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diverse nations as Colombia, Mongolia, Armenia, Japan, South Korea, Ukraine and Montenegro are to join those of some 45 other countries serving under the command of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, there will soon be military personnel from 50 nations and five continents serving under a unified command diverse nations as Colombia, Mongolia, Armenia, Japan, station chief, find people on a to-be-killed list, execute South Korea, Ukraine and Montenegro are to join those —_ them and leave. There was an ongoing list of targeted of some 45 other countries serving under the command __ people, cleared by Vice President Cheney's office, who of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, had committed acts of war or were suspected of there will soon be military personnel from 50 nations planning operations of war against the United States. and five continents serving under a unified command JSOC was also involved in war crimes, including the structure. torture of prisoners in secret "ghost" detention sites. NATO's 50th anniversary summit in Washington, DC, | Camp Nama in Iraq was one such "ghost" facility hidden in 1999 welcomed the first expansion of the world's only from the International Committee of the Red Cross, the military bloc in the post-Cold War era, absorbing former __ international body charged under international law with Warsaw Pact members such as the Czech Republic, monitoring compliance with the Geneva Conventions Hungary and Poland. Two years later, after the 9/11 and given the right to inspect all facilities where people attacks in New York City and Washington, DC, NATO are detained in a country that is at war or under military activated Article 5—in which the "[p]arties agree that an —_ occupation. armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or On 22 July 2006, Human Rights Watch issued a report, orth America shall be considered an attack against titled "No Blood, No Foul", about American torture em all". practices at three facilities in Iraq. One of them was The main purpose of invoking Camp Nama, accused of some ATO's mutual military of the worst acts of torture and assistance clause was to rally operated by JSOC under the e then 19-member military The JSOC team would go direction of McChrystal. bloc for the invasion and into countries without McChrystal, then a Major General, was officially based at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. occupation of Afghanistan and © stationing of. troops, | talking to the ambassador or warplanes and bases| __ the CIA station chief, find roughout South and Central . . 25. Prisoners Still Brutalised at Asia. Flyover rights were also people on a to-be-killed list, "Gitmo" arranged with Kazakhstan and execute them and leave. In Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Turkmenistan, and newly notorious but seldom-discussed acquired airbases in Bulgaria thug squad, officially known as and Romania have since been the Immediate Reaction Force used for the transit of troops and weapons to the _ (IRF), deployed by the US military, remains very much Afghan war zone. active. Inside the walls of Guantanamo, the prisoners The Afghanistan war is no ordinary war. The only — know the squad as the Extreme Repression Force. In beneficiary of this conflagration is a rapidly emerging __ reality, IRF is an extrajudicial terror squad, the existence global NATO. of which has been documented since the early days of Guantaénamo. IRF has rarely been mentioned in the 24. War Crimes of General Stanley McChrystal United States media or in congressional inquiries into A littl maen than a vane Lafaen La wenn fiend An 99 bActien The JSOC team would go _into countries without talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, find people on a to-be-killed list, 24. War Crimes of General Stanley McChrystal A little more than a year before he was fired on 23 June 2010 for making potentially insubordinate remarks in a Rolling Stone profile, General Stanley McChrystal was appointed by President Barack Obama as Commander in charge of the war in Afghanistan. He had been formerly in charge of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) headed by former Vice President Dick Cheney. Most of what General McChrystal has done over a 33-year career remains classified, including service between 2003 and 2008 as Commander of JSOC, a special black operations commando unit of the Navy SEALs and Delta Force so clandestine that the Pentagon for years refused to acknowledge its existence. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh claims that the Bush administration ran an executive assassination ring that reported directly to former Vice President Dick Cheney, and that Congress had no oversight of it whatsoever. The JSOC team would go into countries without talking to the ambassador or the CIA torture. On 22 January 2009, newly inaugurated President Obama issued an executive order requiring the closure of Guanténamo within a year, and also ordered a review of the status of the prisoners held there, requiring "humane standards of confinement” in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. One month later, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) released a report titled "Conditions of Confinement at Guanténamo: Still in Violation of the Law", which found that abuses continued. In fact, one Guantanamo lawyer, Anmed Ghappour, said that his clients were reporting "a ramping up in abuse” since Obama was elected, including "beatings, the dislocation of limbs, spraying of pepper spray into closed cells, applying pepper spray to toilet paper and over-force- feeding detainees who are on hunger strike.". The CCR has called on the Obama administration to end the use of the IRF teams at Guantanamo immediately. oo 22 * NEXUS execute them and leave. DECEMBER 2010 - JANUARY 2011 www.nexusmagazine.com