About Those Sonic Weapons in China and Cuba

Posted on July 23, 2018July 23, 2018 by Denise Simon

When it comes to Cuba and China, getting any real cooperation is for the most part impossible. The matter of U.S. diplomatic personnel in both countries being affected with several health issues due to some kind of sonic weapon is a scandal few mention anymore. Actually is it any less important than the attacks on our posts in Benghazi, not to diminish the tragic deaths? The use of sonic weapons is an attack on our sovereign territory.

Let’s go deeper.

In a page taken from a Cold War-era playbook, existing evidence clearly suggests that sonic weapons are being used to attack American diplomatic officials in Cuba and China. The U.S. should operate as if this is a provocation that crosses a number of red lines, and it should consider stronger retaliatory actions against both governments.

More than 20 news sources in recent months have dubbed these incidents as a “mystery” or “perplexing.” No news source has been willing to recognize it as a strategic, deliberate action against our diplomatic officials. Thus, the only “mystery” is why the U.S. has not been more aggressive in pushing back against and increasing the consequences for the perpetrators, most likely official elements in China and Cuba. Fear of damaging the “normalization project” between the U.S. and Cuba should not encourage denial of what appears to be deliberate, hostile actions.

In late 2016, U.S. diplomats in Cuba reported serious medical ailments related to incidents that occurred over several months and initially appeared to be linked to sonic attacks. Many of the victims reported strange sounds that were incapacitating and led to a series of medical symptoms, including hearing loss, cognitive issues, temporary imbalance, even mild traumatic brain injuries. Several victims have undergone rehabilitation and every victim is anticipated to return to work eventually. Nonetheless, these patients likely will need to be monitored for the rest of their lives, to determine the full impact of these attacks.
In June, U.S. officials in China faced similar attacks that affected at least one diplomat. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the incident was “similar” and “entirely consistent” with what happened in Cuba.

There are studies that have proposed possible explanations based on experiments, but these tests were limited and did not account for potential physiological damage. A University of Michigan study examined whether ultrasound could be the potential cause of the incidents in Cuba. This experiment led to various possible explanations including ultrasonic emitters – intended for eavesdropping – that produced audible tones that inadvertently may have harmed U.S. diplomats.

The incidents in Cuba targeted 24 government officials and their spouses in specific hotel rooms or private residences; some individuals reported that shifting even a few feet within the room made the auditory sensations cease. Medical examiners have recognized that, while these symptoms could come from viral infections, given the pattern of injuries it is likely the result of a “non-natural cause.” There are some technologies from the Cold War era that could be the source, and intelligence officials are investigating that possibility.

Given the similarities in the attacks and the lack of robust research and development efforts in Cuba, it is plausible that the technology was given to Cuba by the Chinese. China has recently become interested in non-lethal weapons, having developed a weapon known as the Poly WB-1, a long-range pain beam that can be used to break up protests or riots.

China has strong diplomatic and economic ties to Cuba, is Cuba’s number one trading partner, whereby Cuba imported $1.8 billion in goods from China in 2015; President Xi has visited Cuba on several occasions between 2014 and 2015. China has much deeper ties to Latin America and the Caribbean than 15 years ago; it is very plausible that China has military and intelligence links with Cuba. As recently as March 2017, China’s former Defense Minister, Chang Wanquan, met with Leopoldo Cintra Frias, Cuba’s Head of Revolutionary Armed Forces with the hope of improving military cooperation.

The U.S. expelled 15 Cuban Embassy officials – roughly 60 percent of the Cuban Embassy staff – after the 2016 attack, though the diplomatic positions of these individuals remain a mystery. Likewise, the U.S. pulled around 60 percent of its 54 personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Cuba, removing all “nonessential personnel.” The incident in China has not yet led to any expulsion of Chinese Embassy officials although, following these most recent attacks, Secretary Pompeo has called for a taskforce to investigate the possible causes.

