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whistleblower's ordeal

FireGarden

Philosopher
FireGarden
Joined
Aug 13, 2002
Messages
5,047
Enemy combatant?
With us or against us....
...let the decider decide.

http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=NATIONAL&ID=565074540867487317

One after another, the men and women who have stepped forward to report corruption in the massive effort to rebuild Iraq have been vilified, fired and demoted.

Or worse.

For daring to report illegal arms sales, Navy veteran Donald Vance says he was imprisoned by the American military in a security compound outside Baghdad and subjected to harsh interrogation methods.

There were times, huddled on the floor in solitary confinement with that head-banging music blaring dawn to dusk and interrogators yelling the same questions over and over, that Vance began to wish he had just kept his mouth shut.

[...]
Click to expand...

But now Donald Vance is standing up. He's free now and armed with lawyers. So too is the guy arrested with him, Nathan Ertel.
 
Another example of this douchebag administration and their "view" of democracy and freedom ....

Charlie (know the constitution, just don't try to use it) Monoxide
 
Rob Lister said:
Whistle blower?

me thinks there's a bit more to this story.
Click to expand...

And why do you think there is more to this story?
Here's what looks like the same story from MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20430153/

[At Camp Cropper] their jailers said they were being held as security internees because their employer was suspected of selling weapons to terrorists and insurgents, the lawsuit said.
Click to expand...

Vance and Ertel were the ones who blew the whistle and informed the FBI that their employer was selling weapons!

Vance and Ertel were found innocent.
I wonder how many of their employers were put into solitary.
 
FireGarden said:
And why do you think there is more to this story?
Click to expand...

I like how you gloss over the fact he's an anti-American, terrorist-coddling treasonist. Why do you think the military held him captive? He's clearly undermining the war against terrorism and attempting to undermine troop morale, not to mention aiding the enemy in its propaganda campaign. Last time I checked this is supposed to be a skepticism board.

Rob Lister:
me thinks there's a bit more to this story. I don't think the term whistle blower is exactly fitting.
Click to expand...

What else do you expect from the naive left-wing?
 
FireGarden said:
And why do you think there is more to this story?
Here's what looks like the same story from MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20430153/



Vance and Ertel were the ones who blew the whistle and informed the FBI that their employer was selling weapons!

Vance and Ertel were found innocent.
I wonder how many of their employers were put into solitary.
Click to expand...

Here we have someone knowingly working for a black marketeer, has a change of heart, spills the beans. Does it surprise you he is therefore implicated in the crime, and subsequently arrested?

That doesn't really meet the whistle blowing threshold to me.
 
Rob,
Why do you assume he was in on it? He was released without charge. His jailors knew the name of his contact at the FBI.

MSNBC back in June:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19226700/

Donald Vance, who was working for an Iraqi security company, became suspicious of his employers. So he turned into an FBI informant.


[...] It all started in the summer of 2005 when Vance went to Baghdad. Born in Chicago, Vance had joined the Navy after high school and later worked in security.

He took a job with an Iraqi company, Shield Group Security, or SGS, which provides protection for businesses and organizations. Vance supervised security and logistics operations. Before long, he says he started noticing troubling things at the company — explosives and huge stockpiles of ammunition and weapons, including anti-aircraft guns. He worried they were going to militias involved in sectarian violence.

There was "more ammunition than we could ever, ever need," says Vance. "We employed somewhere between 600 and 800 Iraqis. We had thousands of rifles."

Vance became so alarmed by what he saw that when he returned to Chicago in October 2005 for his father's funeral, he called the FBI office there and volunteered his services. He says he became an informant because, "It's just the right thing to do."
Click to expand...

He started Summer 2005, and in October 2005 he went to the FBI with his suspicions.

The military now acknowledges that it took three weeks just to contact the FBI and confirm Vance was an informant. But even after that, Vance was held for another two months. In all, he was imprisoned for 97 days before being cleared of any wrongdoing and released.

[...] Throughout the ordeal, the U.S. military said it thought Vance was helping the insurgents. Wasn't that a reasonable basis to hold and interrogate him?

"They could have investigated the true facts, found out exactly what was happening," says Vance. "What doesn't need to happen is throw people in a cell, we'll figure out the answers later. That's not the way to do things."
Click to expand...

Ha! Vance thinks he can decide how things are done. But he is NOT the Decider!

The company’s name has changed, but it's still doing business in Iraq. Neither the company, nor its executives, has been charged with any wrongdoing.
Click to expand...

Wow.
Does that mean his suspicions were groundless? Then why was he jailed? On whose evidence? His own suspicions?
 
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