The situation at Gitmo, according to the 60 Minutes report I just watched, is worse than I thought. Before, I thought there may have been isolated abuses that are unavoidable anywhere you have human beings in charge, if you believe the 60 Minutes report, this is not the case- the abuse is rampant an institutional:
“As she stood in front of him, she slowly started to unbutton her army blouse. She had on underneath the Army blouse a tight brown Army T-shirt, touched her breasts, and said, ‘Don’t you like these big American breasts?'” says Saar. “She wanted to create a barrier between this detainee and his faith, and if she could somehow sexually entice him, he would feel unclean in an Islamic way, he would not be able to pray and go before his God and gain that strength, so the next day, maybe he would be able to start cooperating, start talking to her.”
But the prisoner wasn
Mr Furious
Don’t bet on it.
First of all, most people aren’t going to deine that as torture. Can you hear Rush already? It’s not a “fraternity hazing” anymore, it’s a “bachelor party.”
“Guys slip a twenty into a thong for that kind of torture.”
Secondly, no one of consequence has swung for the stuff at Abu Ghraib yet, and it sure ain’t gonna make it’s way up the ladder here either.
Ends don’t justify means, and this is the kind of groundwork that the Administration has laid and thinks nothing of. It’s why they weren’t qualified to run this war even if you think the war itself was justified.
Kimmitt
I think you underestimate how many Americans do not view torture of inmates as a stain on our honor.
Justin Faulkner
Gotta love those moral values. I expect a Presidential Medal of Freedom is in the works.
KC
Amen, Faulkner.
Mason
Torture? I don’t think what was described in the post is anywhere near the same neighborhood as torture. I’m not even sure if the post itself is sarcastic.
John Cole
Breaking bones, ductaping people’s cpomplete head, shackling them in the fetal position for up to 24 hours at a time, turning off water in the Cuban climate- sounds like torture to me.
Mr Furious
“I think you underestimate how many Americans do not view torture of inmates as a stain on our honor.”
Sorry. The fact that none of this stuff slowed Bush’s re-election for a second last year means not enough Americans give a shit about any of this stuff. If Abu Ghraib didn’t get people thinking why the hell will this?
How many prisoners have actually died in custody? Never mind those put in dog collars or subjected to a lapdance.
the only reason this might have any legs at all is because it gives the media a “sex” angle, but even still, I expect this to pass relatively quietly.
No heads of significance will roll, and I won’t be surprised to see some behind-the-scenes rewards for those above a certain rank. Everybody who should have lost their job in the first term has gone on to bigger and better things…
rilkefan
This story has been nominally out for several months. Here’s Charles Bird, a strong conservative, on this story back in January at Obsidian Wings.
shark
LOL, there are lots of guys here in the states who pay good money for that sort of treatment
Slick
I volunteer for such torture comrade.
Kimmitt
It’s time to publish the goddamn pics.
KC
I think they should be released too, Kimmitt. The only problem is that they’re not going to be, at least not anytime soon, I’m assuming. Just to speculate, here’s why: First, the President would take heat for not firing Rumsfeld et. al. for the sicko stuff that went/is going down; second, Congressional Republicans would get heat for taking a hands off approach to the executive branch; third, the Dems would take a little heat for being weak on the issue. To a lesser or greater extent, at least at this point, everyone’s hands are dirty. That’s why the pics won’t be released. Add to that, of course, national security concerns too.
Oh, they’re also not going to be released for the sake of the children.
BumperStickerist
There’s something ‘not quite right’ with Sgt/Spec Saar’s account.
I say this as a graduate of the ‘prestigious’ language school at Presidio (DLI-FLC) having spent all my time except for basic as a cryptographic linguist (Korean/USAF/2 tours Korea, 1 NSA). Here’s an excerpt from the Amazon biography of his book:
Saar couldn’t have been more eager to get to Gitmo. After two years in the army learning Arabic, becoming a military intelligence linguist, he pounced on the chance to apply his new skills to extracting crucial intel from the terrorists.
The problem here is twofold – the level of language proficiency for Humint work isn’t that great coming out of DLI and the follow on technical training.
https://www.hrc.army.mil/SITE/ACTIVE/epmpmilang/lang/languageteam.htm
Saar’s refered to as either a cryptologic linguist, which is a 98G code – interrogator is a 97E. Different language standards, different security backgrounds) … which isn’t to say that Saar didn’t cross train or pick up something ‘more’
Info on the Arabic program at DLI –
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/educationtraining/a/arabiclanguage_3.htm
The proficiency given under a ‘basic’ DLI program is pretty basic – the goal is to get to the point where you can work with ‘communications of interest’ not ‘chat with people’ The result of spending a year at DLI learning basic grammar and conversation and half a year or so working with classified material does not mean you can sit around, smoke cigs and shoot the shit with the locals. The only exception to that would be German, Spanish, and French, which had higher fluency requirements (they expected you to speak the language before you went to class- they taught, basically, college level classes from the jump)
When Saar takes over as a cosupervisor of the linguists translating for interrogations and gains access to the detainees’ intelligence files, he must contend with the extent of the deceptions and the harsh reality of just how illconceived and counterproductive an operation in the war on terror, and in the history of American military engagement, the Guantanamo detention center is.
