INRI:
Just realize that these detainees you’re talking about don’t exactly make their allegations in the spirit of letting the truth be known, they have ulterior motives…
In the case of Guantanamo Bay both the guards and the detainee’s have powerful reasons to testify in opposite directions. You choose to believe agents of the Federal Government, thats up to you, obviously if you have a relative involved thats powerful testimony. He may be reporting his perceptions truthfully but the perceptions themselves may be incorrect.
shalomctr.org/index.cfm/action/read/section/torture/article/article722.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 29 - The International Committee of the Red Cross has
charged in confidential reports to the United States government that the
American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes
physical coercion “tantamount to torture” on prisoners at Guantnamo Bay, Cuba.
The finding that the handling of prisoners detained and interrogated at
Guantnamo amounted to torture came after a visit by a Red Cross inspection
team that spent most of last June in Guantnamo.
The team of humanitarian workers, which included experienced medical
personnel, also asserted that some doctors and other medical workers at
Guantnamo were participating in planning for interrogations, in what the
report called “a flagrant violation of medical ethics.”
Doctors and medical personnel conveyed information about prisoners’ mental
health and vulnerabilities to interrogators, the report said, sometimes
directly, but usually through a group called the Behavioral Science
Consultation Team, or B.S.C.T. The team, known informally as Biscuit, is
composed of psychologists and psychological workers who advise the
interrogators, the report said.
It was the first time that the Red Cross, which has been conducting visits
to Guantnamo since January 2002, asserted in such strong terms that the
treatment of detainees, both physical and psychological, amounted to
torture. The report said that another confidential report in January 2003,
which has never been disclosed, raised questions of whether “psychological
torture” was taking place.
The Red Cross said publicly 13 months ago that the system of keeping
detainees indefinitely without allowing them to know their fates was
unacceptable and would lead to mental health problems.
The report of the June visit said investigators had found a system devised
to break the will of the prisoners at Guantnamo, who now number about 550,
and make them wholly dependent on their interrogators through “humiliating
acts, solitary confinement, temperature extremes, use of forced positions.”
Investigators said that the methods used were increasingly “more refined
and repressive” than learned about on previous visits.
“The construction of such a system, whose stated purpose is the production
of intelligence, cannot be considered other than an intentional system of
cruel, unusual and degrading treatment and a form of torture,” the report
said. It said that in addition to the exposure to loud and persistent noise
and music and to prolonged cold, detainees were subjected to “some
beatings.”
The report from the June visit said the Red Cross team found a far greater
incidence of mental illness produced by stress than did American medical
authorities, much of it caused by prolonged solitary confinement. It said
the medical files of detainees were “literally open” to interrogators.
