The Liberty Lamp: Libertarian News & Editorials

This entry is republished from TortureProtest.org.

United States Military Redefines Torture
by triddle on Mon Apr 03, 2006 5:09 pm

The United States military is claiming that no torture has been used at Guantanamo Bay; they maintain this position even after the report detailing torturous interrogation techniques used against one specific detainee. The military must have an awfully creative definition of torture to make such a claim. Lets start off with Wikipedia's definition of torture: "Torture is any act by which severe pain, whether physical or psychological, is intentionally inflicted on a person as a means of intimidation, a deterrent, revenge, a punishment, or as a method for the extraction of information or confessions."

If the military is going to claim that they have not done any of those things they are lying through their teeth. The very same report the military claims exonerates them from claims of torturous behavior in fact condemns them for it. Here is a very short list of findings from the report:

Finding #4: subjects were "left alone in the interrogation booth for an indefinite period of time while loud music played and strobe lights flashed."

Finding #14: inducing a "body temperature between 95 and 97 degrees twice" with the use of climate control. Wikipedia defines hypothermia as starting at 95 degrees.

Finding #16e: a man was "interrogated for 18-20 hours per day for 48 of the 54 days, with the opportunity for a minimum of four hours rest per day."

Air Force Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt testified to the Senate Senate Armed Services Committee about these very acts. He stated that "Detention and interrogation operations across the board ... looking through all the evidence that we could, were safe, secure and humane." One of these "safe, secure, and humane" acts included forcing a subject to wear women's clothes. You may not agree that wearing women's clothes is torture but we have to look at how this man was treated to get him to wear those clothes; I have no idea how he was coerced into wearing the clothes but the report says he was in fact "forced" to wear them. I'm not generous enough to let the military use "safe, secure, and humane" and "force" to describe the exact same incident; I'm sure the threats made against the man were in fact quite inhumane.

References:
No Gitmo torture, Senate panel told
Investigation into FBI Allegations of Detainee Abuse at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba Detention Facility