Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hope Praytochange who wrote (35061)	6/30/2005 10:45:15 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 93284

"What we saw was not the 'gulag of our times,' " Mr. Hunter said, referring to recent criticism from Amnesty International. It was, instead, "a world-class detention facility where detainees representing a threat to our national security are well fed, given access to top-notch medical facilities and provided an opportunity to obtain legal representation." The trip and Wednesday's hearing were planned as a response to increasing calls to shut down the Guantánamo facility. Representative Ike Skelton of Missouri, the panel's ranking Democrat, said that Guantánamo was in many ways better than state and federal penitentiaries and that he "applauds every American service member who serves honorably at that facility." But, Mr. Skelton continued, focusing on issues of food and medical treatment missed the point, which he identified as the accusations of unfair treatment of detainees "noted by those who would recruit terrorists to fight against us and by people throughout the Muslim world." He said that for the sake of the country's international credibility, "an independent commission is essential to stem the accusations and doubts of Muslims around the world." Cmdr. Cary Ostergaard, who runs the detainee hospital at Guantánamo and was also a witness, disputed reports that information in patients' medical files had been used to help interrogators. But Commander Ostergaard said that he could discuss only the role of medical personnel who treat detainees for illnesses and that he had no role in assembling or overseeing the teams of military doctors who have advised interrogators on how best to conduct their questioning. Former interrogators interviewed for a recent article in The New York Times have said that psychologists and psychiatrists, acting as behavioral scientists, advised them on how to use weaknesses, like a fear of the dark, to press detainees into cooperating. The New England Journal of Medicine reported last week that interviews with doctors who set up the interrogations at Guantánamo had used a model of increasing stress on detainees rather than establishing rapport to elicit information. General Hood, in his testimony, said it was important to remember that the vast majority of Guantánamo detainees were "dangerous men committed to harming Americans."