The issue here is that Saar is a supervisor, which would lead me to think he’s a Sgt not a Spec. Either way, it’s a supervisory/administrative post with the language skills being not much a part of the job – he’s not the go-to guy on questions of translation.
I also question the ability of an E-4/E-5 to come to such a deep Kos-like conclusions about why America sucks based his reading some of the intel files and what he saw during his six months.
I’m not saying what Erik witnessesd wasn’t accurate – what isn’t ‘quite right’ is how Saar’s MOS (Interrogator or Cryptologic linguist) factors into his description.
For example, the female civillian interrogator is speaking in English to the detainee. I guarantee you that Saar wasn’t taught things at basic Arabic like ‘menstrual blood’ or the subjunctive tense for ‘does that please your God?’
Lastly, I’d find his report more credible were Saar a security guard standing in the room monitoring the activity. fwiw – the more Saar plays up his Linguist /Analyst/ Interrogator bona fides, the more questions I have.
Bryan C
I’m also not sure if this is sarcastic or not. I’ll assume it isn’t and hope I’m wrong.
If you want people to take reports of real, actual torture like broken bones, severe beatings, and cracked teeth seriously, then it’s time for everyone to stop leading with silly stories about fondling breasts and red ink. Because that is not torture, and people are not going to get outraged about it like you seem to expect them to.
It may be stupid, ineffectual, and offensive, but it’s not torture. Maintaining that it is torture just makes people tune out real abuses when they happen.
Mason
I thought I’d already followed up on this before, but I guess not —
Breaking bones, ductaping people’s cpomplete head, shackling them in the fetal position for up to 24 hours at a time, turning off water in the Cuban climate- sounds like torture to me.
This wasn’t in the excerpt — in fact, the excerpt you posted sounds remarkably similar (minus the so-called menstrual blood) to something that some friends and I *paid* for a week ago (bachelor party! poor s.o.b.).
I did eventually scan the CBS post and saw some of the other references… your excerpt really didn’t do it justice.
CadillaqJaq
I don’t understand the big fuss… I mean isn’t “it just about sex?”
bartelson
zzzzzzzzzzzz……….
Mr Furious
See? These actions have been completely dismissed by many of the commenters in this thread.
There is no way this gets taken seriously. And I will grant that Brian C has a point. there already has been a “tune-out factor” on the torture scandal (non-scandal?) as a whole. this will only serve to minimize the issue and help it disappear.
I should be clear. I consider this inhumane and humiliating treatment and mental/psychological abuse, not “torture” in the classic definition of the word. I consider both to be abhorrent and beneath the supposed ideals of the U.S. military, but I am reserving a bit more outrage at the actual physical abuse that seems to be going on overseas, as well as the rendition issue.
It’s not even like any of this has resulted in useful intel or that most of the captives are anything but bought-and-paid for victims of the corrupt Northern alliance and in the cases at Abu Ghraib, completely innocent civilians caught up in overzealous dragnets.
This country should be embarrassed, outraged and demand accountability to those responsible for atrociies in our names…but I’m not holdiong my breath for that. It wouldn’t be “patriotic.”
Shinobi
You have to keep in mind that these are devout muslim men. This is the moral equivalent of making an Orthodox Jew cook and eat bacon on a Saturday, or making a Catholic dance around on the eucharist. And while it may sound humorous to us, it is cruel IMO to torture someone using their religious beliefs. The “officers” are trying to cut these men off from their God so that they cannot pray in the hopes that this will weaken their resolve. (They are usually not allowed to wash, and since they are “unclean” from the touch of a mensturating woman they cannot pray to Allah.)
While I disagree with the prisoner’s beliefs, I think that it is disgusting for us to be using them to violate these men. If anything this exploitation of their beliefs only proves that we are what they think we are, horrible a-moral monsters.
FC
Gratioutously stolen&adapted from elsewhere:
Torture? Let’s focus on the boobies, instead. “LOL, there are lots of guys here in the states who pay good money for that sort of treatment,” “I volunteer for such torture.”
