Gitmo Opponents Call Toilet Paper Confiscation 'Inhumane'
Wednesday, December 5, 2007 at 09:23AM Wikileaks is reporting on a leaked Guantanamo Bay detainee SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) manual which compares the SOPs of 2003 and 2004. The idea here is that Gitmo procedures are inhumane for terrorist suspects. The Daily KOS is trying its best to make something out of this leak. Here’s a short clip of the story from CNN’s The Situation Room: (in particular, pay attention to the last 10 seconds in which a Human Rights Watch representative describes the "incredible petty cruelty")
CNN: Some rules spell out fairly trivial matters, such as one section that reads: "For a special reward of a roll of toilet paper, the following procedure will apply. Give the detainee the roll of toilet paper. If the detainee tries to force the roll into the toilet or passes it out, confiscate the roll."
Other sections detail how the treatment of newly arrived prisoners is designed to enhance and exploit their disorientation and concentrates on isolating the detainee. Among the restrictions, no contact with the Red Cross or a chaplain, no books or mail, a Koran, but no prayer beads or cap.
JENNIFER DASKAL, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: I think what's really notable about this is just the incredible petty cruelty and dehumanizing aspect of all of this. Detainees are punished for tearing a sheet or for very, very minor infractions.
You-have-got-to-be-kidding-ME!
Some contrasts between the 2003 and 2004 detainee manuals are:
- "hunger strike(s)" changed to "Voluntary Total Fasting" or "VTF"
- "MP" (military police) becomes "guards".
- No dictionaries, magazines or books about English or geography.
Oh, ye gads, the inhumanity. Human Rights Watch, et al, forgot to mention these standards in the Gitmo Detainee manual:
*Ensure that medical treatment is available for all internees.
*Provide adequate space to prevent overcrowding.
a. It is the policy of the United States to treat all detainees humanely. Those detainees entitled to protected status under the laws and customs of war (e.g., the Geneva Conventions of 1949) will be afforded such protections. Those detainees determined not to be entitled to protected status under the laws and customs of war will, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, be treated in a manner consistent with the principles of the Geneva Conventions. Accordingly, commanders shall ensure that detainees are:
(1) treated humanely, without any adverse distinction based on race, color, religion, gender, wealth, or similar criteria;
(2) afforded adequate food, drinking water, shelter, clothing, and medical treatment;
(3) allowed the free exercise of religion consistent with the requirements of such detention; and detained in accordance with other such conditions as the Secretary of Defense may prescribe.
*Every effort should be made to understand the ethnic and cultural makeup of detainees by military personnel. This will assist command personnel to control detainees without unintentionally angering, upsetting, or violating religious or cultural standards that govern their behavior.
You know, liberalism is a greater threat to freedom, democracy and human rights than these detainees. Maybe we should consider a swap.
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Reader Comments (38)
"You know, liberalism is a greater threat to freedom, democracy and human rights than these detainees. Maybe we should consider a swap. That's an excellent idea, Amy! I couldn't agree with you more!
I concluded on Liberal Lunacy today that I understand the Muslim's agenda far better than I do that of the liberals. What in the world do they want? Do they want us to turn our country over to Muslims? They sure act as if they do. I just read an article - and posted about it - where the UK is getting ready to make it mandantory that already overworked nurses turn their muslim patient's beds around to face Mecca five times a day! One hospital has already done so. I truly believe that liberals are completely insane!
Gayle, I think liberals place their empathy in the wrong place. Rather than with Americans, they place it with terrorists.
For the record, I want this to be a Christian nation just as a Muslim would want to see it an Islamic one, but most Muslims of the world tolerate other religions, just as all religions tolerate each other.
Jennifer Daskal's quote about Gitmo detainees being punished for minor infractions like "tearing sheets" is asinine. What does she think a terrorist will do to a guard with a torn sheet? Strangle them, maybe? What a jerk.
Apparently the Kossacks did not get the memo - toilet paper is a grave threat to the environment.