Congress held a hearing on the incident in January. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) and Ranking Member Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) wrote a letter to the heads of the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control, calling upon them to investigate the matter.

If these investigations prove what appears to be the case – strategic and deliberate hostile actions – then, clearly, much stronger action is needed.

These recent incidents follow decades of low-level harassment of U.S. Embassy staff overseas. Many U.S. diplomats in Cuba have reported incidents of suspicious behavior, invasion of privacy, poisoning of family pets, and other forms of harassment similar to attacks used in Russia on U.S. diplomats.

Given the continued provocations, it is time to admit that these governments see us as adversaries and are likely taking actions against us. China certainly does, given the recent leak of a Chinese memo in February revealing China’s aim to surpass U.S. military strength. Likewise, Cuba does not want normalization of relations; for many years the dictatorship under both Castros has aimed at protecting “the revolution,” and a recent speech by Cuba’s newly appointed dictator, Miguel Diaz-Canel, suggests he does not want normalization either.

We need to address this diplomatically and consider a variety of options, including possibly expelling senior Cuban and Chinese diplomats, until what are very likely purposeful attacks on our personnel stop. We cannot have a normal relationship if we are being abused. We should recognize that this is part of standard operating procedures of both countries, and we need to increase the consequences.

Daniel Runde is a Senior Vice President and William A. Schreyer Chair in Global Analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He previously worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development, the World Bank Group, and in investment banking, with experience in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.

***

The LRAD sound cannon is one of the better-known acoustic weapons designed to disperse crowds or disable a hostile target. It emits bursts of loud, irritating sounds that can discourage violent behavior.

Aside from being annoyed from an ear walloping, those targeted can also experience effects like headaches and nausea.

Sound as ammo

Since acoustic weapons use sound, these weapons deliver what could be described as “invisible” attacks.

One interesting twist in acoustic weaponry is Raytheon’s research into a “sonic shield.” Towards the end of 2011, Raytheon filed a very interesting patent for this weapon.

Both shield and weapon

The Sonic Shield looks and functions like the riot shield that military and law enforcement use – but this shield is also a weapon.

Typically, acoustic weapons use sound against a target’s sense of hearing. But rather than target the ear, this acoustic weapon targets the lungs.

It would unleash this invisible “ammo” in a way that can cause the sensation of suffocation. So if you were a target, you would suddenly have a sense of suffocation but have no idea what was causing it – because the beam can not be seen.

The user can choose the intensity and unleash the invisible acoustic “ammo” at a level meant to warn and deter through to one intended to “temporarily incapacitate.”

Blasting wall of sound

According to the patent, Raytheon also aimed for a bunch of shields to be able to coordinate and work together to deliver a wall of sound.

The networked shields would provide a powerful combined beam. One shield could be designated as the lead or “master” shield, with the others being subserviant. The master shield would direct and coordinate the beam patterns.

A team of shields would deliver a more sophisticated beam with better power, range than the capabilities of a single shield.

For example, they could be used to create a more effective perimeter in a large riot scenario when trying to contain a dangerous situation.

How does it work?

The sonic shield looks and functions like a riot shield. It is a fortified “shell” with one side for the user and the other to face the target.

There is an acoustic horn as well as a sonic pulse generator built into the physical shell of the shield. This sonic pulse generator creates the acoustic pulses that blast out through the horn directed at the target.

When the user fires, the shield triggers the sonic pulse generator to generate a shot. The shot can include a burst of multiple pulses at a repetition rate fixed (or varied) for each of three settings: Warn, Stun or Incapacitate.

The shield could also be equipped with a sensor that measures the distance to the target. If the target moves, then the weapon could automatically adjust to maintain the same pressure. More here.

