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More trouble at Hotel Guantánamo
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By Victor Tan Chen
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Thursday, July 14, 2005 |
“To be in an 8-by-8 cell in beautiful, sunny Guantanamo, Cuba, is not inhumane treatment.”
—U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
Guantánamo Bay is in the news again. First, F.B.I. agents claimed that they had seen military interrogators using “torture techniques,” including one prisoner being shackled to the floor for hours on end until he soiled himself and pulled out his hair. Then, a military investigation into the complaints, released yesterday, said that the treatment was “abusive and degrading” but did not amount to torture. Investigators could not corroborate the bathroom deprivation incident, but they did acknowledge that jailers used dogs to intimidate prisoners — just like at Abu Ghraib. The report also confirmed that one V.I.P. guest at Hotel Guantánamo was leashed and forced to perform dog tricks, dressed in a woman’s bra and ridiculed as a homosexual, and interrogated for up to 20 hours a day for about two months. These techniques were approved by the Pentagon, the report said. (I bet the convicted Abu Ghraib jailers wish they had thought of that one.)
I have to admit that I’m less than impressed by this report. According to Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt, who led the military investigation, 10 former interrogators were not interviewed because they were no longer in the military and would not answer questions. Nor did investigators interview an F.B.I. agent who claimed that prisoners were deprived of food and water in order to break them down during interrogations. The reason? The agent was apparently “difficult to find.” (If the U.S. military can’t find an F.B.I. agent, how do they expect to find a certain bearded terrorist on the Afghan-Pakistani border?)
Meanwhile, the game of semantics continues. First, it was “detainees” rather than “prisoners” — which makes them sound like they are being held at the border for misplacing their passports. Now it’s “abuse” rather than “torture.” Whatever you call it, it’s not going to make the rest of the world swallow it with a smile. You thought the “Don’t Dump My Holy Book in a Toilet” riots were bad? Wait till the folks back east hear about this one.
Another point: Why bother with torture now that many of these prisoners have been in Guantánamo for three years? It’s not like they have their fingers on the pulse of global terrorism anymore. What good is any information they could tell their interrogators at this date? Just think of it: When they were put behind bars, Bennifer were still one. ’Nuff said.
—Victor Tan Chen
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