Talk:Johnny Micheal Spann

npov -- see talk

The article currently describes the riot at the prison as a prisoner uprising.

This interpretation is merely one interpretation. It is not supported by the accounts from the prisoners themselves.

Several dozen Guantanamo captives face continued detention, in part, because they were present at the prison, during the riot. The transcripts from a dozen or so of these captives offer different interpretations.

I know DoD spokesmen say we should discount anything the captives say that does not correspond to the official line from the Bush administration, because al Qaeda used a training manual that told captives to lie.

Several captives describe a prison that was bursting at its seams due to the policy of paying Afghan warlords $5,000 a pop for every captive they turned over. Several captives describe being rounded up, at gunpoint, at random, by a dragnet in Kunduz. They described being herded into trucks, that had a sprinkling of broken weapons on the floor, and driven to the prison, where they saw an American pay their captors money. They said the weapons were thrown into a big pile at the prison gate.

Several captives describe the being lead out of the dungeon, two at a time, where they were forced to strip to their underwear, shackled, and then lead to a fixed point in the fort's courtyard, where they were forced to kneel, silently, while the rest of the captives were processed. They describe sudden gunfire. They describe nearby companions being killed, as they fled for cover.

Several captives describe still being in the dungeon, as the captives were being lead out. They describe hearing an explosion, and gunfire, at the dungeon's doorway. They describe a wild panic as other captives trampled one another as they tried to escape. They describe avoiding the crush at the door, and seeking another exit, so they survived the grenade explosions that killed everyone trying to escape.

Several captives acknowledge being low level Taliban soldiers, buck privates, and conscripts, who were directed to go to Mazari Sharif to surrender.

Several captives describe themselves as refugees, who were told that the best way to get home was to proceed to Mazari Sharif, and surrender themselves to the Americans there.

One of the captives was a Pakistani truck driver. His account offers more details. He acknowledged working for the Taliban, as a driver, but denied being a member of the Taliban. He acknowledged that the Taliban had to fill the ranks of its civil service and support industries through involuntary conscription -- a press gang -- because decades of warfare had largely stripped Afghanistan of skilled workers, or even the minimum necessary workforce of literate and numerate workers. But the Taliban didn't press-gang truck drivers, because it would be impossible to keep them impressed when they were making a delivery, and could just drive away.

The truck driver said he was paid to deliver a truckload of prisoners to the prison at Mazari Sharif. He delivered the prisoners, but the approach to the prison was so crowded and chaotic that he ended up being directed to drive away before the weapons on his truck bed were removed.

He described being stopped by one truck full of armed men, who wanted to seize his truck, and the weapons it contained, when another truck with a different gang of armed men drove up, and got into a gun-battle over the weapons in his truck.

During the firing he was able to slip away. But the first villager he asked for help took him prisoner, kept him for several weeks, and eventually turned him in for a bounty.

So, was the riot at Mazari Sharif a prison uprising?

• Maybe the commandant was assembling the captives to give them a speech? But, if so, why bind their hands and strip them of their clothing?
• Maybe the shooting started when guards, who felt overwhelmed by the ratio of prisoners to guards paniced, and started shooting?
• Maybe the commandant wanted to cull the captives, because he had too many than could be handled by the number of guards?
  • If so maybe the cull, or massacre, wasn't authorized by the CIA, and Spann heroically tried to stop it?
  • Or maybe the cull was authorized by the CIA, and Spann was a victim of friendly fire?
  • Maybe a small group of desperate captives realized that they were being herded into a massacre, and rose up at the last minute.

    • THAT IS ALL SPECULATIVE UNLESS YOU WERE A PRISONER -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by Melissaky (talk • contribs) 22:18, 2008 February 13

There are accounts that Hazrat Ali, another warlord and drug kingpin, massacred his prisoners, without drawing publicity to the event

Stating any of the other possibilities as a fact, in article space, would be a violation of WP:NOR and WP:SYN. But, I believe, stating as a certain fact, that the riot was a prisoner uprising, does not comply with WP:NPOV.

Cheers! Geo Swan 15:21, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Forgive me for not shedding a tear because TERRORISTS were crowded in cells and handcuffed by rude guards. The people in the WTC probably would have traded places with any of them. -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by Melissaky (talk • contribs) 22:17, 2008 February 13

And you know they were terrorists how?

