GuardianUnlimited writes:
Prisoner interrogations at Guantánamo Bay, the controversial US military detention centre where guards have been accused of brutality and torture, have not prevented a single terrorist attack, according to a senior Pentagon intelligence officer who worked at the heart of the US war on terror. ¹
I wonder how they’re justifying the entire mess... The article uses strong words to describe the state of the affair: Torture, abuse... And it says that people are doing what they told us the so-called witches did when the Inquisition cut off their breasts and ripped out their fingernails: They confessed every single piece of crap their interrogators wanted to hear. This time they don’t always get hurt physically, but I feel great shame at this systematic use of torture in the western world (”a system of punishments, physical and mental abuse and rewards for for co-operation”).
Earlier this year, three British released detainees, Asif Iqbal, Shafiq Rasul Rhuhel Ahmed, revealed that they had all confessed to meeting bin Laden and Mohamed Atta, leader of the 11 September hijackers, at a camp in Afghanistan in 2000. All had cracked after three months isolated in solitary confinement and interrogation sessions in chains that lasted up to 12 hours daily.
Like Christa Wolf said in her book Cassandra: What’s the use in fighting a war if you have to take on the traits of your enemies in order to win? Truly, our governments try to fight terrorism with torture. Nice twist, guys. (I mentioned Christa Wolf before... ²)
The scary thing is how this kind of thinking is spreading:
A high court appeal in August found that it was lawful for the British government to use information obtained under torture by foreign governments to avert an imminent attack [...]
I see. Next time they’ll send the captives to our friends in Syria or Egypt like our other friends in the US already seem to do? Good thinking, guys.
Well, there’s still hope, but I must confess that personally, I don’t have much left. Mostly anger, in fact.
Tomorrow, the Lords will determine whether it was lawful for the government to opt out of the European Convention on Human Rights to allow for the detention of the men at Belmarsh and Woodhill prisons.
All quotes from that Guardian article.
#USA