The ‘prison ship’ off the Haitian coast
January 28th, 2010 | Blogs Life at Sea Maritime operations Ships | Posted by Phil Ewing
The amphibious assault ship Bataan stood off the coast of Haiti this week as its crew and Marines contributed to the international rescue mission // MC2 Julio Rivera / Navy
Y’never know what’s going to pop up in a Google Alert these days: From the risible-and-disappointing file comes this gem about the amphibious assault ship Bataan — whose aircraft, crew and landing craft have been working nonstop helping with the humanitarian crisis in Haiti — conducting secret “experiments” on the “prisoners” kept aboard.
Bataan actually did transport terror suspects back in the day, and according to the “Islam Times,” it has kept that assignment:
The ship’s flat hold bottom, designed to accommodate troops for disembarkment, has been equipped with cages. Prisoners are subjected to the same experiments as in Guantánamo… It appears highly unlikely that the prisoners were taken to another location after the earthquake and that the ship was overhauled to allow for the transportation of troops.
Right, see, so, the U.S. was in such a hurry to deliver badly needed food, water and medicine to earthquake-ravaged Haiti that it didn’t have time to rip out the experiment-cages in Bataan’s “flat hold bottom,” and the ship had to sail with its poor victims still down there.
Oddly, Scoop Deck’s senior shipmate Mark D. Faram happens to have just left Bataan after almost two weeks aboard and in Haiti — and y’know, it’s the strangest thing! — he said he didn’t see any of that.
“I’ll admit the evidence is overwhelming, but I didn’t see any cages or experiments going on,” Mark says. “Now, sometimes I felt like a prisoner — but that was it.”
Tags: Haiti