The distinguished scientist Sheryl Crow said so.
O would say, "what a load of crap" but that would be too easy.
Huckabee wants to close Gitmo, one of many reasons I can't support him. Romney would fight to keep it. Gitmo is a needed place for those jihadi scum held there. Great post Amy.
Sympathy for the Gitmo detainees(terrorist scumbags): Tango Sierra!
Mike Boat+TD-1 Tie down chains + Ocean = end of problem.
Gayle-
Are you a scholar of the Middle East or something? How do you justify this statement:"I understand the Muslim's agenda far better than I do that of the liberals"? Whom did you learn more about Islam from, Robert Spencer or Jesus?
"You know, liberalism is a greater threat to freedom, democracy and human rights than these detainees. Maybe we should consider a swap."
You know, considering that your side of the ideological aisle is most likely going to be completely out of political power after the next election, I don't know if it is such a great idea to spread the meme (even ironically) that it is appropriate to lock up people based on their political persuasion.
Amy,
I don’t know if you are aware of this but your quote that “liberalism is a greater threat to freedom…” is featured in a post on Andrew Sullivan’s blog the Daily Dish.
It was a truly surreal moment for me to see your quote (which to be honest strikes me as a bit over the top) on his blog. Anyway, thought you might want to know.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/12/malkin-award--2.html
The enemy within eh?
Your comment is obviously tongue-in-cheek but is indicative of the sentiments many conservatives hold. Of course, imprisoning lefties is not anti-democratic at all...
Imagine something similar posted about neocons on The Daily Kos, oh the indignation, the uproar, that would be focused at those godless libs...
As usual, "your side" gets it wrong. Some hospitals have asked their seriously ill Muslim patients if the patient would prefer to have the bed facing Mecca. That part is true, the rest is made up to make Muslims look bad. Which seems to be the point of most of "your side". http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/7127029.stm
GREAT WRITING AMY. THOSE LIBERALTARDS ARE THE ENEMY AND SHOULD BE EXTERMINATED PRAISE BE TO GOD. THEY WISH TO SELL US OUT TO THEIR ISLAMIST TERRORIST PALS WHO THEY SHARE SO MUCH IN COMMON WITH. THANK GOD AND JESUS FOR GREAT AMERICAN HEROS LIKE YOURSELF, PRESIDENT BUSH AND SEAN HANNITY. TRUE DEFENDERS OF LIBERTY!
Drew-Your comment is snark isn't it?
The greatest danger I see to Democracy in America these days is the Bush administration, and the right-wing loonies like Amy who instead of trying to bring us all together to solve our common problems, seek to divide us and ratchet of the level of hate ever higher.
Drew-Your comment is snark isn't it?
The greatest danger I see to Democracy in America these days is the Bush administration, and the right-wing loonies like Amy who instead of trying to bring us all together to solve our common problems, seek to divide us and ratchet of the level of hate ever higher.
Drew,
I would expect nothing less from someone without the intelligence to type in anything except ALL UPPER CASE!
Amy: I think you're being a bit overemotional about this.
Ironic, since you're commenting on the overreaction of others.
Take a deep breath. Relax. Reread Matthew 25:45. Repeat until necessary. Your faith, when properly applied, can do wonders to calm your ire.
Because I disagree with you, I must be a liberal, lib-tard, etc. I will pray for you and carry nothing but good tidings in my heart for you as you send me to the gallows. It doesn't even matter if what we say is snark because some of us believe it already. So, Amy, please come get me whenever you are ready, lest I breed and spread my ideology to the next generation of unbelievers.
Well, we all know that the war on terror must be fought so that we can stay alive. Who cares about defending civil liberties, the rule of law, and moral imperitives? I just want our great Leader George Bush to protect my 5000 square foot house and my two Hummers. If we have to torture some a-rabs to get it done, so what? Who cares if this is a complete bastardization of the idea that America stands for something greater than base acts of self protection?
Praise Jesus
Eww . . . I feel like I need to bathe after visiting this page.