***

In fact, LRAD, which is 33 inches in diameter and looks like a giant spotlight, has been used by the U.S. military in Iraq and at sea as a non-lethal force. In these settings, operators can use the device not only to convey orders, but also as a weapon.
When in weapon mode, LRAD blasts a tightly controlled stream of caustic sound that can be turned up to high enough levels to trigger nausea or possibly fainting. The operators themselves remain unaffected since the noise is contained in its focused beam.
“We’ve devised a system with a multiplicity of individual speakers that are phased so sound that would normally go off to the side or up or down, cancels out, while sound directly in front is reinforced,” Norris explained. “It’s kind of like the way a lens magnifies a beam of light.” The Department of Defense gave Norris and his team funding to develop LRAD following the 9/11 attacks. The concept is to offer an intermediate tool to warn and ward off attacking combatants before resorting to force.

Under New Leadership, Cuba Moderating?

Posted on July 23, 2018July 23, 2018 by Denise Simon

The constitutional reforms, which have not been approved but were broadly outlined in the official Granma newspaper, were prepared by a commission headed by former ruler Raúl Castro. They include creating the post of prime minister, who would be in charge of the Council of Ministers and the administration of the government, in collaboration with a president and vice president.

“The changes indicate they are splitting up the political control in order to improve the socialist system,” said Andy Gómez, an academic who recently retired from the University of Miami.

One of the key questions raised by the proposed reforms, as outlined in Granma, is how much power Miguel Díaz-Canel, recently selected as president of the Council of State and the Council of the Ministers, would retain in the new government configuration. More here.

A draft of Cuba’s new constitution backs away from a stated goal of furthering communism and opens the door for legal recognition of private businesses and gay marriage, according to a new report.

Cuba’s current constitution was drafted in 1976 and outlines a goal of building a communist society. Cuba’s national assembly is reportedly debating a draft of an updated constitution that seeks to redefine the role of communism in the country.

Among the changes is a recognition of private property, Homero Acosta, the secretary of the council of state, said, according to a Reuters report.

The addition marks a significant recognition of private businesses, which have taken off in recent years as the Cuban government sought to pull itself from the economic crisis prompted by the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The new draft constitution also defines marriage as a marriage between two people, according to Reuters – a marked change from the 1976 document, which discusses marriage as being between one man and one woman.

The change could pave the way for gay marriage in Cuba.

Despite the changes, the draft of the new constitution still places an emphasis on the role of the Communist Party of Cuba and the “socialist character” of the country, according to Granma, the party-controlled newspaper.

“This does not mean we are renouncing our ideas,” National Assembly Esteban Lazo said. “We believe in a socialist, sovereign, independent, prosperous and sustainable country.”

The draft constitution also calls for term limits on the president – an office that was held for decades by Fidel Castro and, later, his brother Raul. Raul Castro handed power to his protege, Miguel Diaz-Canal, in April.

Facts are Stubborn Things Regarding Immigrants

Posted on June 26, 2018June 26, 2018 by Denise Simon

So, a friend sent an article to me written by Victor David Hansen and published by National Review. It is about Mexico and this presidential candidate and the threat he has made to the United States. He encouraging a mass exodus of his own people to the United States. Why? Money. There is a protected $70 billion trade surplus for Mexico under NAFTA. Another item is, illegal immigrants and Mexican nationals remit $30 billion back to Mexico.

Hansen’s article is here for the full read and context.

So, doing just a few minutes of research, it seems countless left-leaning media operations are all stating that illegals are not only not eligible for entitlement programs while in the United States, they don’t get any Federal dollars. What?

In a 2013 study, meaning 5+ years ago, there were at the time 3.7 million unlawful immigrant households in the U.S. The financial burden was determined to be $54.5 billion at the time. Now, we can’t seem to get to a real true number of illegals in the United States. It ranges from 11 million to 20 million. But hey, we take in an estimate 500,000 each year….so 20 million appears to be a more accurate number.

That 2013 report also revealed: Unlawful immigration and amnesty for current unlawful immigrants can pose large fiscal costs for U.S. taxpayers. Government provides four types of benefits and services that are relevant to this issue:

Direct benefits.

