We’re “torturers”! No, we’re “too nice”..?
A few years ago and without merit, people started claiming torture at Guantanamo Bay.
Among the citations was a charge by the International Committee of the Red Cross, who cleverly worded their accusation as “tantamount to torture.” In her book Honor Bound: Inside the Guantanamo Trails, former JAG officer Maj. Kyndra Rotunda-Miller explained that to justify this curious definition the Red Cross applied to the U.S. treaties that it has never actually ratified:
The allegation is a strange one because the ICRC never clearly defined what it meant by “tantamount to torture.” The ICRC stopped short of claiming torture, but clearly fabricated their charge for high immediate impact. Beyond the vagueness of the charge, it was inconsistent too. If the ICRC believed that the conditions were deplorable, why did they raise menial issues like speeding up the mail and purchasing checker board games for detainees? Why did the ICRC ask for more skittles candy and softer soccer balls if they really believed detainees were being tortured?
Not only does the ICRC inaccurately interpret Geneva conventions, but it relies on provisions that the US has never approved. For example, the ICRC states as law Protocol 1 — proposed in 1977 but never ratified by the United States, Protocol 1 extends POW protections to persons who do not qualify to be POWs. The United States follows the Third Geneva Convention, which only gives POW protections to people who qualify — legal combatants who wear uniforms and follow the laws of war. Otherwise why would the US military or any other legitimate military bother to follow the laws of war? Why would they not simply adopt less risky terrorist tactics? The ICRC argues that 150 countries have ratified Protocol 1. Curiously, however, countries experienced with terrorism [Israel, the U.K.] have either refused to ratify the protocol or have done so with several caveats.
In other words the charge is baloney. Maj. Rotunda-Miller adds that other critics mistakenly identify waterboarding, but she retorts that the waterboarding was conducted by the CIA, not the military, on three high-ranking members of al Qaeda (Khalid Mohammed, the 9-11 mastermind, Abu Zubaydah, and Abd al-Rahim Nashiri), and not at Guantanamo (which thus destroys the argument that torture occurs at Guantanamo.
That’s some history, and perhaps a little too deep. But I wanted to set that up before highlighting this Washington Post article.
The Guantanamo critics are back, but this time they’re charging that Guantanamo officials are too lenient! Security conditions are so lax at Guantanamo (and a far, far cry from the accusatory harsh conditions the antiwar left) that detainees were able to commit suicide with relative ease.
[Wash. Post] Contained in more than 3,000 pages of military investigative documents, medical records, autopsies, and statements from guards and detainees is a rare view inside the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and one of the worst episodes of its six-year history. The documents from the NCIS investigation, which will be released under the Freedom of Information Act, were obtained yesterday by The Washington Post.
They make clear that that [Ali Abdullah Ahmed Naser al-Sullami] Sullami, along with Saudis Yasser Talal al-Zahrani, 22, and Mana Shaman Allabard al-Tabi, 32, carefully planned their suicides so that they would be able to prepare and carry them out without their guards taking notice. Investigators and military officials believe, according to the documents, that other detainees were aware that the suicides were about to happen and at one point chanted a song called “Kill Them All” — used by al-Qaeda and the Taliban after killing Americans — possibly to mask the sounds of death on the cellblock.
Investigators found that guards had become lax on certain rules because commanders wanted to reward the more compliant detainees, giving them extra T-shirts, blankets and towels. Detainees were allowed to hang such items to dry, or to provide privacy while using the toilet, but were not supposed to be able to obscure their cells while sleeping.
Guards told officials that it was not unusual to see blankets hanging in the cells and that they did not think twice when they passed several cells on the night of June 9, 2006, with blankets strung through the wire mesh. Authorities believe the men probably hanged themselves around 10 p.m., but they were not discovered until shortly after midnight on June 10.
Amazing. The critics can’t make up their mind. “They’re torturing… no wait, they’re too easy!”
This politically correct atmosphere is just what former JAG Maj. Kyndra Rotunda-Miller talked about.
[Maj. Rotunda-Miller] Detainees at Guantánamo Bay will sometimes throw urine, or spit upon, the military prison guards.
The reason that detainees continue behaving badly is because the Army does not have a disciplinary system to hold them accountable for crimes they commit while detained. There is no disciplinary system in Guantánamo, except for prison guards guarding the detainees.
However under the Third Geneva Convention (article 39, chapter 6) an entire chapter is devoted to camp discipline. “The prime purpose of measures of discipline is to ensure that the prisoner of war remains in the hands of the detaining power, so that he can neither do harm to that power within the camp, nor by escaping being able to take up arms again. It must not be forgotten that his life has been spared only on the condition that he is no longer in danger to the enemy.” Under the Geneva conventions, detainees are even required to salute the detaining Powers. But this never happens at Guantánamo Bay.
Detainees who break the rules under the Geneva conventions are subject to discipline the US has a right to bring detainees to trial and sentenced them for crimes committed against US prison guards at Guantánamo Bay. Under the Geneva conventions, the US could apply different disciplinary sanctions including fines, a limitation of privileges, duties that cause fatigue, and confinement. But this never happens at Guantánamo Bay.
Some detainees monitor guards and doctors, and make weapons. Detainees are resourceful. They have used [for weapons] springs from the faucets, broken light bulbs, and used fan blades as weapons. The incidents [had] risen to eight per day. In one year, detainees stacked victims with homemade knives 90 times, including cutting the doctor administering aid. Now, doctors wear body armor when you treat detainees. Detainees have faked suicide and attack the prison guards in Guantánamo Bay [who came into the cell to investigate]. In 2006, one detainee used sheets attached to the ceiling. A guard thought the detainee was attempting to commit suicide and called for assistance. When prison guards entered the cell, and countered a slick floor from feces, urine and soapy water that calls them to fall. The detainees then attacked the guards.
Once the commander of Guantánamo Bay, Admiral Harry Harris, found prescription pills in the binding of a Koran. The guards did not find this because the military for bids them from touching detainees Koran’s.
It’s likely that the incidents above could be contained in the report that the Washington Post published today, but it’s obvious in failing to mention the attacks, among other things, that the media bears much of the responsibility for the lax atmosphere at Guantanamo.
If there’s torture going on at Guantanamo, it’s the detainees torturing our military guards.