{"id":65967,"date":"2004-05-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2004-05-13T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2004\/05\/13\/le-general-boykin-avec-steven-cambone-apparait-dans-le-scandale-des-tortures\/"},"modified":"2004-05-13T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2004-05-13T00:00:00","slug":"le-general-boykin-avec-steven-cambone-apparait-dans-le-scandale-des-tortures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2004\/05\/13\/le-general-boykin-avec-steven-cambone-apparait-dans-le-scandale-des-tortures\/","title":{"rendered":"Le g\u00e9n\u00e9ral Boykin (avec Steven Cambone) appara\u00eet dans le scandale des tortures<\/em><\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Le g\u00e9n\u00e9ral Boykin (avec Steven Cambone) appara\u00eet dans le scandale des tortures<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\t13 mai 2004 Le nom du g\u00e9n\u00e9ral Boykin est apparu dans le scandale des tortures aux USA. Une d\u00e9p\u00eache Reuters du 11 mai<\/a> le signale, \u00e0 partir de remarques inqui\u00e8tes de diverses sources, des experts du Congr\u00e8s et des membres des associations Arabo-Am\u00e9ricaines. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\t\u00ab Congressional aides and Arab-American and Muslim groups said any involvement by Boykin could spark new concern among Arabs and Muslims overseas the U.S. war on terrorism is in fact a war on Islam.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb This will be taken as proof that what happened at Abu Ghraib (prison) is evidence of a broader culture of dehumanizing Arabs and Muslims, based on the American understanding of the innate superiority of Christendom, said Chris Toensing, editor of Middle East Report, a U.S.-based quarterly magazine. One Senate aide, who asked not to be identified, said any involvement by Boykin could be explosive. Even if he knew about the abuse, that would be a big deal, he said.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb Boykin has declined comment, and defense officials could not say what the extent of his involvement or knowledge about the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners might have been.<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\tLe nom de Boykin est apparu pour la premi\u00e8re fois dans ce cadre lors de l’audition au Congr\u00e8s du g\u00e9n\u00e9ral Taguba et du secr\u00e9taire \u00e0 la d\u00e9fense adjoint Stephen A. Cambone, le 10 mai. (Une audition au cours de laquelle, par ailleurs, Taguba et Cambone se sont trouv\u00e9s en d\u00e9saccord<\/a> sur le point important de l’interpr\u00e9tation des pouvoirs donn\u00e9s au renseignement militaire dans la prison d’Abou Ghraib, \u00e0 partir de novembre 2003.) La transcription de l’audition contient ce passage o\u00f9 le nom de Boykin appara\u00eet, et l’on voit qu’il tient une place non n\u00e9gligeable o\u00f9 il devrait \u00eatre au courant de fa\u00e7on pr\u00e9cise de l’affaire des tortures puisque c’est lui qui donne un briefing \u00e0 Cambone, dont il est l’adjoint, sur un aspect de cette affaire.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tVoici le passage, lors de questions pos\u00e9es par le s\u00e9nateur Jack Reed, d\u00e9mocrate de Rhode Island :<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\tREED: But General Miller didn’t think it was important enough to brief you, Mr. Secretary.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tCAMBONE: I was not briefed by General Miller.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tREED: Who were you briefed by? <\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tCAMBONE: Deputy General Boykin briefed me on the report. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tREED: So General Boykin and General Miller were collaborating on this exercise? <\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tCAMBONE: Not at all, not at all, sir. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tREED: General Boykin didn’t think it was important enough to brief you on that? <\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tCAMBONE: No, sir. Again, your suggestion that the report on the phrase setting the conditions is tantamount to asking the military police to engage in abusive behavior I believe is a misreading of General Miller’s intent.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tREED: Mr. Secretary, what I’m suggesting is anyone in your position should have asked questions. One specifically would be: What does it meant to set the conditions for these troops under the Geneva Conventions? <\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tCAMBONE: Sir… <\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tREED: Did you ask that question? <\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tCAMBONE: And, well, I didn’t have to answer that question. Why? Because we had been through a process in which we understood what those limits were with respect to Iraq and what those were with respect to Guantanamo. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tREED: Mr. Secretary, what is the status of the detainees in that prison under the Geneva Convention? <\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tCAMBONE: I’m sorry, sir, which prison? <\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tREED: Abu Ghraib. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tCAMBONE: They are there under either Article 3 or Article 4 of the Geneva Convention. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tREED: Let me recite Article 4. \u00a0\u00bbPersons protected by the convention are those who in any manner whatsoever find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a party to the conflict or occupying power of which they are not nationals. These are protected persons. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb Let me read Article 31. No physical or moral coercion shall be exercised against protected persons in particular to obtain any information from them or from third parties. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tCAMBONE: Sir, we’re in agreement here.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tREED: Well, we’re in agreement. I don’t think we are, Mr. Secretary.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

La personnalit\u00e9 controvers\u00e9e du g\u00e9n\u00e9ral Boykin est compl\u00e8tement adapt\u00e9e au climat que r\u00e9v\u00e8le le scandale des tortures<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\tBoykin est un vieux de la vieille, un sp\u00e9cialiste des coups fourr\u00e9s au sein des Special Forces. En avril 1980, il \u00e9tait un des principaux adjoints du colonel Bull<\/em> Simons, qui mena l’exp\u00e9dition pour tenter de r\u00e9cup\u00e9rer les 53 otages am\u00e9ricains de T\u00e9h\u00e9ran, exp\u00e9dition qui se termina par un d\u00e9sastre. Boykin est aussi un chr\u00e9tien \u00e9vang\u00e9liste extr\u00eamement z\u00e9l\u00e9, on dirait m\u00eame un z\u00e9lote, qui ne craint pas un instant d’exprimer les vues extr\u00eames que lui inspire cette foi chr\u00e9tienne. Pour l’instant, dans tous les cas depuis le 11 septembre 2001, les Arabes et les musulmans en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral sont l’objet principal de ses anath\u00e8mes fondamentalistes chr\u00e9tiens.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tIl ne s’en cache pas, ce qui fit scandale lorsqu’on apprit sa nomination \u00e0 un poste particuli\u00e8rement sensible, comme adjoint militaire de Steephen A. Cambone. Par ailleurs, dans notre rubrique Notre biblioth\u00e8que, \u00e0 la date d’aujourd’hui<\/a>, nous publions trois textes de cette \u00e9poque (octobre 2003), qui permettent de mieux cerner le portrait de Boykin et les circonstances entourant sa nomination.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tDepuis, on a pu avoir des signes convaincants de l’importance du r\u00f4le de Boykin. Il est certain que Boykin est derri\u00e8re le durcissement des tactiques US en Irak, depuis novembre 2003, notamment avec des attaques de terreur, voire des \u00e9liminations sommaires. Le Guardian du 9 d\u00e9cembre<\/a> s’en fit l’\u00e9cho \u00e0 propos de la coop\u00e9ration des Isra\u00e9liens avec les Am\u00e9ricains pour d\u00e9velopper des tactiques d’assassinats et de terreur. (\u00ab Israeli advisers are helping train US special forces in aggressive counter-insurgency operations in Iraq, including the use of assassination squads against guerrilla leaders, US intelligence and military sources said yesterday. <\/em>(…) One of the planners behind the <\/em>[US November 2003] offensive is a highly controversial figure, whose role is likely to inflame Muslim opinion: Lieutenant General William Jerry Boykin.<\/em> \u00bb)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tUn article particuli\u00e8rement int\u00e9ressant concernant les tactiques employ\u00e9es, au coeur de l’\u00e9laboration desquelles on trouve Boykin, est celui de Seymour Hersch, le m\u00eame 9 d\u00e9cembre dans le New Yorker<\/a>. Hersch met en \u00e9vidence les liens entre Boykin et Cambone. Ci-dessous, le passage centr\u00e9 sur Boykin (avec Cambone).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\t\u00ab One of the key planners of the Special Forces offensive is Lieutenant General William (Jerry) Boykin, Cambone’s military assistant. After a meeting with Rumsfeld early last summerthey got along like two old warriors, the Pentagon consultant saidBoykin postponed his retirement, which had been planned for June, and took the Pentagon job, which brought him a third star. In that post, the Pentagon adviser told me, Boykin has been an important piece of the planned escalation. In October, the Los Angeles Times reported that Boykin, while giving Sunday-morning talks in uniform to church groups, had repeatedly equated the Muslim world with Satan. Last June, according to the paper, he told a congregation in Oregon that Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army. Boykin praised President Bush as a man who prays in the Oval Office, and declared that Bush was not elected President but appointed by God. The Muslim world hates America, he said, because we are a nation of believers.