Look into the details and you will find that while the thousands of captives handed over to the USA did include some individuals who could meaningfully be described as terrorists, they amounted to dozens -- less than one hundred. Almost all the captives were innocent bystanders or Taliban footsoldiers -- who were generally monoglot, illiterate involuntary conscripts. Geo Swan (talk) 14:00, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Melissaky, you are an idiot! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.205.161.218 (talk) 00:04, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

unexplained edit

I left a note on the talk page of a new user whose edit I reverted. Geo Swan (talk) 14:20, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Micheal or Michael?

Can someone check wether its middle name is Micheal or Michael ? Both are written in the article. Rob1bureau (talk) 13:38, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Are you a member of the IRA?

I do not mean any disrespect to this guy. But am I only the only who think that his comment 'are you a member of the IRA?' when he hit John Walker Lindh in the head was pretty stupid. Did he have any idea that the Irish Republican Army is a Catholic-based armed group? Why would an IRA fighter be in a Muslim fundamentalist hotbed in Afghanistan? Are CIA officers this thick-headed without any solid grip of history and current political situation? No wonder, they always get things wrong. Marthasmith31 (talk) 07:20, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Martha, you ask whether Mr Spann was aware how unlikely it was for a Catholic IRA member would be working with the Taliban?

A little known fact -- one of the Guantanamo captives, held for at least four years -- was a Catholic.

Albeit, he was not an Irish Catholic, he was an Iranian Catholic. What was he doing in Afghanistan? He was also a junkie, a very serious junkie. He supported his habit by dealing drugs. His own dealer decided to change his assignment The Catholic drug addict's own dealer the king-pin of his own drug smuggling ring. Following the overthrow of the Taliban he decided to send the Catholic, in place of his regular couriers. My reading of the transcripts from this guy's hearings is that his kingpin considered him expendable. So he was sent to Afghanistan, on a drug buy, because he was expendable, because he owed the kingpin tens of thousands of dollars. When the situation in Afghanistan stabilized and he could bribe officials with the new regime, he would start sending more valuable couriers.

In his testimony he describes the excitement of the local militiamen who captured him. He was clearly a foreigner, and all the local militiamen knew that the USA was paying $5000 for the capture of any Arab. A couple of the local militiamen spoke Iranian, knew he wasn't an "Arab", and showed him some sympathy. The record shows that the other intelligence types in Afghanistan who paid out those bounties were completely credulous. The record shows the USA's bounty paymasters believed all kinds of incredible claims.

Many Guantanamo captives never received any mail. The Catholic captive did receive mail, from the drug kingpin, threatening to kill his children, unless he returned to Afghanistan with the drugs he was sent to buy.

That an IRA operative was working with the Taliban, or Al Qaeda is not really an more incredible than that Saddam Hussein would share his vast arsenal of WMD with Al Qaeda. Did you ever see the Naked Gun comedies? One of them starts with the hero breaking into a Boardroom, where sitting at the Boardroom table are Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Fidel Castro, Kim Il Sung, and someone obviously meant to represent the IRA.

What happened to the Catholic Iranian junkie? He was cleared for repatriation in 2005. This doesn't mean he was repatriated. Captives aren't supposed to be repatriated to their own countries if that would be too dangerous for them. But it means that he stopped generating the kinds of documents that the DoD has been forced to publish. The last letter he received from the drug kingpin was that he had murdered one of the junkie's daughters.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 10:42, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment. Though I must insist that being "a Catholic IRA" assisting the Taliban doesn't make any sense at all. In your discussion, I doubt that the Iranian Catholic junkie was sent because he was Catholic, but perhaps because he might have been capable of closing the deal for the drug-buy. I doubt your argument that the Persian junkie was sent because he was expendable. Why would a drug kingpin sent someone who's expendable on account of his religion and (implied) incompetence when closing a drug-buy would entail tremendous amount of money? Pretty far-fetched if you ask me. Drug lords are first and foremost businessmen, right? About the Naked Gun parable, I say come on. Drawing geopolitical parallel from a badly-scripted lampoon hardly inspires intelligent discourse on why would a CIA officer insisted that American Talib Lindh was an IRA operative. That is fuzzy logic, if you asked me. I know though that Libya's Qaddafy assisted the IRA and other groups in the past. But he did so not because they were Catholic, but because these motley groups espoused some form of direct revolutionary politics, which Qaddafy once promoted. And did you ever wonder why would an American poke his nose into the IRA issue? The IRA never really bothered Uncle Sam in the first place, right. Hell, some Irish-American folks in the US government might even have sympathies for the group. But why would Spann ask that question? Did he do work for the Brits on the sides? These are just issues I wish someone would objectively tackle for the sake of honest, disinterested discourse.Marthasmith31 (talk) 03:42, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Time to balance the Bravado Stuff about Spann's death

