TO: At what moment in your mind did you begin to realize or understand that you were being tortured?
DH: I was beaten by US forces the first time I saw them and realized straight away that torture was going to be a reality, it was very scary. As I say in my book, I could not help thinking of the saying, "like trying to get blood from a stone," and I was afraid of becoming that stone.
TO: What do you think makes a human being torture another human being?
DH: In Guantanamo torture was driven by anger and frustration. It seemed like a mad fruitless quest to pin crimes on detainees, to extract false confessions, and produce so-called intelligence of value. The guards were desensitized and detainees de-humanized. Soldiers were not allowed to engage us in conversation. They were told to address us by number only and not by name. They were constantly drilled with propaganda about how much we supposedly hated them and wanted them dead and how much they needed to hate us. On occasion, when some groups of soldiers jogged around the camp perimeters I heard them sing lyrics such as, 'you hate us and we hate you.' One time in the privacy of Camp Echo a male soldier broke down when we were alone repeating, "what have I become?‚" after having arrived from an interrogation of a detainee in another camp.
TO: Can you describe for me the facial expressions of the interrogators and /or the guards as you were being abused? How did they react to your pain?
DH: Usually the guards seemed cold and indifferent. They deployed a "just doing my job‚" attitude, such as when they chained me to the floor in stress positions or made me sleep directly on a metal or concrete floor in a very cold air-conditioned room in only a pair of shorts. However some soldiers displayed discomfort and embarrassment. Usually guards were only used to restrain detainees, move them about, or help in the back ground with equipment. It was the interrogators who did the dirty work, expressing, hatred and frustration. At times soldiers did participate directly in beatings however, such the beatings I received before I arrived in GTMO (in Afghanistan, in transit, or when I was rendered to the two ships). These soldiers made a sport of it.
http://www.truth-out.org/exclusive-an-interview-with-former-guantanamo-detainee-david-hicks67818
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