The March issue of Harper’s prints the transcript of a podcast containing a dialogue between Mike Prysner, an Iraqi war veteran, and Mansur Ahmad Saad al-Dayfi, a former detainee at Guantanamo, “probably a low-level fighter,” first detained in 2002, and released in 2016, without ever having been charged.
Now-governor Ron DeSantis used to be, shortly after his graduation in 2005 from Harvard Law, a member of the Navy JAG. He was assigned to Joint Task Force Guantanamo, where he was, according to Captain Patrick McCarthy, his supervisor,
tasked with ensuring that prisoners were given their rights under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. DeSantis "made sure [detainees] were addressed in a way that was consistent with the law."
In the podcast, al-Dayfi said he met DeSantis:
I saw a fucking handsome person come in and he said, “I’m here to ensure that you are treated humanely.”
mike prysner: It was Ron DeSantis?*
adayfi: Yes. And, “If you have any problems, if you have any concerns, just talk to me.” We were drowning in that place. So I was like, “Oh, this is cool. This person will raise the concerns.”
Instead, says Adayfi, DeSantis witnessed prisoners’ infamous force-feeding, beatings, and torture, and appeared amused by it.
We were beaten all day long. Whatever you were doing—they just beat you. Pepper spray, beating, sleep deprivation. That continued for three months. And he was there. He was one of the people that supervised the torture, the abuses, the beatings. All the time at Guantánamo.
prysner: So Ron DeSantis was actually supervising torture, beatings? He was supervising these force-feedings?
adayfi: I’m telling Americans: this guy is a torturer. He is a criminal. He was laughing. And he was there to ensure we were treated humanely.
If this is accurate, then DeSantis should be the Hague, not Tallahassee. And never anywhere near Pennsylvania Avenue.