The OP has put this article forth as proof that the detainees are not making things up and are in fact being tortured.
Perhaps one could ask for some quotes or some examples from the report itself that demonstrate this.
Time was that we used to have standards and any such sloppy and inept offering would be slammed down.
So, again, could I ask somebody to quote me some evidence that proves the OPs case. Failing that, can we denounce this effort as ingorant and ill-supported. I, of course realize that such denouncement suggests nothing one way or the other concerning the treatment of the detainees.
This is however, the SDMB, and it would be nice to fight some ignorance for old time’s sake.
Well, the OP hasn’t explicitly stated what his case is, but assuming that his case is that detainees were mistreated/tortured at Gitmo… from the very first bullet on the very first page of the report (also quoted in the OP):
If you want to argue that doesn’t amount to torture that’s your perogative. It meets my definition, and goes beyond what I would call legitimate “aggressive interrogation techniques”.
I think the argument of whether or not it is torture is one of semantics. I think it surely constitutes mistreatment.
I’ve read the summary and skimmed much of the 250 page report. It’s a .pdf so I can’t cut and paste but in order to evaluate the merits of this accusation we need to understand how it was gathered and how it is supported.
The scope of the document reveals the results of interviews with almost 500 FBI employees who worked at Gitmo. What they were seeking was whether or not there had been any abuses made by FBI employees. The 500 people interviewed ran the gamut from Special agents to clerical and maintenance staff as well as foreign nationals employed by the FBI as translators who may or may not be kindly disposed to the US and it’s endeavors at GITMO.
Of these 500 interviews they received about 26 responses contained either complaints, or reports of abuse in various forms. Some of them seem more than a little weird and far-fetched and not particularly credible such as the one about hearing a rumor of a guard bragging about giving a detainee a lap dance with her shirt off. It’s hard to credit such hearsay.
Others seem more credible such as the many instances of “environment down” which is an interrogation technique that involves turning the air conditioner very high to induce shivering and extreme discomfort. Such techniques were not just witnessed once or twice, but over and over and in fact seem to be a standard practice which is reportedly approved by the DOD.
The example that you give makes me wonder how the witnesses knew the people had been chained in the same place for 18, 24 or more hours. Did they watch the whole time? If you saw a person in a chair one day and then came back and saw the same person in the same chair the next day, you might conclude the person had been there for 24 hours, when in fact the person might have been returned to his cell for a period, or fed, or given bathroom breaks, or what have you while the witness was absent.
Chow through the report a little bit and let me know what you think.
I think the OP and the reporting is sloppy on this. To me, the issue is not what is what is rumored to have occured that may or may not have occured, but rather that I find that what is approved such as “environment down” is unnacceptable.
Scylla, imagine any of the techniques described in the OP being used on a captive American GI. If you would call that torture or an atrocity, that applies with equal force when the victim is an enemy POW, suspected terrorist, suspected terrorist sympathizer, suspected relative or acquaintance of a terrorist sympathizer, or anything else.
I agree with you 100% I just find that defining the line of what constitutes a valid interrogation technique versus torture to be a difficult task to accomplish.
I find defining mistreatment to be a lot easier. I don’t know whether I would consider leaving somebody in a very uncomfortably air conditioned room to be torture or not, but it certainly does qualify in me eyes as mistreatment.
A general observation about people in secret detention.
It is true that in the normal course of argument it must fall to the OP to give the substance to the claim put forth.
However, Guantanamo Bay is a special case. The bare facts are uncontested; that people are detained without an independent assessment of the merits. There is no oversight above and beyond that permitted by the grace of the detaining power.
In this case, where there is a plain effort to prevent access to evidence without justification, the proper recourse is to give credit to each criticism. It must fall to the detaining power as the party concealing evidence, to show that its behaviour is proper. This is because the bare facts put it in a position of discredit from which it must recover itself or stand damned.