GM, is it possible you needed one before you got here?
That's my theory.
Jamey, “doing to the least of these” is like turning the other cheek. It has to do with personal responsibility and spirituality, not foreign or domestic policy.
SilkSilke, thanks for the heads up. I am not familiar with Andrew Sullivan, although I’ve heard of him, and was reading his bio trying to make heads or tails of him. So he’s an openly gay conservative journalist?
And what is a Malkin Award?
My comment which he quoted was a bit over the top. I am still dumbfounded by the attitude of the Human Rights Watch and ACLU over this. And Daily KOS, who makes itself look even more stupid by forcing meaning upon it.
I will say this, Silke: I am changing my mind on water boarding. The more I think about and study it, the more I think it could constitute torture. Is it? I’m not sure. If I personally underwent water boarding I would probably consider it torture.
Here’s the thing: if we as a nation decide water boarding is indeed torture, we simply have to be prepared for the consequences. That is, when dialoguing and hammering out the details on such a matter, all angles have to be discussed and all possibilities exhausted. IF it’s possible that water boarding has thwarted terrorist attacks but IS torture and we decide as a nation against using it, then we must be prepared to accept the possible consequences.
We must be prepared to not condemn the next, current or past President for failure to do everything possible to keep America safe in the event that some detainee is released, confessing to nothing, and is instrumental in an attack on American citizens. We must ALL bear the burden of giving a terrorist the benefit of the doubt. I’m not sure yet I’m willing to do that. I live on a military post that is one of the top 5 highest terrorist risky posts in America. My children go to school on post. There is an MP posted outside of their school with an M-16. We have snipers on the ready every time a major event happens here, like when GEN Caldwell took command of CAC, replacing GEN Petraeus.
When these collegiate nincompoops like Jennifer Daskal of Human Rights Watch (in the video) sit around and theorize about what constitutes incredible petty cruelty not even knowing what a very, very minor infraction is, it makes me sick. Despite these weenies we are safe and thank God for Gitmo.
The other option is to close Gitmo and place some sort of holding facility outside the U.S. Human Rights Watch division or ACLU headquarters.
Amy, Sullivan’s Malkin Award (as in Michelle Malkin) and Moore Award (as in Michael Moore) refer to any quote that strikes him as hyper-partisan, whether it comes from the left or the right.
I’m glad you are changing your mind about waterboarding. Some people call it simulated drowning but it’s really more like actual drowning that is interrupted. To me it is a defining issue for our country and as someone who has worked in intelligence I can tell you we don’t have to resort to torture to obtain information.
Waqonjak, you have GOT to be kidding to suggest Democrats bring people together in the spirit of bipartisanship! The ugliest vitriol in politics comes from the left.
I want a unified America. Just because we conservatives use our 1st amendment rights to express our opinions and beliefs doesn’t mean we are being divisive. To the contrary; we unite all people with common sense and morals.
Silke, that was what I suspected when I saw the Moore Award. I proudly accept the Malkin Award.
I disagree that we don't have to resort to water boarding to obtain information. There are been several Gitmo detainees who've confessed under those circumstances. The issue is morality, though, and is water boarding unethical. I doubt a terrorist would consider it torture, but that's beside the point.
I'm sure you do want a unified America, Amy. As soon as we can get rid of these liberals from our schools, from our government, and from our lives, we will have total common sense, pure morals, and a unified America.
Jeff, Never did I suggest we should lock up anyone based on their "political persuasion", but rather on their efforts to harm America.
I'm not as concerned about liberals as I am their actions, MS.
Confessions under torture - and waterboarding has been recognized as torture since the Inquisition - aren't reliable, since people in that situation will say anything to appease the interrogator. That's why the Inquisition liked it so much: get the confession and execute.
Confessions under torture are the source for so much wasted paranoia and, I would think, wasted work for our Intelligence workers about plans that never existed. Some of that has leaked to the public, and so it is also the source of a great deal of, well, terror.