These include Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation.
Means-tested welfare benefits. There are over 80 of these programs which, at a cost of nearly $900 billion per year, provide cash, food, housing, medical, and other services to roughly 100 million low-income Americans. Major programs include Medicaid, food stamps, the refundable Earned Income Tax Credit, public housing, Supplemental Security Income, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
Public education.

At a cost of $12,300 per pupil per year, these services are largely free or heavily subsidized for low-income parents.
Population-based services. Police, fire, highways, parks, and similar services, as the National Academy of Sciences determined in its study of the fiscal costs of immigration, generally have to expand as new immigrants enter a community; someone has to bear the cost of that expansion. Read that report here and then consider any updated statistics.

Further in 2017, illegals do receive benefits from the SNAP program. That summary is here.

With the Supreme Court decision today on the travel conditions regarding a handful of countries and presidential authority, it speaks to properly investigating and vetting those who come into our country. For those that flow across the border, we simply cant do that. Once here, our system is designed for those illegals to not be responsible or accountable for their illegal and fugitive actions or their status.

Just the mere fact they are in the United States is an entitlement in and of itself. They receive protections real citizens never receive. There is the matter of reduced or free college tuition, like that offered in Illinois.

The highest welfare use rates for immigrants are in New York (30 percent), California (28 percent), Massachusetts (25 percent), and Texas (25 percent).

Immigrants are eleven percent of our population, but they are 20 percent of the poor population. Unless our immigration policies are reevaluated and changed accordingly, welfare usage and subsequent costs will remain high.

Instead of addressing the problem, some in Congress have suggested measures that would make it even worse, such as proposals to increase immigrants’ eligibility for benefits. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that making legal immigrants eligible for Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) would cost an estimated $2.24 billion over ten years. More here.

There has been no real factoring on the cost to DHS and the taxpayer for ICE ad CBP. Then there is detention, the judicial process, deportation, ATF, DEA, education, and, and and…

Have you considered how many we are housing in jails and prisons? Have you considered the job you have where you may not be promoted as you don’t speak Spanish or perhaps not getting hired at all?

So, while Victor David Hansen has the summary very right, there are many more piece parts to the debate. Lastly, imagine the foreign aid given to countries that are exporting their human capital, criminals and entitlement seekers so money can be sent back.

Hey China, the U.S. Should Include the Cost of Espionage in Trade Deficit

Posted on June 22, 2018June 22, 2018 by Denise Simon

Let’s begin here: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, June 21, 2018

Chinese National Arrested for Conspiring to Illegally Export U.S. Origin Goods Used in Anti-Submarine Warfare to China

Defendant allegedly illegally exported devices used to detect and monitor sound underwater

BOSTON – A Chinese national was arrested today and charged in connection with violating export laws by conspiring with employees of an entity affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to illegally export U.S. origin goods to China, as well as making false statements to obtain a visa to enter the United States and to become a lawful permanent resident under the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Visa Program.

Shuren Qin, 41, a Chinese national residing in Wellesley, Mass., was charged in a criminal complaint with one count of visa fraud and one count of conspiring to commit violations of U.S. export regulations. Qin was arrested today and will appear in federal court in Boston on June 22, 2018.

According to charging documents, Qin was born in the People’s Republic of China and became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 2014. Qin operates several companies in China, which purport to import U.S. and European goods with applications in underwater or marine technologies into China. It is alleged that Qin was in communication with and/or receiving taskings from entities affiliated with the PLA, including the Northwestern Polytechnical University (NWPU), a Chinese military research institute, to obtain items used for anti-submarine warfare. (..)

LCS Mission Packages: The Basics - USNI News photo

Okay, how about this one?

The submarine contractor breach, recently reported by the Washington Post, reflects this intense focus on bridging any technological advantage the US may have. It involved attacks in January and February that nabbed important data, albeit from an unclassified network. When taken together, though, the information would have amounted to a valuable snapshot of US cutting edge underwater weapons development, plus details on a number of related digital and mechanical systems.

