The Other Gitmo: Where's the Outrage?

[Aurelian]

Hmmm. New thought. Gawain, I think you are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. It's clear from your description of the tortures you suffered in Marine bootcamp that the Marines abused you physically and emotionally in order to break down your psyche and instill a sense of loyalty and identification with your captors. From Wikipedia:

In order to form military units which will remain loyal to each other even in life-threatening situations, the basic training ("training is a mildly traumatic experience intended to produce a bond") used by military trainers can be said to produce a mild form of the same symptom.

Similarily, the effects of the "hazing" system of induction into groups such as fraternities and sororities have been compared to the syndrome. In cultural anthropology a similar symptom is common to bride capture situations.

Loyalty to a more powerful abuser - in spite of the danger that this loyalty puts the victim in - is common among victims of domestic abuse (battered wives) and child abuse (dependent children). In many instances the victims choose to remain loyal to their abuser, and choose not to leave him or her, even when they are offered a safe placement in foster homes or safe houses. This syndrome was described by psychoanalysts of the object relations theory school (see Fairbairn) as the phenomenon of psychological identification with the more powerful abuser.

Clearly, you are a victim of the fiendish psychological conditioning that you suffered at the hands of the US military, and that is why you identify with the national security state apparatus instead of with the victims of Abu Ghraib, etc.

Dude, you're like a right-wing version of Patty Hearst.

[Watchman]

I understand a lot of the more "totally hardcore" type forces - the USMC and the French Foreign Legion spring to mind as examples - take that approach. Almost certainly with official sanction and intentionally. Apparently the idea is to strip the recruits of all human diginity, so that nothing is left for them to hang onto save total submission to the unit and espirit de corps.

Heck, cultural background differences aside, the old Imperial Japanese military had the same approach...

It seems to work, too. Well, expect when recruits suffer a total mental breakdown under the strain, run amok, go Full Metal Jacket or something of the sort (the memoirs of Foreign Legion vets are full of anecdotes), but apparently that's viewed as an agreeable price to pay.

[Watchman]

Oh yeah, and Gawain ? You were saying about the Geneva Conventions ?

Indeed, "following the events of September 11, 2001, a new category of detainee, enemy combatant (EC), was created for personnel who are not granted or entitled to the privileges of the Geneva Convention [sic]".(108) In its broadly-defined global "war", the administration has defined "enemy combatant" broadly:

"Any person that US or allied forces could properly detain under the laws and customs of war. For purposes of the war on terror an enemy combatant includes, but is not necessarily limited to, a member or agent of Al Qaeda, Taliban, or another international terrorist organization against which the United States is engaged in an armed conflict."(109)
Not only are these so-called "enemy combatants" denied the protections of the Geneva Conventions, they are also denied the protections of international human rights law because the US administration considers that they are held exclusively under "the laws and customs of war", regardless of where in the world they were taken into custody.

The leading authority on provisions of international humanitarian law, or the law of war, is the ICRC which has stated:

"Irrespective of the motives of their perpetrators, terrorist acts committed outside of armed conflict should be addressed by means of domestic or international law enforcement, but not by application of the laws of war… ‘Terrorism’ is a phenomenon. Both practically and legally, war cannot be waged against a phenomenon, but only against an identifiable party to an armed conflict. For these reasons, it would be more appropriate to speak of a multifaceted ‘fight against terrorism’ rather than a ‘war on terrorism’…What is important to know is that no person captured in the fight against terrorism can be considered outside the law. There is no such thing as a ‘black hole’ in terms of legal protection."(110)

Yet, in seeking to have the post-Rasul habeas corpus petitions of Guantánamo detainees dismissed, the executive has rejected the notion that the detainees have any rights under human rights treaty law or customary international law:

"Customary law is constantly evolving, thus implying that states can modify their practices to adapt to new or unanticipated circumstances or challenges… Even if customary international law proscribed ‘prolonged arbitrary detention’, it is not at all clear that petitioners’ detention fall within this rubric. The detention here is not arbitrary, but based on the Military’s determination that petitioners are enemy combatants. The treaties cited by petitioners as evidence of customary international law do not appear to deal with wartime detentions of this type, but rather with criminal-like matters, and petitioners cite no clear evidence of a consistent and widespread norm, followed as a matter of legal obligation, that detention of enemy combatants in a worldwide war against a terrorist organization is improper."(111)

Such an argument, if accepted, would give a government – any government – a blank cheque to ignore its obligations under international law for any situation that it defined as a "war", "new" or "unanticipated" or for any person that it defined as the "enemy". In this case, it follows President Bush’s assertion that the "war against terrorism ushers in a new paradigm [which] requires new thinking in the law of war".(112) As revealed by a series of previously secret government documents, the thinking that has been done has been of a sort that looks to manipulate and bypass the USA’s fundamental international legal obligations. Thus, whatever "new thinking" has been done, the result has been old abuses, abuses which when committed by other countries warrant an entry in the US State Department annual human rights report.

From the same old Amnesty document, bold text added for emphasis. Geneva my arse.

[Aurelian]

Regarding evidence on the US use of torture, here's a bit from Andrew Sullivan's website on waterboarding. Sullivan is often a tool, but he gets the concept of what constitutes torture.

