Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Former Army chaplain held in S.C. brig BY PAISLEY DODDS Tin: ASSOCIATED CRESS SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO - Soon after graduating from West Point, James Yee left the military and spent four years in Syria, where he studied Arabic, con verted to Islam, reportedly mar ried a Syrian woman and changed his name to Yousef. The Army welcomed Yee back after his Middle Eastern travels, and he became a Captain and an Army chaplain — a job that eventually sent him to Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, where he dispensed religious guidance to suspected terrorists. Now, the 35-year-old’s activi ties with detainees at the U.S. mil itary outpost in Cuba are under scrutiny, and Yee sits in a mili tary brig in South Carolina. Yee has not been charged with any crime, but he was allegedly carrying classified documents containing cell diagrams and oth er material involving the de tainees, according to newspaper reports. A senior law enforce ment official, speaking on condi tion of anonymity, told The Associated Press that FBI agents confiscated documents Yee was carrying and questioned him be fore he was handed over to the military. Authorities detained Yee in Jacksonville, Fla., on Sept. 10, after he returned from Guantanamo. The son of Chinese immi grants, Yee was raised a Lutheran in suburban Springfield, New Jersey. He left his hometown for the West Point Academy, gradu ating in 1990. On Sunday, police shooed re porters away from his parents’ tan, split-level home, in a middle class neighborhood where American flags were displayed from porches. A handwritten note taped on the family’s front door read, “No re porters or media please.” In 2001, Yee became a chaplain with the 29th Signal Battalion at Fort Lewis, Wash. He was there during the Sept. 11,2001, terror at tacks, serving as an imam at the Fort Lewis Islamic Chapel Center, where he counseled Muslim sol diers. After the attacks, Yee said, “An act of terrorism, the taking of in nocent civilian lives is prohibited by Islam, and whoever has done this needs to be brought to justice, whether he is Muslim or not.” Yee arrived at Guantanamo in November of 2002, a stocky chap lain with a thinning buzzcut, say ing one of his goals was to clear up misunderstandings about Islam. “A lot of people don’t know Jesus is part of Islam, but Muslims believe he was a prophet,” Yee told The AP in January. “Surely people can be more open-minded.” But Yee, who was normally ret icent in interviews with the me dia, was also concerned about the detainees’ spiritual needs. Yee would make sure the men had Qurans in their cells and that the crackly recorded prayer calls were being broadcast five times a day. His main job, however, was providing counseling and comfort to the prisoners at Camp Delta, the high-security prison where some 660 detainees from 42 coun tries are being held for suspected links to Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban regime or the al-Qaida terror network. Although Yee was seldom out of earshot from guards or inter preters helping with interroga tions, he was sometimes left alone with the men. His arrival came as U.S. offi cials struggled to stem a wave of suicide attempts among the de tainees and cope with steady crit icism over the decision to classify the detainees as “enemy combat ants" rather than prisoners of war, which would have allotted the men with more legal protec tions under the Geneva Conventions. Many of the detainees have been held in Guantanamo for nearly two years and none have been charged or given access to lawyers. . “He had daily access to the de tainees,” said Capt. Tom Crosson, U.S. Southern Command spokesman. “He is the first U.S. soldier that I know of to be de tained and held since the war on t % NASA spacecraft plummets to Jupiter’s surface 14-year-old Galileo discovered first asteroid moon, returned 14,000 images of solar system BY ANDREW BRIDGES THE ASSOCIATED PRESS PASADENA, CALIF. - NASA’s aging Galileo spacecraft deliber ately plunged into Jupiter’s tur bulent atmosphere Sunday, bringing a fiery conclusion to a 14-year, $1.5 billion exploration of the solar system’s largest planet and its moons. The unmanned spacecraft, traveling at nearly 108,000 mph, was torn apart and vaporized by the heat and friction of its fall through the clouds after it dove into the atmosphere at 2:57 p.m. EDT as planned. At NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, hundreds of scien tists, engineers and their families counted down the last seconds be fore the spacecraft ended its 2.8 billion-mile journey from Earth. “We haven’t lost a spacecraft, we’ve gained a n'ew stepping stone in exploration,”’ .said Torrence Johnson, the mission’s project scientist. Rosaly Lopes, another scientist on the mission, called Galileo’s descent “a spectacular end to a spectacular mission.” “Personally, I am a little sad: I had the time of my life on Galileo and I’m a little sad to say good bye to an old friend,” Lopes added. Despite the glitches that plagued Galileo since its 1989 launch aboard the space shuttle Atlantis, it was one of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s most fruitful missions. During its thrice-extended mission, Galileo discovered the first moon of an asteroid, wit nessed the impact of a comet into Jupiter and provided firm evi dence of salty oceans on three of , the planet’s moons. Scientists consider one of the three, Europa, the most likely place in the solar system to harbor extraterrestri al life. ' . Among the most stunning of the 14,000 images returned by Galileo were those of the moon Io. Galileo caught some of the moon’s more than 150 volcanoes actively spewing lava and plumes of dust and gas. “It had more surprises, better stuff waiting to be discovered than we ever could have imag ined,” said Aridy Ingersol, a Jupiter scientist at the California Institute of Technology. The last of Galileo’s science measurements arrived on Earth after the