The attack fits into a known pattern of Chinese hacking initiatives. “China will continue to use cyberespionage and bolster cyberattack capabilities to support [its] national security priorities,” US director of national intelligence Daniel Coats wrote in a February threat report. “The [Intelligence Community] and private-sector security experts continue to identify ongoing cyberactivity from China…Most detected Chinese cyberoperations against US private industry are focused on cleared defense contractors or IT and communications firms.”

This week, analysts from Symantec also published research on a series of attacks in the same category from November 2017 to April from a hacking group dubbed Thrip. Though Symantec does not go so far as to identify Thrip as Chinese state-sponsored hackers, it reports “with high confidence” that Thrip attacks trace back to computers inside the country. The group, which Symantec has tracked since 2013, has evolved to hide in plain site by mostly using prefab malware to infiltrate networks and then manipulating administrative controls and other legitimate system tools to bore deeper without setting off alarms. All of these off-the-shelf hacking tools and techniques have made Thrip harder to identify and track—which is likely the idea—but Symantec started to notice patterns in their anomaly detection scanners that ultimately gave these attacks away, and led the researchers to a unique backdoor that implicated Thrip.

The researchers found evidence of intrusions at some southeast Asian telecom firms, a US geospatial imagery company, a couple of private satellite companies including one from the US, and a US defense contractor. The breaches were all deliberate and targeted, and in the case of the satellite firms the hackers moved all the way through to reach the control systems of actual orbiting satellites, where they could have impacted a satellite’s trajectory or disrupted data flow. More here from Wired.

As if that is not enough to begin charging China, how about this?

U.S. military pilots flying aircraft over the East China Sea have been targeted by blinding laser attacks more than 20 times over the last 10 months, U.S. officials told The Japan Times, after a number of similar attacks in East Africa that the Pentagon has said Chinese military personnel were behind.

The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said the attacks in the waterway, where the Chinese military has bolstered its operations, were first reported last September. The incidents were believed to have come from a range of sources, “both ashore and from fishing vessels,” spokeswoman Maj. Cassandra Gesecki said.

Indo-Pacific Command said it would not go into specifics about the incidents, but media reports quoting unidentified U.S. officials said some of the fishing boats were Chinese-flagged vessels. Officials wouldn’t definitively confirm that Chinese personnel were behind all of the incidents.

Beijing operates a “maritime militia” of Chinese fishing boats, which it trains and subsidizes with sophisticated gear such as GPS equipment. Such vessels have played an important role in China asserting its various territorial claims in the East and South China Seas.

Chinese personnel at the country’s first overseas military base in Djibouti had been using lasers to interfere with U.S. military aircraft at a nearby American base, activity that has resulted in injuries to U.S. pilots and prompted the U.S. to launch a formal diplomatic protest with Beijing.

However, unlike the Djibouti incidents, where military-grade lasers had been employed in some cases, the East China Sea incidents involved smaller, commercial-grade laser pointers popularly known as “cat grade” lasers because pet owners have known to use to play with their animals. Even so, these types of lasers have been known to temporarily blind pilots and, in some cases, cause eye damage.

“In light of these recent incidents, units operating in the area are conducting an assessment of their laser eye protection equipment,” Gesecki said.

While Chinese fishing vessels have long operated in the East China Sea, the country’s military has embarked on a military modernization program heavily promoted by President Xi Jinping, who has overseen a shift in focus toward creating a more potent fighting force. This has included projects such as building a second aircraft carrier, integrating stealth fighters into the air force and fielding an array of advanced missiles that can strike air and sea targets from long distances.

In a demonstration of its continued push to refine its power-projection capabilities and push further into the Western Pacific Ocean, the Chinese military in April conducted drills in the Pacific with its sole operating aircraft carrier.

The East China Sea is home to a long-running dispute between China and Japan over the Senkaku Islands, which are controlled by Japan but also claimed by China, which calls them the Diaoyu. Japanese defense chief Itsunori Onodera said in April that Chinese activity — including naval and coast guard patrols in the waters — “has expanded and accelerated” in recent years as it seeks to assert its territorial claims.