Yeah, wish *I’d* been dragnetted because of my national origin and spirited away to a lawless concentration camp where I’d spend the next so many years without formal representation or chance to prove my innocence (never mind that Gitmo has thus far yielded exactly 0 leads in the War on Terror), just so I could get a little T&A from my female American interrogator.
Stormy70
I don’t respect the religous beleifs of terrorists who behead captives, rape women and children, and applaud the slamming of airplanes into buildings full of civilians. My sympathy fell to the ground with the buildings on Sept. 11th. This does not sound like a big deal to me, that terrorists feel unclean and can’t pray to their warped view of Allah. These are not adherents to true Islam, they are violent psychopaths who use their relgion as an excuse to maim and kill.
Kill Hippies
I heard about this story a few months ago in the newspaper in my city. I find nothing wrong with how she went about this. If we were captured by them they wouldn’t show us any pity.
DecidedFenceSitter
Self-Mantra:
Don’t feed the trolls.
Don’t feed the trolls.
Don’t feed the trolls.
Rick
If Abu Ghraib didn’t get people thinking…
Thinking what, beyond “what were *those* stupid buttheads thinking?”
Cordially…
The Disenfrachised Voter
“It is illegal, ineffective, inappropriate, offensive, and beneath us. It needs to stop.”
Hear, hear, John! I couldn’t agree more with you.
Christie S.
John, the only way to remove the puerile enjoyment that some folks get from this kind of report is to equate it to their own personal beliefs.
Maybe something like having a devout, practicing Catholic or Episcopalian (Anglican) prisoner being forced to watch his enemy guard pour ketchup and mustard on the “body of Christ” wafer and then be forced to eat it.
Or, maybe for those folks who can’t imagine holding your religious beliefs so deeply that you’d die for them, its seeing a picture of your mom/dad/sibling/child being held in front of your face and watching some guy beat off on it.
Some people simply don’t have a conscience, so I don’t know what would work on them. The much-vaunted American ‘values’ are so much used toilet paper to them.
For whatever its worth, I was, have been and am still horrified that my government not only condones this shit, but actively promotes it.
By the way, any of you folks who can’t see the horror of these actions and still blather on about PTSD and how the horrors of war twist the mind….
DING, DING, DING….that’s the clue-by-four telling you to STFU, you aren’t any better than our enemies.
Mason
Ehh, I just don’t see much of a problem with that kind of psychological manipulation. I didn’t have very much time this morning to make my comment, but pondered it in terms of Christianity and Judaism during the day, and wound up with the same conclusion.
It should go without saying that I find some of the other things listed in the linked article just plain wrong, if not abhorent, and I think people should be held to account for their actions instead of seeing it whitewashed.
Aaron
John,
Here is your alternate reality. (based on a incident in Afghanistan from the book The Interrogators.)
US forces pick up two Arab men trying to enter Afghanistan dressed in women’s clothing. This is a bit after the US attacks there.
Both men claim to be coming to Afghanistan for peaceful purposes.
Since it’s not illegal to wear women’s clothing, we have to release them.
Now, back to reality. The last time we had saboteurs in civilain dress, it was Germans in the USA in WW II. Truman pardoned them in 1948, three years after Germany surrendered.
Let me know when Al Qaeda unconditionally surrenders.
Kimmitt
Let me know when Al Qaeda unconditionally surrenders.
We declared war on Al Qaeda? What was the resolution number?
Aaron
Oh, yes, and torture. What’s going to happen is the uproar over any interrogation technique that is any bit over the line will lead to a demand for full rights, trials, etc. Result will be bad guys released. Can we tag them so we can identify them later when they arrive in Iraq? I mean, we’ve already had 3 cases where Gitmo released people got killed back in Afghanistan.
Remember the uproar over the 15 year old being held? Oh, then we find out the lil bastard fired on special forces and played possum to then kill the medic who came to help him.
And, please a little red ink and psychological game may be mental torture, but so is putting the scare of prison into anyone arrested in the USA. But our cops don’t do that right?
Broken bones are more problematic…what are they thinking/doing? As usual shooting themselves in the foot.
Sorry for the rant.
Aaron
Kimmitt, it’s supposed to help you think about the WOT as compared to WW II.
But if you think Al Qaeda didn’t declare war and vice versa, then I guess I am wrong, and I should be ashamed. Yes, no legal document means that the state of war is ficticious.
Imagine if tomorrow, Bin Laden turned himself in and told his followers to cease all attacked.
Do you think the guys in Gitmo would be released in three years?
I think so.
