{"id":18626,"date":"2023-09-01T07:48:45","date_gmt":"2023-09-01T11:48:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=18626"},"modified":"2023-09-01T07:49:34","modified_gmt":"2023-09-01T11:49:34","slug":"harvard-law-dude-desantis-goes-to-gitmo-and-fallujah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2023\/09\/01\/harvard-law-dude-desantis-goes-to-gitmo-and-fallujah\/","title":{"rendered":"Harvard Law Dude DeSantis Goes to Gitmo and Fallujah"},"content":{"rendered":"

Counterpunch, September 1, 2023<\/h3>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Nov. 2004: US soldiers prepared to raid a building in Fallujah. Photo: US Army.<\/p><\/div>\n

Harvard Law Dude DeSantis Goes to Gitmo and Fallujah<\/a><\/h1>\n

by James Bovard<\/p>\n

\n

In the first Republican candidate presidential debate last week, Florida governor Ron DeSantis\u00a0 touted his time in Iraq. \u201cI learned in the military, I was assigned with U.S. Navy SEALs in Iraq, that you focus on the mission above all else, you can\u2019t get distracted,\u201d he declared.\u00a0 Later in the debate he stated, \u201cI\u2019m somebody that volunteered to serve, inspired by Sept. 11 and I deployed to Iraq alongside U.S. Navy SEALs in places like Fallujah, Ramadi\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Some viewers had the impression that DeSantis was a Seal, but he was actually a Harvard Law School graduate who was a Judge Advocate General Corps (JAG) alongside the Seals.\u00a0 DeSantis was deployed in Iraq in 2007 and 2008, during President George W. Bush\u2019s \u201csurge\u201d (intended to postpone the obvious failure of the war until after Bush\u2019s second term ended). During DeSantis\u2019 first campaign to become Florida\u2019s governor in 2018, his first words in his first televised advertisement were, \u201cRon DeSantis, Iraq War veteran<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The American troops that Bush sent to Iraq were injected into a conflict where it was often nearly impossible to distinguish friend from foe \u2014 what author Robert Jay Lifton labeled \u201catrocity-producing situations.\u201d\u00a0 DeSantis is confident that few Americans recall the carnage that preceded his arrival in Iraq. \u00a0\u00a0<\/u><\/p>\n

Fallujah was hammered by two brutal U.S. assaults in 2004. The first attack was launched in April 2004 in retaliation for the killings of four contractors for Blackwater, a company that became renowned for killing innocent Iraqis.\u00a0 After their corpses were dragged through the street, the Bush administration demanded vengeance.<\/p>\n

President Bush reportedly gave the order: \u201cI want heads to roll.\u201d He raved at Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez during a video conference:\u00a0 \u201cIf somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell!\u2026 Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out!\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. forces quickly placed the entire city under siege. The British Guardian<\/em> reported: \u201cThe U.S. soldiers were going around telling people to leave by dusk or they would be killed, but then when people fled with whatever they could carry, they were stopped at the U.S. military checkpoint on the edge of town and not let out, trapped, watching the sun go down.\u201d<\/p>\n

The city was blasted by artillery barrages, F\u201316 jets, and AC\u2013130 Spectre planes, which pumped 4,000 rounds a minute into selected targets. Adam Kokesh, who fought in Fallujah as a Marine Corps sergeant, later commented: \u201cDuring the siege of Fallujah, we changed rules of engagement more often than we changed our underwear. At one point, we imposed a curfew on the city, and were told to fire at anything that moved in the dark.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bush administration decided to crush the city \u2014 but not until after Bush was safely reelected. In the weeks after Election Day, U.S. Army soldiers and Marines pulverized Fallujah, Iraq, killing an unknown number of civilians, leaving the city a burnt-out ruin. Marine Col. Gary Brandl explained the U.S. holy mission: \u201cThe enemy has got a face. He\u2019s called Satan. He\u2019s in Fallujah and we\u2019re going to destroy him.\u201d Brandl sounded whacked but at least he wasn\u2019t a Muslim fanatic.<\/p>\n

Up to 50,000 civilians remained in Falluja at the time of the second U.S. assault. At a November 8, 2004, press conference, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declared that \u201cInnocent civilians in that city have all the guidance they need as to how they can avoid getting into trouble.\u201d Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Myers said three days later that Fallujah \u201clooks like a ghost town [because] the Iraqi government gave instructions to the citizens of Fallujah to stay indoors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Supposedly, Iraqi civilians would be safe even if when American troops went house to house \u201cclearing\u201d insurgents out. However, three years later, during the trials for the killings elsewhere in Iraq, Marines continually invoked the Fallujah Rules of Engagement to justify their actions. Marine Corporal Justin Sharratt, who was indicted for murdering three civilians in Haditha (the charges were later dropped), explained in a 2007 interview with PBS:<\/p>\n

For the push of Fallujah, there [were no civilians]. We were told before we went in that if it moved, it dies\u2026. About a month before we went into the city of Fallujah, we sent out flyers\u2026. We let the population know that we were coming in on this date, and if you were left in the city, you were going to die.<\/p>\n