But the activity goes beyond military.

Beijing has also used its maritime militia to hassle Japanese fishermen and the Japan Coast Guard in a bid to better enforce its claims in the East China Sea, experts say.

If the Chinese military is not directly involved in the laser incidents, it could be directing — at some level — the maritime militia to target U.S. pilots.

Although the U.S. has not taking a position on the sovereignty of the Senkakus, it has repeatedly said that they fall under its treaty obligations to defend Japan’s territory if it is attacked.

In closing, remember:

On May 23, the US State Department announced that one embassy worker in Guangzhou experienced “subtle and vague, but abnormal, sensations of sound and pressure” before being diagnosed with symptoms similar to those found in the diplomatic personnel that were in Cuba, including mild traumatic brain injury.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that at least two more Americans in Guangzhou have experienced similar phenomena and also fallen ill. One of those embassy workers told the Times that he and his wife had heard mysterious sounds and experienced strange headaches and sleeplessness while in their apartment.

After the evacuation of the first diplomatic employee from Guangzhou was announced, the State Department issued a health alert via the US Consulate in Guangzhou telling people that “if you experience any unusual acute auditory or sensory phenomena accompanied by unusual sounds or piercing noises, do not attempt to locate their source. Instead, move to a location where the sounds are not present.”

On June 5, the office of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the establishment of a task force meant to respond to these mysterious incidents, which some have called “sonic attacks.” More here.

CIA Haspel Confirmation: Sen. Warner and Harris can GTH

Posted on May 9, 2018May 9, 2018 by Denise Simon

The open session in the Senate for the confirmation of Gina Haspel to be the new Director of CIA quickly became a contest between Democrats in the committee on who maintained the higher moral authority all at the expense of Gina Haspel. Countless questions were asked in various forms on the enhanced interrogation techniques, torture and the destruction by Jose Rodriguez of the video tapes on an interrogation session with one al Qaeda detainee.

Remember, it is the Democrat party that is good with abortion, late term abortion that is when a fetus can live and thrive outside the womb. Death versus waterboarding…humm and by the way, not one Democrat mentioned that the Army Field Manual included waterboarding and that during SERE training, our military personnel are waterboarded.

The CIA does not do interrogations, it is contracted out to professionals. Document below as explained by an interrogator.

An Interrogator Breaks His Silence by J. Swift (TWS) on Scribd

At the end of the open confirmation session, Senator Burr asked Gina Haspel to explain who Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abd al Rahim al Nashiri were. She responded in detail.

Un tribunal militar de EEUU ultima el juicio al cerebro ... photo

On the matter of al Nashiri, below is a fact that should tell you the reader just how twisted things get regarding the war on terror. Enter Navy Lt. Alaric Piette and al Nashiri. Everyone deserves a lawyer, but c’mon.

The bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen was concocted by al Nashiri along with Fahd al Quso and Jamal al Badawi.

*** Attorney Navy Lt. Alaric Piette, with his SEAL trident topping his uniform, at the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on Nov. 3, 2017. Carol Rosenberg

2017: GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba

After suicide bombers attacked the USS Cole 17 years ago, this young Navy SEAL from Wisconsin would have gladly risked his life on a mission to snatch someone suspected of plotting the attack that killed 17 U.S. sailors.

Now, the former SEAL sits in the war court with the man accused of orchestrating the bombing that killed his shipmates. And Navy Lt. Alaric Piette, 39, is navigating a different kind of treacherous assignment.

Piette, a lawyer for just five years, is the lone attorney in court representing Saudi captive Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, whose long-serving death-penalty defender and two other civilian lawyers quit the case over a clandestine ethical conflict. So across two weeks of court hearings, Piette has answered the trial judge’s instruction to litigate by arguing that until a new capital defender is found, the case cannot go on.

