A NOT APPROVED EVENT

 

A NOT APPROVED EVENT
The Abuse Of Language in Service to Torture at Guantanamo continues.  Yesterday Air Force Lt. Gen. Randall Schmidt, the chief of a U.S. Southern Command investigation into  FBI agents reports of Guantanamo detainee torture tried to put the best face on an ugly reality.  In giving away the lie to Pentagon claims of using only appropriate techniques, the Department of Defense’s own reports note that individual techniques might not be violations of policy, but in aggregate were “degrading and abuse.”  Abuse is a euphemism for torture.  Abuse is the word apologists for abomination use to admit the practice but not the truth of torture. 

AMONG THE LOWLIGHTS:

Schmidt found that between February 2002 and February 2003 detainees were handcuffed to the floor, called "short shackling," in at least two instances. This practice has since been forbidden at Guantanamo Bay, Schmidt said.
"It was not considered to be overly abusive. There was no injury. There was no pain involved in this," he said.
In the other claim, investigators found that in October 2002 interrogators used duct tape on the mouth and head of a detainee who was continuously chanting as a resistance measure. The judge advocate general at Guantanamo Bay verbally reprimanded the intelligence chief who authorized the use of tape. Schmidt's investigation concluded that this reprimand was not severe enough and that the individual should be "formally admonished or reprimanded."
A third instance found that in March 2003 a female interrogator smeared red ink from her hand on a detainee and told him it was menstrual blood, which "unsettled" the detainee. Schmidt called this a "not-approved event."
"It was a spontaneous act of revenge by the interrogator," he said. "She had been spit on by the detainee."
He said the interrogator was verbally reprimanded and removed from interrogation duties for about 30 days before being reinstated.
The investigation found that the command's actions toward the interrogator were not severe enough for this instance, but that the individual had already left the military. Investigators recommended no further action in this incident because of the time that had lapsed.
Other allegations by FBI agents working at Guantanamo were found to be accurate but involved actions within DoD guidelines, Schmidt said. Such acts include playing loud music, manipulating the air conditioning to make a detainee uncomfortable during interrogation, and carefully controlled acts of sexual humiliations, such as making a detainee wear a bra or accusing him of being homosexual.
The general explained that these acts fall under the specific interrogation technique of "futility."
[DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE]

IN THIS CONTINUING SERIES OF SORDID EPISODES, The real FUTILITY is putting the hood of legitimacy on inhumane practices. In just the three incidents cited, one must ask some questions.  If the short shackling wasn’t considered overly abusive, why was it later forbidden? And how can anyone say no pain was involved?  As far as the infamous menstrual blood incident goes, are these interrogators supervised and how do you just happen to have so much red ink around that a detainee would think it was blood?
RECOMMENDED RELATED READING:
[MAHA]  . . . responsibility for torture at Abu Ghraib rests in the Bush Administration. It's likely a wall of plausible deniability has been built around Bush himself, but it seems Rummy is not so well protected. Rummy may not have been cheering while innocent detainees were chained to ceilings and beaten to death. But he was the one who signed the torture permission slip. And he is the one who enabled cruelty and murder in our name.

[GREEN LANTERN] I'm confident Rush Limbaugh will be coming out with a brand new line of t-shirts reflecting this latest sickness. However, as sick as it is, I must admit it is a vast improvement compared to some of the other horror stories I've heard coming out of gitmo...I guess in our day and age this is to be considered progress?

[SHAKESPEARE'S SISTER] . . .those who have followed the abuse of detainees story even in the most half-hearted way will no doubt recognize the name Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who seems to find himself everywhere there are detainees getting mistreated.

MORE TO FOLLOW

Comments

[gretchen]

Thanks for the link up Heretik.