The interviewer asked: \u201cWas the procedure for clearing a house in Fallujah different from other house clearing in Iraq?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sharratt replied: \u201cYes. The difference between clearing houses in Fallujah was that the entire city was deemed hostile. So every house we went into, we prepped with frags and we went in shooting.\u201d Thus, the Marines were preemptively justified in killing everyone inside \u2014 no questions asked. Former congressman Duncan Hunter admitted in 2019, \u201cI was an artillery officer, and we fired hundreds of rounds into Fallujah, killed probably hundreds of civilians \u2026 probably killed women and children.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. attack left much of Fallujah looking like a lunar landscape, with near-total destruction as far as the eye could see. Yet, regardless of how many rows of houses the United States flattened in the city, accusations that the United States killed noncombatants were false by definition. Because the U.S. government refused to count civilian casualties, they did not exist. And anyone who claimed to count them was slandering the United States and aiding the terrorists.<\/p>\n

The carnage the U.S. forces inflicting on Fallujah was a well-disguised triumph of hope and freedom<\/strong>. Bush announced on December 1: \u201cIn Fallujah and elsewhere, our coalition and Iraqi forces are on the offensive, and we are delivering a message: Freedom, not oppression, is the future of Iraq\u2026. A long night of terror and tyranny in that region is ending, and a new day of freedom and hope and self-government is on the way.\u201d\u00a0 But it is tricky for corpses to be hopeful.<\/p>\n

During DeSantis\u2019 first campaign to become Florida\u2019s governor in 2018, his first words in his first televised advertisement were, \u201cRon DeSantis, Iraq War veteran<\/a>.\u201d The St. Augustine Record noted in 2018, \u201cDeSantis was responsible for helping ensure that the missions of Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets in that wide swath of the Western Euphrates River Valley were planned according to the rule of law and that captured detainees were humanely treated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of the details of DeSantis\u2019 time in Iraq have not been disclosed.\u00a0 But he was deployed into an area where stunning detainee abuses by the U.S. Army had previously been reported. In September 2005, Americans learned that three 82nd Airborne Division soldiers complained about army cooks and other off-duty troops, for amusement and sport, routinely physically beating Iraqi detainees being held near Fallujah. One sergeant explained: \u201cWe would give [detainees] blows to the head, chest, legs and stomach, and pull them down, kick dirt on them. This happened every day.\u201d The sergeant said that there were no problems as long as no detainees \u201ccame up dead\u2026. We kept it to broken arms and legs.\u201d Captain Ian Fishback of the 82nd Airborne repeatedly sought to get guidance from superiors on the standards for lawful and humane treatment of detainees. He, like other officers, never received clear guidelines. Fishback publicly complained: \u201cI am certain that this confusion contributed to a wide range of abuses including death threats, beatings, broken bones, murder, exposure to elements, extreme forced physical exertion, hostage-taking, stripping, sleep deprivation and degrading treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prior to his time in Iraq, DeSantis volunteered to be a legal advisor at Guantanamo.\u00a0 In a 2018 interview for CBS Miami, he stated that one of his tasks was to clarify \u201cthe rules for force feeding detainees<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 He also stated, \u201cWhat I learned from [Gitmo] and I took to Iraq \u2014 they are using things like [false charges of] detainee abuse offensively against us\u00a0 \u2013 it was a tactic, technique, and procedure.\u201d\u00a0 A Vice documentary that covered DeSantis\u2019 role at Gitmo was scheduled for broadcast on Showtime<\/a> but the May 28 air date was canceled on the day after DeSantis announced his presidential campaign.<\/p>\n

Did Harvard Law School have a class on legal workarounds for torture?\u00a0 Or were those lessons included in the classes on \u201cWeaseling Under the Rule of Law\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Pentagon\u2019s records on DeSantis\u2019 years as a JAG could help voters judge his candidacy for the presidency. But Americans would be damn fools to expect transparency from the feds or from most political candidates.<\/strong><\/p>\n

An earlier version of this piece was published by the Libertarian Institute.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

James Bovard<\/em><\/strong> is the author of <\/em>Attention Deficit Democracy<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>The Bush Betrayal<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Terrorism and Tyranny<\/em><\/a>, and other books.\u00a0Bovard is on the\u00a0USA Today Board of Contributors. He is on Twitter at @jimbovard. His website is at <\/em>www.jimbovard.com<\/em><\/a> \u00a0This essay was originally published by <\/em>Future of Freedom Foundation<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Counterpunch, September 1, 2023 Harvard Law Dude DeSantis Goes to Gitmo and Fallujah by James Bovard In the first Republican candidate presidential debate last week, Florida governor Ron DeSantis\u00a0 touted his time in Iraq. \u201cI learned in the military, I was assigned with U.S. Navy SEALs in Iraq, that you focus on the mission above […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3863,2580,137,816,3875,3874,36,3876,12],"class_list":["post-18626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-desantis","tag-fallujah","tag-george-w-bush","tag-gitmo","tag-guantanemo","tag-harvard-law","tag-iraq","tag-seals","tag-torture"],"yoast_head":"\nHarvard Law Dude DeSantis Goes to Gitmo and Fallujah - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Gov. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \\\"the roving inspector general of the modern state\\\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \\\"one-man truth squad.\\\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \\\"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\\\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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