“When military attorneys are assigned to these cases, people just expect us to go along and roll over. And I’m not going to,” Piette said in an interview at the end of a week in which the judge sentenced the Marine general overseeing the defense teams to 21 days confinement for letting Nashiri’s civilian lawyers quit.

Piette was one of the last military attorneys hired on the team led by Rick Kammen, the 71-year-old capital defense attorney from Indiana who for years led a constantly changing cast of military lawyers with a kangaroo pin on his lapel to express his contempt for the war court system.

Their courtroom style is a study in contrasts.

Where Kammen wore a kangaroo pin, Piette wears the coveted trident of a SEAL, the elite Navy unit whose slogan is “the only easy day was yesterday.”

Where Kammen was confrontational in both words and attire, Piette has been nothing but courteous, even as he has explained again and again that he must sit mute alongside Nashiri, litigate no motions and question no witnesses until a qualified death-penalty defense attorney arrives in court.

Nashiri, 52, is accused of orchestrating al-Qaida’s Oct. 12, 2000, bombing of the Cole while it was on a resupply mission off Aden, Yemen. Two men pulled alongside in an explosives-laden skiff, ostensibly to collect the ship’s garbage, then blew themselves up.

Nashiri was captured in Dubai in 2002 and held for four years in the CIA’s Black Sites, where he was waterboarded, rectally abused and subjected to other torture techniques. He was first charged at Guantánamo in 2011, five years after his arrival. All those circumstances have caused delays in getting him to trial.

After a clearly frustrated lead prosecutor Mark Miller fired off an invective against defense lawyers — accusing the Marine general in charge of “obstruction” and the civilian attorneys of adopting a “scorched-earth strategy,” and calling Piette “a potted plant defense” — the soft-spoken Navy lieutenant responded with this:

“What I am asking — the only reason I’m up here now — is to ask the courts, when they’re looking at this on the record, to look deeply and without the hats of cynicism and understand that everybody here cares about justice and getting to the truth.”

Kammen spent years overtly salting the record with asides for a post-conviction appeal in civilian courts. With that remark, Piette did the same.

The contrast doesn’t end there. Kammen started practicing law seven years before Piette was born in Wisconsin to a family of Belgian ancestry. Kammen says he has defended about 40 capital cases, none ending in a death sentence, and has never voluntarily left one before. Kammen handled his first capital case before Piette was in first grade.

Piette has worked on none.

But on one issue they are in agreement: Something secret has gone on at the prison to make it impossible for any defense attorney to trust in the confidentiality of privileged attorney-client conversations. And because it’s classified, neither Nashiri nor the public can know precisely what it is.

Piette says he has the same ethical conflict as the three lawyers who quit: He can’t carry on confidential conversations with Nashiri, and can’t provide the Saudi with a classified explanation. But he has stayed on the case in part because, as a military attorney, it took him longer to get an ethics opinion through Navy channels. By then, Kammen and fellow civilian defenders Rosa Eliades and Mary Spears had all resigned.

“The only reason I think I can stay on right now is because I view my scope of representation as limited solely to getting him a learned counsel, and making sure that his rights aren’t violated while he doesn’t have learned counsel,” Piette said. “I am not representing him on substantive matters for the trial.”

Now, he said, he has a duty to represent Nashiri — not by arguing motions or filing new pleadings but by helping him find capital counsel.

Only after that person is found, gets top secret clearances, reads the record, and finds out about the classified confidentiality problem, might that attorney decide whether he or she is ethically bound to quit the case as well.

The trial judge, Air Force Col. Vance Spath, meantime has been hearing from witnesses on potential trial evidence — basic litigation, as the judge sees it, that any lawyer with court-martial experience can handle.

“Death is different,” says Piette. Last week he responded to every opportunity to argue or cross-examine witnesses by saying the defense has no position because no learned counsel is in court. Spath, who at one point considered holding Piette in contempt, replied on Friday: “There is a position and a strategic decision from the defense and the defense community.”