Paul
The kind of moral relativism that Christie S. spouts off on above can only come from a pampered and brainwashed loon whose sheltered life has allowed her to manufacture such outrage over relatively so little. (Of course such self righteous indignation serves mainly to enhance her vanity, if she
John Cole
Paul- That is why we invaded Hussein. Your point, that we are not as bad as Saddam Hussein is noted.
Other than that, are you arguing that what is going on in Gitmo is not torture?
Mr Furious
John-That is not why we invaded Iraq. That point is all that is left for the Administration to point to, however.
Actions such as those at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib slowly erode that difference*…leaving what, exactly?
*Of course, I realize the gulf between the treatment of prisoners by us vs. Saddam is vast, but the point is there should be a bright line that should not be crossed in humane treatment of prisoners. I’d like to think that torture is torture. Period. Just like you can’t be “a little bit pregnant.” Once you cross that line, you are torturing people and trying to say, “Well, not as bad as the supposed worse guy on the planet” is no fucking defense.
Christie S.
Paul, its not moral relativism. Your story is exactly what I’m talking about. What happens when “our side” gets tired of not getting anything out of these prisoners? The torture gets worse and worse. What makes us different from our enemies? Where’s the off switch?
And by the way, self-righteous I ain’t. It’s not my life to walk on water and I’ve never claimed to be perfect. As to “enhancing my vanity” with my self-righteousness…I don’t quite see where being horrified that my government condones torture would lead to that statement.
I’m a moderate, btw, not a leftist. I consider our actions as a country to reflect on me personally as an American citizen. As I don’t care to be thought of as a psychological rapist, I don’t condone the use of torture.
And it has absolutely nothing to do with my religious beliefs which I keep to myself.
You’re for torture and see nothing wrong with it. I’m against it because it offends my values. So be it. However, infantile personal attacks to belittle an opposing point of view accentuate nothing but the vacuous space where intellect is supposed to live.
J Caesar
John. What are you some kind of pussy leftist?
Them A-rabs, they got this commin to them.
Paul
CS
I’m not for torture, except for extreme circumstances, ie, the ticking bomb scenario, in which case the threat to the lives of thousands or millions justifies using any means to save them
Putting panties on prisoners heads ain’t torture. Your equating what Americans have done with the scene I described is simply absurd.
Anyone who suggests that the behavior of the American military is on par with that of Saddam’s thugs is a moderate only in their own deluded mind. Get over yourself.
Kimmitt
Kimmitt, it’s supposed to help you think about the WOT as compared to WW II.
Any comparison between our security concerns due to Islamic extremists and the world-spanning horror which was WWII is the result of febrile ignorance. We lost more Americans on two bad days in WWII than we’ve lost in the past ten years to Islamic terror, and the total body count for WWII was in the tens of millions, not the tens of thousands. Further, in WWII we fought well-defined states with addresses that could be easily located in symmetric combat, not shadowy organizations which engage us in asymmetric terror operations.
Imagine if tomorrow, Bin Laden turned himself in and told his followers to cease all attacked.
Do you think the guys in Gitmo would be released in three years?
I think so.
Since most of his followers wouldn’t listen, it’s irrelevant. We’re not fighting a state, with clearly-defined lines of command and control. The more you liken Islamic terror to WWII, the profoundly wrong you will be about its causes, effects, and likely results.
Putting panties on prisoners heads ain’t torture. Your equating what Americans have done with the scene I described is simply absurd.
You know as well as I do that we also froze and beat people to death, so this example is irrelevant.
Christie S.
Paul, we’re gonna have to disagree on this.
And take your own advice.
Paul
Oh yeah, “You’re for torture and see nothing wrong with it. I’m against it because it offends my values.”
And your not self righteous? Please…
Your last post demonstrate you really cannot defend your position with logical argument. But we know for the left it’s all about FEELINGS anyway, right? Why let logic interfere?
The Disenfrachised Voter
“I’m not for torture, except for extreme circumstances”
Well then you are for torture. Don’t try to get around it, Paul.
First of all, torture produces shitty information moreso than not. Second of all, when President Bush sends detanies specifically to other countries for them to be tortured, that is the same as the US doing the torture.
You are really a disgrace to the US’s founding principals, Paul. You don’t believe in human rights; you think pre-emptive torture is justified and that is absolutely attrocious.
Gary Farber
“The problem with CBS is that they lack credibility- indeed, the main interview is a former Army interrogator Erik Saar, who they refer to as a Sergenat, yet they show several pictures of him wearing Specialist rank. That sort of thing does not bolster confidence.”
On the important point: “whom.” Whom. Whom.
It doesn’t work gramatically otherwise. “Whom they refer to as a….” Otherwise it’s as correct as “the sort of thing do no bolster confidence.” If they didn’t refer to him as a Sgt, but to a who…?