spacecraft was destroyed Sunday, taking 43 minutes to cross half a billion miles of space „ at the speed of light. ”1 just can’t believe the space - craft collected data all the way in,” said a tearful Claudia Alexander, Galileo’s seventh and last project manager. Galileo is the first planetary spacecraft NASA has intention ally destroyed since it steered the Lunar Prospector into the Earth’s moon in 1999. Israel pauses for birthday amid war-torn Mideast BY DAN PERRY THE ASSOCIATED HIIESS TEL AVIV, ISRAEL - A parade of global figures — from Bill Clinton and Mikhail Gorbachev to actress Kathleen Turner — filed into Tel Aviv Sunday to cel ebrate the 80th birthday of for mer prime minister Shimon Peres, the Nobel laureate, vi sionary of peace and oft-failed po litical candidate. The extraordinary guest list reflected global appreciation for Peres’ efforts toward a “New Middle East” — the title of his 1993 book dismissed by many here as utopian — and a longing for the days before the Israeli Palestinian peace process col lapsed in violence that has killed thousands in the last three years. But Israeli critics saw an ex travaganza whose security costs and general disruption suggest ed an oversized ego and some what poor form at a time when fighting continues and the ranks of poor Israelis and Palestinians are swelling. Peres, whose birthday was ac tually last month, says he only went along with the party idea to bring some cheer to the region. It was organized by both supporters and the right-wing Likud govern ment whose policies he opposes. The tight schedule included a reception at the “Peres Center for Peace” in Jaffa, a meeting with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Jerusalem and a gala at a Tel Aviv concert hall — followed I" by a symposium Monday. “I feel strange,” Peres said Sunday. “But it happens once in 80 years, so you can survive.” Peres emigrated from Poland at age 11, but he retains a European accent and genteel manner that, along with a pen chant for parliamentary ma neuvering, lofty pronounce ments and electoral defeat, brought him occasional ridicule. Nonetheless, he has walked the corridors of Israeli power since his 20s, when as a top aide to its founder David Ben Gurion he helped build the young nation’s defenses; in the 1960s, he was instrumental in creating the Dimona nuclear fa cility where Israel reportedly has amassed a stockpile of nuclear weapons. Although in the 1970s Peres was briefly considered a sup porter of the Jewish settler move ment, he soon concluded Israel’s occupation since 1967 of the West Bank and Gaza was not just un fair to the millions of Palestinians who live in the ar eas but a disaster for the Jewish state. He now supports a Palestinian state. After a brief 1977 stint as act ing premier, he ran for the job five times and never won outright. He served two years from 1984 to 1986 after a tied election, using the pe riod to bring down hyperinflation and withdraw troops from much of Lebanon—popular moves that still failed to win him the hearts of the masses. In 1993, as foreign minister, he ; helped push Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin into interim peace accords on Palestinian au tonomy with Yasser Arafat’s PLO, and the three shared the Nobel Peace Prize a year later. Peres served another eight months as premier after Rabin’s 1995 assassination before losing narrowly and unexpectedly to Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu. In 2000, he lost to a Likud back bencher, Moshe Katsav, in a par liamentary vote for the largely ceremonial post of Israeli pres ident. “Peres turns 80 in the feeling that he has not enjoyed the credit he deserves,” columnist Dan Margalit wrote in the Maariv newspaper. “The thanks of the nation (today) are but a brief respite.” Peres implored Sharon, seat ed in the first row at Sunday’s gala, to make peace, saying, “It is closer than you think, and per haps closer than I believe.” But internationally, few Israelis — or former prime min isters of any kind — seem to muster more respect. American entertainment fig ures wished Peres a happy birth day by video at the Tel Aviv cer emony — including Barbara Streisand and comedian Jerry Seinfeld. Filmmaker Woody Allen sent greetings “from a bad Jew to a very great Jew.” Win $25,000 for grad school! , LAW • BUSINESS * GRADUATE « MEDICAL * DENTAL > t 1 J 1 f > One lucky person will win $25,000 toward the first year of law, business, graduate, medical or dental school. To enter, visit www.kaptest.com/25k by October 31, 2003. 1 NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER (JR WIN open to legal «»• of Columbia * Canada (ewAudtog the Pro-dm* of Queheni ami students reskteyg ON A STUDENT VISA >n toese eligible jurisdictions who are Ck ’ ^B ll II ^B i V 1 eighteen (18; years Ot a*e Or oM*r as of August 13. 2003 UVUT ^B B * B j/M • I 1 H One entry i*ff person. 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Marketing Dept 1440 Broadway. 9th Row New York New YUrk 10018 Russell House University Union Priority Reservations Deadlines Spring 2004 Carolina Productions.by September 23, 2003 (See STAF 3.25 Policy alwww.sc.edu/policies/staf/staf325.html) T Registered Student Organizations...by September 25, 2003 -1. tltv X (See STAF 3.25 Policy at www.sc.edu/policies/staf/staf325.html) SEPTEMBER 25, 2003 Other.after September 29, 2003 Priority Reservations Lottery (See STAF 3.25 Policy at www.sc.edu/policies/staf/staf325.html) 2nd Floor Lobby Russell House _ __ September 25, 2003 NOTE: Academic Space will not be reserved until February 2064 9:00 A.M. - 1st Ballroom Date 10:00 A.M. - 2nd Ballroom Date For more Information, contact the Event Because of high demand for space in the Russell House a lottery system is used to ensure equal Services Office at 777*7127 or stop by distribution of space to registered student organizations. The highest level of demand is lor Ballroom Russell House 21S ' reservations, however, the lottery system will apply to oil re serve ble spaces in the Russell House.