Three more military defense attorneys are waiting in the wings — two from the Air Force, the other a Marine. None is death-penalty qualified. But, to Spath’s annoyance, Piette sits there alone.

“I think Colonel Spath, whom I have a lot of respect for, is in a bad position,” Piette said, explaining that the Manual for Military Commissions gives the chief defense counsel authority to hire and fire. That authority exists in “no other court in the United States,” he said.

In other U.S. courts an attorney of record must go before a judge to be released from a case. Spath argues his power is the same.

So much so that, after Marine Brig. Gen. John Baker, the chief defense counsel for military commissions, refused to return Kammen and the other civilian attorneys to the case, the judge found the general in contempt of the war court and ordered him confined to his quarters in a trailer park behind the court for 21 days. A senior Pentagon official suspended that sentence after 48 hours.

Piette got to the case in April and only got a clearance to begin seeing classified material in June.

But he said that even while he was a junior lawyer representing sailors accused of housing allowance fraud, he followed Guantánamo’s USS Cole case. Navy colleagues and mentors had served as defense attorneys at the military commissions.

Tom Clancy novels, Michael Bay movies and a shadowy terrorist named Osama bin Laden drew him to the SEALs from high school, Piette said. By his account, he didn’t really know anything about al-Qaida but from the news, but he was well aware of the “audacious” Feb. 26, 1993, first World Trade Center bombing and enlisted four years later.

After six months of indoctrination and Basic Underwater Demolition SEALS training, he was assigned to SEAL Team Two.

“I had joined the Navy because I thought there was this covert war on terror going on,” he said. “I thought it was clear, if they’re willing to do that, they’re not going to stop. So we must be fighting this war out there, that’s a secret nobody knows about. And I wanted to be part of that; thought that would be cool.”

He felt that even more so after the bombing of the USS Cole. “I thought after the Cole happened that we were going to go to war and start doing the things I came in to do. We didn’t. Not until after September 11th.”

Piette says that he never saw combat as a SEAL and never fired a shot outside training, and his missions were mostly “recons” and the occasional “snatch and grab” in Kosovo, a hot area of commando activity at the time. He didn’t know much about who the targets were, but says he believes they were mostly weapons smugglers who were ultimately let go.

Had his team been ordered to snatch someone suspected of being the USS Cole bomber, Piette “would’ve been happy to do it,” he said. “Whoever did this killed my fellow sailors. I would’ve been eager to do it.

“I actually had to have a friend talk me down about my anger about the issue. He said, ‘Look, it’s upsetting but at the same time that’s why we’re here, that’s why we wear the uniform. So we’re the targets.’ ”

Truth be told, he said, had a target ever been identified for a snatch-and grab, that assignment would have no doubt gone to SEAL Team Six, the best of the best. But none was.

It was only after he left the Navy, got a bachelor’s degree at Old Dominion University and went on to study law at Georgetown that he began to think hard about defendants and due process.

He said he studied law “intending to become rich,” and pay for his degree. But at a Georgetown legal clinic he found his calling in criminal defense. If the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia had accepted his application, he said, he never would have turned to the Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps.

In his five years as a naval officer, he has tried 15 cases to court martial verdict. Probably the most serious crime he handled was a sailor accused of attempted murder. Piette, who got it reduced to battery, called it classic prosecution overcharging.

But he says he’s learned a lot from his clients — about human struggle and consequences — and to distrust career prosecutors, whom he describes as “often arrogant and smug.”

“Prosecutors tend to be so judgmental and dismissive of these human beings and think that people make out these well thought-out deliberate choices. It’s just people, living.”

Now the lone defense lawyer in court, he said his time as a SEAL is serving him well. “Sometimes I miss parts of it but I’ve found my calling as a criminal defense lawyer.” Being in the teams taught him “the paramount importance of disciplined and thorough preparation.”

It sounds nerdy, perhaps dull — not exactly fodder for an action thriller. But this is a man who points to his favorite part of the SEAL code as this: “Excel as warriors through discipline and innovation.”