AP: Videos Show Guantanamo Prisoner Abuse

[leftchick]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=5&u=/ap/20050202/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/guantanamo_videotapes

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Videotapes of riot squads subduing troublesome terror suspects at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay show the guards punching some detainees, tying one to a gurney for questioning and forcing a dozen to strip from the waist down, according to a secret report. One squad was all-female, traumatizing some Muslim prisoners.


Investigators from U.S. Southern Command in Miami, which oversees the camp in Cuba, wrote the report that was obtained by The Associated Press after spending a little over a week in June reviewing 20 of some 500 hours of videotapes involving "Immediate Reaction Forces."

<snip>

The tapes raised questions about mistreatment and misconduct, however, said the investigators, who suggested some clips needed more scrutiny to rule out abuse. The military has cited 10 substantiated cases of abuse at Guantanamo, and announced Tuesday an extension would be granted for an investigation to interview of witnesses in the United States and abroad.


One such clip the investigators flagged was from Feb. 17, 2004. It showed "one or more" team members punching a detainee "on an area of his body that seemingly would be inconsistent with striking a pressure point," which is a sanctioned tactic for subduing prisoners.

[spinbaby]

1. dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1203586#1204798

[Turley]

2. Which brings up an interesting question

Let's say you have an MP unit running a detention facility and the normal rotation just happens to put several, or even exclusively female soldiers on guard duty for a given shift.

Would this constitute abuse if the prisoners are Muslim?

[thebigidea]

3. so interesting, that this is just how the Scarborough brigade will spin it

"these are Muslims, these freaks are tortured just by the sight of a woman!"

its a typical bushian co-opt the enemy routine...

no, of course its not about the women - its about the beatings, the bezerk menstrual blood technique, the weird thong & badtouch routines, etc.

[Mike Niendorff]

4. Honestly, I think about half of this is a PR setup.

I think they know that the truth about the torture at Guantanamo and elsewhere is about to start coming out, bigtime, so they're trying to "prepare the public mind" (so to speak) by repeatedly casting the issue in terms of thongs, miniskirts, embarassment, etc, rather than in terms of the *actual* tortures that they've been committing.

Of course, I could be completely wrong on this, but given the way these people manipulate press coverage whenever a damaging story is hanging over them, this "scary ladies" thing just strikes me as more of their standard game.

Anyway, I guess time will tell, but that's how it looks from where I'm sitting.


MDN

[thebigidea]

5. I thought the same, considering all the robotic RW comments along those...

... lines.

"it was just panties on the head. aww, I would love to have wimmeny guards if I were a prisoner. oh yeah, that sounds like fun!"

meanwhile photo/video documentation of rape and murder are locked away and swapped by pervy congressmen and those self-righteous fucks at the Washington Post.

[0007]

6. Like tauting the bull before a bull fight!

A separate clip captured a platoon leader taunting a detainee with pepper spray and repeatedly spraying him before letting the reaction team enter the cell, reviewers wrote.

....."The obvious problem with our armed forces is their inability to comply with international law," said Arsalan T. Iftikhar, national legal director for the Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations. "Many of us thought that the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq (news - web sites) was going to shake us into awakening but it seems like the things we keep learning about Guantanamo indicate there was, in fact, systematic abuse."