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb There were calls in the press and from Congress for Boykin’s dismissal, but Rumsfeld made it clear that he wanted to keep his man in the job. Initially, he responded to the Times report by praising the General’s outstanding record and telling journalists that he had neither seen the text of Boykin’s statements nor watched the videotape that had been made of one of his presentations. There are a lot of things that are said by people in the military, or in civilian life, or in the Congress, or in the executive branch that are their views, he said. We’re a free people. And that’s the wonderful thing about our country. He added, with regard to the tape, I just simply can’t comment on what he said, because I haven’t seen it. Four days later, Rumsfeld said that he had viewed the tape. It had a lot of very difficult-to-understand words with subtitles which I was not able to verify, he said at a news conference, according to the official transcript. So I remain inexpertthe transcript notes that he chuckles at that momenton precisely what he said. Boykin’s comments are now under official review.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb Boykin has been involved in other controversies as well. He was the Army combat commander in Mogadishu in 1993, when eighteen Americans were slain during the disastrous mission made famous by Mark Bowden’s book Black Hawk Down. Earlier that year, Boykin, a colonel at the time, led an eight-man Delta Force that was assigned to help a Colombian police unit track down the notorious drug dealer Pablo Escobar. Boykin’s team was barred by law from providing any lethal assistance without Presidential approval, but there was suspicion in the Pentagon that it was planning to take part in the assassination of Escobar, with the support of American Embassy officials in Colombia. The book Killing Pablo, an account, also by Mark Bowden, of the hunt for Escobar, describes how senior officials in the Pentagon’s chain of command became convinced that Boykin, with the knowledge of his Special Forces superiors, had exceeded his authority and intended to violate the law. They wanted Boykin’s unit pulled out. It wasn’t. Escobar was shot dead on the roof of a barrio apartment building in Medell\u00edn. The Colombian police were credited with getting their man, but, Bowden wrote, within the special ops community . . . Pablo’s death was regarded as a successful mission for Delta, and legend has it that its operators were in on the kill.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb That’s what those guys did, a retired general who monitored Boykin’s operations in Colombia told me. I’ve seen pictures of Escobar’s body that you don’t get from a long-range telescope lens. They were taken by guys on the assault team. (Bush Administration officials in the White House, the State Department, and the Pentagon, including General Boykin, did not respond to requests for comment.)<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb Morris Busby, who was the American Ambassador to Colombia in 1993 (he is now retired), vigorously defended Boykin. I think the world of Jerry Boykin, and have the utmost respect for him. I’ve known him for fifteen years and spent hours and hours with the guy, and never heard him mention religion or God. The retired general also praised Boykin as one of those guys you’d love to have in a war because he’s not afraid to die. But, he added, when you get to three stars you’ve got to think through what you’re doing. Referring to Boykin and others involved in the Special Forces planning, he added, These guys are going to get a bunch of guys killed and then give them a bunch of medals.<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\tToutes ces pr\u00e9cisions conduisent \u00e0 deux remarques au moins, sous forme d’hypoth\u00e8ses :<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t• Avec de tels dirigeants, avec de telles conceptions, avec de telles actions, il n’y a aucun \u00e9tonnement \u00e0 avoir si l’on a la confirmation que le scandale des tortures r\u00e9v\u00e8le \u00e9videmment un vaste syst\u00e8me, o\u00f9 les abus, mauvais traitements, etc, font partie d’une philosophie syst\u00e9matique appuy\u00e9e sur une appr\u00e9ciation supr\u00e9matiste faisant des Irakiens des \u00eatres inf\u00e9rieurs. Les Britanniques ont compris depuis un certain temps que c’est effectivement la conception am\u00e9ricaine<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t• Dans un tel contexte, il n’y aurait \u00e9galement aucun \u00e9tonnement particulier \u00e0 marquer si l’on avait confirmation pleine et enti\u00e8re de l’implication de Boykin et de Cambone dans l’organisation du m\u00eame syst\u00e8me g\u00e9n\u00e9ral de traitement sp\u00e9cial des prisonniers. D’ores et d\u00e9j\u00e0, Rumsfeld lui-m\u00eame n’est pas loin de d\u00e9clarer publiquement qu’il en est partisan, en affirmant joliment qu’apr\u00e8s tout ces pratiques ne violent pas la Convention de Gen\u00e8ve<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Le g\u00e9n\u00e9ral Boykin (avec Steven Cambone) appara\u00eet dans le scandale des tortures 13 mai 2004 Le nom du g\u00e9n\u00e9ral Boykin est apparu dans le scandale des tortures aux USA. Une d\u00e9p\u00eache Reuters du 11 mai le signale, \u00e0 partir de remarques inqui\u00e8tes de diverses sources, des experts du Congr\u00e8s et des membres des associations Arabo-Am\u00e9ricaines.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[4292,4291,569],"class_list":["post-65967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faits-et-commentaires","tag-irakiens","tag-israeliens","tag-rumsfeld"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65967\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}