So by dropping all of its previously-untouchable moral standards about torture, the U.S. has helped terrorists succeed in their main goal: terror.
This exact issue about whether nor not the only problem with torture/waterboarding is the morality or legality has been addressed already by professional interrogators before the Senate:
So, despite from the fact that up until now, the U.S. was a bulwark against torture (Reagan, Eisenhower, Washington) and causeless imprisonment and nobody would've even thought that in America we would even have to debate it, torture doesn't work anyway.
So despite your own problem with finding moral problem with causing excruciating mental and phyisical pain, hopefully I've at least appealed to your sense of practicality.
"You know, liberalism is a greater threat to freedom, democracy and human rights than these detainees. Maybe we should consider a swap."
A bit over the top, huh? How about an apology?
You should be ashamed of yourself ... and thankful that liberals(like me) and the ACLU defend your right to express poisonous and hate-filled rhetoric. How does your nastines confom to the teachings of Jesus Christ?
Steve. I don't necessarily disagree with the statement you cited. I will find and post the incidents I'm recalling regarding thwarting terrorist attacks based on waterboarding. As I understand it, waterboarding is rare. It doesn't inflict pain, it inflicts fear.
But I'd be willing to stop waterboarding because I respect John McCain's view. He may be right, although his belief that it prompts terrorists to torture U.S. troops they may capture is asinine. They torture our guys whether we use waterboarding or not.
*cough, cough....* whew, that Pinot went down the wrong pipe when I read that it is the ACLU who defends my freedom! Do they know this? Where were they in WWII? WWI? Who were they defending after 9/11? (hint, it wasn't the U.S.)
My husband will be happy to hear the news. He can put down his uniform and hand his M-16 to the ACLU who defends our freedoms!
As for the teaching of Christ, Jehovah is his father. Take a little read through the Old Testament if you want to see how God defends the innocent against threats to his people. It ain't pretty.
Defending the innocent is completely compatible with the teachings of Christ. If you support abortion you should quickly change the subject because you're only incriminating yourself if you do.
You just made my point, Amy. If you were any student of history, you'd realize the folly of your statement. Consider how many people were influenced by ideas borne from people in prison. There's even a book called "Letters From Prison: Socialism A Spiritual Sunrise." No, prison isn't good enough for these people. That just keeps liberalism going. Deep in your heart, or in your husband's M-16, you know this. Right?
Er, it's extremely painful. Imagine someone tied you down, took that Pinot, shoved it down your throat, and waited a few minutes. That's pretty much what happens, except they use water. Actually, water's probably worse than the grape since you probably had a fighting chance at breathing.
Your husband's M16 should stay right by his side - and God bless 'em for that - but surely the fight for freedom has never been limited to bullets. So the ACLU's role is to fight for freedom with words, where civil liberties are violated. On the very front of their website it says:
And you can't deny that they (and the Red Cross) have had a huge role in forcing the government to show, for example, the photos of Abu Ghraib, through their use of forceful litigation. These organizations have shown that there are violations of treaties and ideals we ascribe to, despite the guide you quote on your post. To me that makes the violation much more severe.
If we do believe that people are innocent until proven guilty, those people in Guantanamo Bay are - for now - innocent. And there may be an innocent man in those cell now, and surely he is the least of our brothers, so to speak. And if we've got a bad guy, and can prove it, why on Earth aren't we showing the guy on trial for all to see?
You and I would probably agree that the ACLU gets a bit, well, nutty sometimes. But the Far Right does, too (note: let's not compare notes on right wing/left wing nuttiness because it would never end). Like I said before: it's a balance. As far as where they were during various conflicts, they were mostly focusing on intra-national affairs because they are litigators, and that's ineffective in countries without functioning law. Until the ACLU’s involvement, no free speech defense trials had been won in the Supreme Court. So, yes, they do defend our freedom, albeit with words and not weapons.
Even if they are nutty sometimes.
