Routine and systematic torture is at the heart of America's war on terror

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1970084,00.html

In the fight against cruelty, barbarism and extremism, America has embraced the very evils it claims to confront

George Monbiot
Tuesday December 12, 2006
The Guardian


After thousands of years of practice, you might have imagined that every possible means of inflicting pain had already been devised. But you should never underestimate the human capacity for invention. United States interrogators, we now discover, have found a new way of destroying a human being.
Last week, defence lawyers acting for José Padilla, a US citizen detained as an "enemy combatant", released a video showing a mission fraught with deadly risk - taking him to the prison dentist. A group of masked guards in riot gear shackled his legs and hands, blindfolded him with black-out goggles and shut off his hearing with headphones, then marched him down the prison corridor.

Is Padilla really that dangerous? Far from it: his warders describe him as so docile and inactive that he could be mistaken for "a piece of furniture". The purpose of these measures appeared to be to sustain the regime under which he had lived for more than three years: total sensory deprivation. He had been kept in a blacked-out cell, unable to see or hear anything beyond it. Most importantly, he had had no human contact, except for being bounced off the walls from time to time by his interrogators. As a result, he appears to have lost his mind. I don't mean this metaphorically. I mean that his mind is no longer there.
The forensic psychiatrist who examined him says that he "does not appreciate the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him, is unable to render assistance to counsel, and has impairments in reasoning as the result of a mental illness, ie, post-traumatic stress disorder, complicated by the neuropsychiatric effects of prolonged isolation". José Padilla appears to have been lobotomised: not medically, but socially.

If this was an attempt to extract information, it was ineffective: the authorities held him without charge for three and half years. Then, threatened by a supreme court ruling, they suddenly dropped their claims that he was trying to detonate a dirty bomb. They have now charged him with some vague and lesser offences to do with support for terrorism. He is unlikely to be the only person subjected to this regime. Another "enemy combatant", Ali al-Marri, claims to have been subject to the same total isolation and sensory deprivation, in the same naval prison in South Carolina. God knows what is being done to people who have disappeared into the CIA's foreign oubliettes.

[IndianaGreen]

1. It was also at the heart of Stalin's NKVD and MVD

So, what's the difference again between that evil empire and ours?

[leftchick]

4. there is no difference

the language perhaps. :(

[Solly Mack]

2. How can anyone even think of not holding the Bush Regime

accountable?

Disgusting

[PSPS]

3. And Pelosi says impeachment is "off the table?"

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. Give it up please

Pelosi had to say that or the DEMS would have never taken back Congress. After Jan 4th, all bets are off.

[elehhhhna]

10. "off the table" = ON the sideboard. Warming nicely.

Investigate, Impeach, Indict, Try, Convict, Punish.

There's an order to such things.

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. This is so sick

I thought only Nazis did stuff like this?

[seemslikeadream]

7. you're right

only Nazis do stuff like this :hi:

[happydreams]

18. LOL

:rofl:

[SpiralHawk]

8. "Heh, heh." - Commander AWOL

"That's what you get when you let a member of an occult darkside cabal steal your presidency. Heh, heh, heh. Smirk, Smirk." - Commander AWOL

[Octafish]

9. Little boys who like to torture frogs ...

...grow up to be little men who love to torture people.

[hootinholler]

11. Reported in the US media?

Barely a mention that a CITIZEN was TORTURED for 3 YEARS!

Don't worry about that Military Tribunals Act, it only applies to foriegners.

Don't worry about that Patriot Act, if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear.

Don't give me that shit sandwich labeled as roast beast!

-Hoot

[gratuitous]

12. And the result of this torture?

Nothing, except to drive Padilla insane. No usable information. Nothing that will interrupt or stop an imminent attack, if one was planned. The only thing accomplished has been the utter dehumanization of Mr. Padilla, and the corruption of the humanity of his captors. Quite a mission you accomplished there, Mr. Bush. I don't think I'll need to wait until you die before I get it right: You're a monster.

[Henny Penny]

13. and we thought these people had been defeated in 1945...

but it seems their ideas live on in the Whitehouse....

"Alfred McCoy, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, argues that the photographs released from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq reflect standard CIA torture techniques: "stress positions, sensory deprivation, and sexual humiliation". The famous picture of the hooded man standing on a box, with wires attached to his fingers, shows two of these techniques being used at once. Unable to see, he has no idea how much time has passed or what might be coming next. He stands in a classic stress position - maintained for several hours, it causes excruciating pain. He appears to have been told that if he drops his arms he will be electrocuted. What went wrong at Abu Ghraib is that someone took photos. Everything else was done by the book."

[Briar]

14. Apt to be reading this

on the say when faithful US ally Pinochet is buried with full military honours and all the rites of the church.

[irislake]

15. I could hardly read that article!

Terrible! I am glad that Canada hasn't followed the U.S. down that path in spite of pressures to go nuts after 9/11. In contrast there is a total uproar in our country and heads have started to roll because a Canadian citizen was picked up in the U.S. by your government and sent off to Syria to be tortured for a year. The CIA did that to citizens of other countries too. The Canadian government is really being punished for being partly complicit. How long will it take for the mainstream American press to give serious attention to the matter of torture in your country? It boggles the mind that the American people are not freaked out about their government's criminal behaviour. Freaked out enough to DO something to stop it.Think how it looks to the rest of the world. What do the think they are achieving? They certainly spread terrorism this way and no country is going to help you fight any future wars. I know I can't wait for Canada to get the hell out of Afghanistan -- not now but like YESTERDAY! Seymour Hersh told the country about torture long ago and it's still happening. You have monsters running your country. Insane monsters!

[thingfisher]

16. Insane monsters ideed.

People who seize this kind of control become enamoured of their power and of course need to defend their actions as being for a higher good, ie protect American citezens from the terrorists.

Such a bureaucracy can ill afford to admit to any mistakes or errors and takes on the mantle of infallibility, "We never make mistakes."

We here are waiting to see if the recent elections will reverse this policy and restore sanity to our leadership. Time will tell.

[donkeyotay]

17. Another so-called terrorist not guilty of being anything more than a prop

for the scumbags that have hijacked and destroyed America. I despise them.

Is Padilla really that dangerous? Far from it: his warders describe him as so docile and inactive that he could be mistaken for "a piece of furniture". The purpose of these measures appeared to be to sustain the regime under which he had lived for more than three years: total sensory deprivation. He had been kept in a blacked-out cell, unable to see or hear anything beyond it. Most importantly, he had had no human contact, except for being bounced off the walls from time to time by his interrogators. As a result, he appears to have lost his mind. I don't mean this metaphorically. I mean that his mind is no longer there.

The forensic psychiatrist who examined him says that he "does not appreciate the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him, is unable to render assistance to counsel, and has impairments in reasoning as the result of a mental illness, ie, post-traumatic stress disorder, complicated by the neuropsychiatric effects of prolonged isolation". José Padilla appears to have been lobotomised: not medically, but socially.

Even according to Rummy-Satan's definition of torture - this is the failure of a vital organ, if the brain, let alone the soul of a person, is considered vital by the vile refuse in Washington.

:nuke:

[Roland99]

19. Reminds of the scenes of that treatment of the men in Road to Guantanamo

[The Stranger]

20. Anyone having anything to do with this torture should be arrested, indicted and tried,

even if takes us 100 years to do so.