WATERBOARDING: An emailer thinks I am under-estimating the horrors of the technique backed by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the Wall Street Journal:

If anything, the now standard description of water-boarding understates the cruelty of the method. Those who were subjected to this method by South American security forces report that "they had been held under water until they had in fact begun to drown and lost consciousness, only to be revived by their torturers and submerged again. It is one of their worst memories" (Jennifer Harbury, 'Truth, Torture, and the American Way," pp. 15-16). As you note, the French used it in Algeria (there is a vivid depiction in the movie "The Battle of Algiers"). The United States used it heavily in the Philippines a hundred years ago; they called it "the water cure." The person who probably knows the most about this is Darius Rejali, a professor at Reed College and author of a new history of torture, soon to be published by Princeton University Press.

Marty Lederman discusses the depraved, Orwellian editorial at the Wall Street Journal here. We do, in fact, have a documented case of the tactic. I discussed it earlier this year in reviewing the Schmidt Report. That Pentagon report confirmed that at Gitmo, one detainee was subjected to the following:

He was kept awake for 18 - 20 hours a day for 48 of 54 consecutive days, he was forced to wear bras and thongs on his head, he was prevented from praying, he was forced to crawl around on a dog leash to perform dog tricks, he was told his mother and sister were whores, he was subjected to extensive "cavity searches" (after 160 days in solitary confinement) and then "on seventeen ocasions, between 13 Dec 02 and 14 Jan 03, interrogators, during interrogations, poured water over the subject."

The latter is a polite word for "water-boarding." Later in the report, we are informed that this technique was deployed "regularly" as a "control measure." All this was "legally permissible under the existing guidance." Medical doctors were on hand to ensure that the victim didn't die. Water-boarding, in other words, is a specific technique directly authorized by Rumsfeld, described in the Schmidt Report, under the John Yoo rules, as legally permissible even for POWs under the Geneva Conventions. The Schmidt Report described this treatment as "humane." It is very important to focus on the specifics of what this president has authorized. When he says "We do not torture," he means that this technique is not "torture". A technique used by South American dictators is fine by Bush. This from a president who had the chutzpah to respond to Abu Ghraib by saying that the abuses did not reflect America's values. He was right. They reflect his administration's.LINK

Exactly. Anybody who thinks that waterboarding is not torture should be waterboarded until he confesses that waterboarding is torture. I don't think it would take very long. Probably even Cheney would agree that he was being tortured after the first couple of times he was drowned and revived.

Why is this hard to get? Why would anybody approve of it? Why do the 'values voters' have no values?

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Indeed, "following the events of September 11, 2001, a new category of detainee, enemy combatant (EC), was created for personnel who are not granted or entitled to the privileges of the Geneva Convention [sic]".(108) In its broadly-defined global "war", the administration has defined "enemy combatant" broadly:

Thats them. Hardly an impartial organization. Again their illegal combatants.

If there is any doubt about whether an alleged combatant is a "lawful combatant" then they must be held as a Prisoner of War until their status has been determined by "a competent tribunal". If that tribunal rules that the combatant is an "unlawful combatant" then their status changes to that of a civilian which may give them some rights under Fourth Geneva Convention.

They all were given tribunals

Article 4. Persons protected by the Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals.
Nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention are not protected by it. Nationals of a neutral State who find themselves in the territory of a belligerent State, and nationals of a co-belligerent State, shall not be regarded as protected persons while the State of which they are nationals has normal diplomatic representation in the State in whose hands they are.

Part I. General Provisions
...
Art. 5 Where in the territory of a Party to the conflict, the latter is satisfied that an individual protected person is definitely suspected of or engaged in activities hostile to the security of the State, such individual person shall not be entitled to claim such rights and privileges under the present Convention as would, if exercised in the favour of such individual person, be prejudicial to the security of such State.

It is likely that if they have been found to be "unlawful combatant" by "a competent tribunal" under GCIII Article 5 and they are a protected person under GCIV, that the Party to the conflict will invoke GCIV Article 5. In which case the "unlawful combatant" does not have the "rights and privileges under the present Convention as would, if exercised in the favour of such individual person, be prejudicial to the security of such State". They do however retain the right "to be treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed by the present Convention."

If after "fair and regular trial" they are found guilty of a crime then the "unlawful combatant" can be punished by whatever lawful methods are available to the Party to the conflict.

If the Party does not use Article 5 the Party may invoke Article 42 of GCIV and use "internment" to detain the "unlawful combatant".

I understand a lot of the more "totally hardcore" type forces - the USMC and the French Foreign Legion spring to mind as examples - take that approach. Almost certainly with official sanction and intentionally. Apparently the idea is to strip the recruits of all human diginity, so that nothing is left for them to hang onto save total submission to the unit and espirit de corps.

Heck, cultural background differences aside, the old Imperial Japanese military had the same approach...

It seems to work, too. Well, expect when recruits suffer a total mental breakdown under the strain, run amok, go Full Metal Jacket or something of the sort (the memoirs of Foreign Legion vets are full of anecdotes), but apparently that's viewed as an agreeable price to pay.

Exactly . So we torture our own young men in the interest of national defense but if we do the same to the enemy were criminals.

[Ironside]

Exactly . So we torture our own young men in the interest of national defense but if we do the same to the enemy were criminals.

There's a slight difference. Do you consider cutting of the balls of people torture? If, yes did the now balless bloke that had balls but no brain comit torture and should be inprisoned for it (and that got nothing to with his mental heath, but only this crime)? If no, then why?


And don't even try to be smart and try to say that those shouldn't either have been too closely connected by terrorists (or been in the same area, or having bad luck) or that they can get away by emitting information.

That's unless you're willing to sell out friends and betray what you fight for. Or are accepting that captured US troops are gettting tortured. Because whatever warped views those prisioner is having, thier feelings on that matter will match yours.