Either way, I find it a bit disturbing that since we've long fought torture as a country, and on top of that it doesn't work, that we need the ACLU to force the government to not engage in it.
~~~
MS: Prison may be too good for them, if they're guilty (again, without a trial we don't know), but are you suggesting that prisoners should be tortured because they might write a book? I hate to validate Godwin's Law, but Mein Kampf wasn't a hit until its writer was a star, and that fame came directly from the Allies' need for revenge at Versailles. Hate motivates the sentiment that "prison isn't good enough" - and that caused Hitler to be successful.
Only desperate people listen to madmen like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Saddam Hussein and their cohorts. We must be the Shining City, free of torture, with guaranteed rights to fair and open trials to everyone, to show a way out of the desperation. Only then will the War on Terror be over.
Amy,
My understaind of Christianity was that Jesus was refuting the Old Testament in it's entirety to bring about a time of peace. At least that is what my minister friends keep telling me. Maybe their divinity instructors were all nuts.
As for the ACLU, ummm... yes, they actually do protect everyone's freedom of speech. Obviously your husband does too, but his work is with a gun not with the legal system. Uness you are suggesting we should get rid of the legal system and turn our whole justice system over to the Military tribunals.
"He can put down his uniform and hand his M-16 to the ACLU who defends our freedoms!"
What freedoms? The freedoms protected within the constitution? Doesn't look that way to me. From what I have seen written here by you and Johnny, the only thing he protects is George Bush's felonious activities as president. Okay, that was probably "a bit over the top."
You did not answer my question. How does YOUR nastiness confom to the teachings of Jesus Christ? Did you skip over the parable on humility?
"...thwarting terrorist attacks based on waterboarding."
We can also thwart terrorist attacks if we just go around and round up every Arab-looking person in our country and stick them in Gitmo. They can then go about proving their innocence, although we won't allow them to have a lawyer, or have any of the rights "real Americans" have under our legal system.
We're already well down that slippery slope. I, for one, feel less safe than I did on Sept. 10, 2001.
AWR,
Jesus was not about refuting the Old Testament or bringing about a time of peace. The exact opposite is true. Jesus was a Jew! And his Father the God of the Jews who handed down all those laws to the Jews. How could Jesus’ mission be to refute them?
In the Gospel of Matthew 5:17-19, Jesus said:
Every stroke of the Law in the New Testament was given by God and exhibits complete and perfect justice. The law which said a woman who committed adultery or a rebellious child should be stoned represented perfect justice because of the gravity of sin, the ripple effect sin has on God’s original order, but it wasn’t God’s desire to have perfect justice carried out. It was meant to show people the holiness of God along with his mercy and grace. It is evident throughout the Old Testament the times God “repented” from his wrath out of love for his people and had mercy rather than justice. This is a recurring theme.
But Jesus represents to man what the Law was supposed to mean. That is, complete and perfect love. Jesus said the totality of the law is wrapped up in these two things: to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Do those two things and you will keep the law, which is love.
So no, Jesus did not come to do away with the Law. To the contrary.
Jesus also said in the Gospel of St. Matthew 10:34-37:
Here, Jesus described the consequence of His mission, which is division and war rather than unity and peace. His mission was not to bring about peace but redemption. Because His message was so difficult to grasp, those of us who embrace it are at odds with the rest of the world and even family members.
The ACLU is not the American legal system. It is a snake in the grass of the American legal system. They advocate for the sickest elements of society and aide pediphiles, terrorists and murderers.
I support due process and justice of the America legal system, but the ACLU exploits it.
bigyaz, don't misunderstand me. I'm not the kind of Conservative who believes in carpet bombing the Arabs. In fact, if you know anything about my husband's work in the military and in Iraq you'd know we're both very understanding of the Muslim religion. I've talked at length on this blog about this. I know for a fact there are many good Muslims and that terrorism is not compatible with their religion. I've written a post on Hirabah vs. Jihad and have many posts on counterinsurgency that makes the point. I support Pope Benedict's outreach to the Muslim community and vice versa.