are going to get their hands dirty.
-Tore Says
The role DeSantis had as legal advisor to detainees, happened during the 2002 - 2008 range of time documented in the CIA Torture Report. Released in 2014 with Daniel J. Jones as the lead on the US Senate investigation. It features testimony from prisoners on what they had to endure. Horrific crimes, including force feeding rectally.
To gain a broader picture, Conservative Daily has shared 2 clips of Tore Says discussing the details and broader picture of CIA involvement. Watch Clip 1 & Clip 2.
To hear the full context you can watch the episode.
It’s important to view a video comparison of Ron DeSantis interviews from 2023 and 2018. Different answers are given to the same question. In the 2023 interview, Ron quickly answers Piers before certain questions are fully asked. DeSantis appears uncomfortable and rushed in his short responses as if he wants to get the topic over with as soon as possible. Also worth noting, it caught my eye that he shakes his head “no” while he’s stating that what they did in Guantanamo Bay was totally legal. I’m not a body language expert, but it’s apparent to me, that he is lying. See for yourself:
DeSantis in his own words states he was part of the legal teams at Guantanamo Bay. He states that what they were doing was “legal in nature one way or another” and goes on to talk about the situation in the third person to distance himself from the role he played in the torture. “So the Commander wants to know ‘hey, how do I Combat this?’ One of the jobs of the legal advisors to be like ‘hey, you actually can force feed. Here’s what you can do. Here are the rules for that.’ You actually had a lot of detainees claiming abuse….”. Well Ron, because force feeding people rectally when it is not a medical necessity or any other time, is literally abuse. To be clear, it is not a strategic tactic to report being abused when you’re being abused. The prisoners reported being tortured, praying they would stop being tortured.
Witnesses
There is a first hand account of a tortured prisoner who knew Ron DeSantis was there. Guantanamo detainee Mansoor Adayfi is interviewed on the YouTube channel Empire Files. He saw DeSantis's involvement in illegal torture at the prison camp, and why Ron was likely sent to Iraq to do war crime cover-ups next.
Mansoor Adayfi: we don't eat meat, because we don’t know if it’s halal or not. What the guard did after that, they used to mix all the food with meat so that you cannot eat.
Interviewer: And that's another thing that you told DeSantis was a problem and then they did it again.
Mansoor Adayfi: The medicine, clothing, treatment, sleeping, you know the desecration for the Quran. Everything we talked to him, become multiple, because he when I talk more about it, he said he was looking at the impact on you. What hurt you more. Because if you don't tell them nothing, they need to find a way to hurt you. The thing that affect you more. After that we knew who he is basically. And when we're on force feeding and torture he was laughing. You know they were smiling. And you know like looking at us as like, as nothing as trash.
These are human rights violations. Ron DeSantis was there for oversight. And Mansoor Adayfi was detained without charge or trial for more than 15 years. During which “the US military, the CIA and other intelligence agencies experimented with torture and other human rights violations.” You can hear his testimony for yourself:
I highly recommend reading the entire redacted CIA torture report. But if you are strapped for time, keyword search “Rectal” and find each mention to learn when this method of torture was used. Also search names like “Michael Hayden” in the Senate Intelligence Committee CIA Torture Report. From the document:
At least five CIA detainees were subjected to "rectal rehydration" or rectal feeding without documented medical necessity. The CIA placed detainees in ice water "baths." The CIA led several detainees to believe they would never be allowed to leave CIA custody alive, suggesting to one detainee that he would only leave in a coffin-shaped box. One interrogator told another detainee that he would never go to court, because "we can never let the world know what I have done to you." CIA officers also threatened at least three detainees with harm to their families— to include threats to harm the children of a detainee, threats to sexually abuse the mother of a detainee, and a threat to "cut [a detainee's] mother's throat."
-Page 14
Cables and records indicating that CIA detainees who were undergoing or had undergone the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques were subjected to rectal rehydration, without evidence of medical necessity, and that others were threatened with it;
-Page 129
The Bottom Line
It appears that Ron DeSantis was part of the legal team approving rectal feeding at Guantanamo Bay. During his interviews he tries to distance himself from any wrong doing and even attempts to justify wrong doing by saying the prisoners were “waging jihad” and using news of the crimes committed against them as warfare. This is unacceptable behavior from our Intelligence and military community and needs to be addressed now.
Ron states he was a “Junior Officer” and he didn’t have “the authority to authorize anything. Now… There may have been a commander that would have done feeding…” Tore, being present in similar situations, debunks this and states that (paraphrasing) “ The Jr. Officers were the ones conducting most of these operations to ensure it didn’t touch the higher ups and to desensitize them from these acts.”
Tore Says, as a contracted interpreter at the time, had a different reaction. Horrified, she chose to take action and filed a complaint/report about the unnecessary torture methods being used.
The question is, even if Ron didn’t physically conduct these torture procedures, as a legal advisor giving instructions to what they where allowed legally get away with, did he file a complaint/report about the force feedings that he obviously knew about? If he didn’t, he is just as guilty as the operators conducting the torture.
For the record, I am a Christian. No person based on their religion, color, or social class should ever be tortured under the guise of payback or retaliation. In the report it states that many of the rectal feedings were done unnecessarily. It states that the prisoners where being drugged and some refused to eat because they didn’t want to be drugged again.
In 2023, parents and patriotic Americans are being labeled “Domestic Terrorists”. If you and I are now the enemy, what makes you think YOU are exempt from this kind of torture? Has anyone talked to the people being held illegally in Washington DC for January 6? To ask them what kind of conditions they’ve had to endure? This all needs to be addressed immediately.
Do something, or stand for nothing.