Oh, What Awful “Torture” At Gitmo. Poor, Poor, Terrorists. (UPDATED)
By Bull Dog Pundit on War On Terror
Ankle Biting Pundits
That loud shrieking you hear is likely Andrew Sullivan howling at the moon and being deeply offended, shocked, saddened, etc. at the latest revelations of “torture” inflicted on suspected terrorists at Gitmo. As Doug Neidermaier said in Animal House (to paraphrase): “And most recently interrogations were held from which we have received two dozen reports of individual acts of perversion so profound and disgusting that decorum prohibits listing them here.”
So what are we talking about here, specifically? You decide if the sense “decorum” is offended.
<<< FBI agents witnessed possible mistreatment of the Koran at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including at least one instance in which an interrogator squatted over Islam’s holy text in an apparent attempt to offend a captive, according to bureau documents released yesterday.
In October 2002, a Marine captain allegedly squatted over a copy of the Koran during intensive questioning of a Muslim prisoner, who was “incensed” by the tactic.
The reports amount to new and separate allegations of religiously oriented tactics used against Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. After an erroneous report of Koran abuse prompted deadly protests overseas in 2005, the U.S. military conducted an investigation that confirmed five incidents of intentional and unintentional mishandling the book at the detention facility. They acknowledged that soldiers and interrogators had kicked the Koran, had stood on it and, in one case, had inadvertently sprayed urine on a copy. >>>
Wow. Awful. I’m ashamed to be an American. We actually “offended” a terrorist, who happens to be Muslim by “squatting” over a Koran? I wonder how “offended” the terrorist would have gotten if the guy took a dump on it. I mean, it’s not as if the terrorist uses the words in that “holy text” as an excuse to kill non-Muslims. But certainly let’s not offend him - by doing bad things - TO A FRIGGIN BOOK!!!!!!
The other “shocking” tactics?
<<< Prisoners were shackled to the floor for extended periods of time or subjected to sexually suggestive tactics by female interrogators.
In a previously unreported allegation, one interrogator bragged to an FBI agent that he had forced a prisoner to listen to “Satanic black metal music for hours,” then dressed as a Catholic priest before “baptizing” him.
One agent reported being told that while questioning male captives, female interrogators would sometimes wet their hands and touch detainees’ faces in order to interrupt their prayers. Such actions would make some Muslims consider themselves unclean and unable to continue praying. >>>
Oh, the humanity!!!! Call the Red Cross.
I guess I “tortured” myself by listening to hours of Metallica and Black Sabbath as a teenager. Oh, and I could see how a female touching a guy who is probably used to having sex with sheep and/or young boys in his village would be greatly offended by a woman touching his face - HIS FACE! - with a wet hand. Maybe we should give her a Wet-wipe instead.
And terrorists shackled to the floor? I could care less. If they’re plotting to kill us, the Geneva Convention doesn’t and shouldn’t apply and we can do with them what we want. You won’t see me lose an ounce of sleep over it.
And I almost vomited when I heard about this.
<<< Some previously reported tactics mentioned in the new documents include wrapping a prisoner in an Israeli flag, subjecting others to extreme heat and cold, and aggressively using strobe lights on others.
Such approaches were allowed under aggressive Pentagon detention policies in place at the time, and the new documents include several instances in which interrogators appear to cite such approval as justification for their actions.
But one FBI agent who visited Guantanamo Bay in the fall of 2003 described a tactic called the “frequent flyer program,” in which detainees who were deemed uncooperative were placed on a list to be subjected to special sleep-deprivation tactics. The prisoners were moved frequently from cellblock to cellblock at intervals of two to four hours to interrupt their sleep, the agent said. >>>
Finally, there’s this.
<<< In another incident that month, interrogators wrapped a bearded prisoner’s head in duct tape “because he would not stop quoting the Koran,” according to an FBI agent, the documents show. The agent, whose account was corroborated by a colleague, said that a civilian contractor laughed about the treatment and was eager to show it off. >>>
What I’d like to know is if this newly duct-taped terrorist stopped spouting Koranic verses and eventually gave good intel. If he did, the wasn’t it worth it?
I mean seriously, now. How can we ever fight and win a war on terror when the friggin’ ACLU (who is the party requesting the document) and other people who object to our actually doing something about fighting Islamofascism whine and moan about the “torture” these poor, misunderstood souls have to endure.
UPDATED: After reading one of the comments below, I think I need to clarify something because my original post wasn’t very clear on one thing. If it is shown that none of these tactics work, then they shouldn’t be done, not because they are “torture”, but because well, they don’t work. For example, if squatting on the Koran doesn’t get the detainee to talk, then there’s really no need to do it again.
However, you don’t really know what tactic going to work until you try it, and it’s quite possible that nothing mentioned here worked in getting good information. But what doesn’t work in some cases might work in others, depending on the detainee being interrogated. And none of these tactics bother me in the slightest, and all should be available for interrogators to use, because if any of them work on 1 out of 1,000 prisoners, and American lives are saved, that’s really all that matters.
The only way I would say someone did anything wrong here is if the actions taken were not meant to eventually lead to the gathering of useful information. For example, if they jus did these things so they could tell stories to their buddies back home, then that’s wrong.
But I’m willing to give the interrogators the benefit of the doubt.
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