"His memorial at the Arlington National Cemetery states that he fought with his AK-47 until it ran out of ammunition, then drew his pistol and emptied it, before turning to hand to hand combat which saw him shot.[3]"

That's nice for a tombstone. This is a Wikipedia entry and not a tombstone memorial. Let's be fair and balanced. This is what Time Magazine states about Michael Spann's death:

"According to members of a German television crew who were later trapped in the fort with Dave, Spann asked the prisoners who they were and why they joined the Taliban. They massed around him. 'Why are you here?' Spann asked one. 'To kill you,' came the reply as the man lunged at Spann's neck. Spann drew his pistol and shot the man dead. Dave shot another, then grabbed an AK-47 from an Alliance guard and opened fire. According to eyewitness accounts given to the German team, the Taliban fighters launched themselves at Spann, scrabbling at his flesh with their hands, kicking and beating him. Spann killed two more with his pistol before he disappeared under the crush."

Spann picked off 3 or 4 with his PISTOL while DAVE, the unsung hero, actually opened fire with an AK-47 he desperately grabbed from an Afghan Northern Alliance soldier.

Spann fought with his pistol, the Taliban fought with their bare hands and killed him. Sorry. No Chuck Norris story here. My sympathies to the Spann family, but I am tired of the unjust politically motivated redactions of historical material related to the events surrounding 9/11. Thankfully, some remain untainted which I have cited.

I am changing this Wiki entry to reflect this information cited from TIME MAGAZINE. It better not be amended without some seriously clear justification. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shiblizaman (talk • contribs) 04:17, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

REVISIONISM

They didnt "fight back" nor kill any taleban with pistols or ak-47's or anything of the sort, they were abusing the prisoners that because of this turned on them and killed Spann with a hand grenade. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.156.138.236 (talk) 12:33, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

And which verifiable source do you base this on? MWShort (talk) 15:29, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Spann and the other pigs were abusing the prisoners with the usual and known CIA methods of interrogation. At that time, Spann's role as a torturer was clearly reported, despite some American editors attempts, including here at Wikipedia, to whitewash Spann's reputation. Now, it seems that North America won again. Spann is a hero and a man with honor! A sad and black joke against opressed people around the world, in ALL FIVE continents where corporate America landed with its prostitute army and CIA. Shame on you, shitty Wikipedia!200.142.114.24 (talk) 15:53, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Spann was a rat and died as a pig. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.147.72.18 (talk) 05:58, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I think John Walker Lindh gave an interview early on claiming the prisoners had a rebellion because they were being murdered by Spann. I don't know if that is true at all but it's something that ought to be brought out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.253.6.229 (talk) 03:51, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

First Name?

Was his given first name "John", "Johnny", or "Jonathan"? Slowpoke1 20:45, 18 March 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Slowpoke1 (talk • contribs)

Sources

There are whole paragraphs on here without any source whatsoever to back up this hero. Start working on it before I do. The comment about a Catholic is ridiculous. The guy in G-Bay was Iranian and captured afterwards. Boils (talk) 13:41, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Who was the first member of the American Military killed in Afganistan?

Spann was CIA, not military. Can we have a link to the first soldiers killed, or would that bring too much attention to the fact they were "friendly fire" deaths? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.207.2.2 (talk) 14:50, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

No citation - NPOV concerns

I removed the following from the article, due to no citation: Afghan doctors on site at the time of the riot gave the Spann family the following account:

Mike Spann’s family visited the fortress after his death. They talked to Afghan doctors who will never forget his bravery. “They said they thought Mike might run and retreat, but he held his position and fought using his AK rifle until out of ammo, and then drew and began firing his pistol,” Spann’s father said. “While watching Mike fight they were able to jump up and run to safety. They said the only reason that they and several others were able to live was because Mike stood his position and fought off the prisoners while enabling them the time to run to safety. The doctors stated that as they fled toward a safe haven they saw Mike run out of ammo and then witnessed him fighting hand to hand until he was overcome by the numerous al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners.

Also, the article seems like it suffers from lack of NPOV; needs a cleanup. Arfed (talk) 16:54, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Killed in combat

Wasn't Spann killed in a riot rather than in combat?Royalcourtier (talk) 05:56, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

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