Community | October 08, 2008 | 36 comments

Guantanamo Bay Documents say detainees near insanity

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081008/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/detainee_treatment

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synclaire
WASHINGTON - A U.S. military officer warned Pentagon officials that an American detainee was being driven nearly insane by months of punishing isolation and sensory deprivation in a U.S. military brig, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

While the treatment of prisoners at detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan and Iraq have long been the subject of human rights complaints and court scrutiny, the documents shed new light on how two American citizens and a legal U.S. resident were treated in military jails inside the United States.

The Bush administration ordered the men to be held in military jails as "enemy combatants" for years of interrogations without criminal charges, which would not have been allowed in civilian jails.

The men were interrogated by the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency, repeatedly denied access to attorneys and mail from home and contact with anyone other than guards and their interrogators. They were deprived of natural light for months and for years were forbidden even minor distractions such as a soccer ball or a dictionary.

"I will continue to do what I can to help this individual maintain his sanity, but in my opinion we're working with borrowed time," an unidentified Navy brig official wrote of prisoner Yaser Esam Hamdi in 2002. "I would like to have some form of an incentive program in place to reward him for his continued good behavior, but more so, to keep him from whacking out on me."
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36 comments // Guantanamo Bay Documents say detainees near insanity

  • clownpuncher
  • hsaleem
  • picKFishStudios
    • 0
      picKFishStudios  

    • i hope everyone reading this helps spread the word, even if its only voting this article up higher so more people read it. More people need to become aware of what is really going on, and how the rest of the world views it, not just how our government and media spin it to sway our opinions or deny them completely.

    • 3 years ago
  • NeoDotCom
  • keeshii768
  • ChristmasAsen
  • Vierotchka
  • keeshii768
  • huntre
    • 0
      huntre  

    • Meanwhile, GWB and Company continue to keep them "detained" without trials in hopes that US citizens never hear their side of the story.

    • 3 years ago
  • spanky07
  • ChristmasAsen
    • 0
      ChristmasAsen  
    • spanky07:

      Remember when we were a respectable nation preaching compassion?

      "they started this whole mess in the first place by picking up a gun and trying to kill us."
      Sounds like you'd rather put these people to death than have them stand trial for their crimes.

    • 3 years ago
  • Vierotchka
    • 0
      Vierotchka  
    • spanky07:

      They didn't start this, the US did by invading, destroying, pillaging THEIR country, torturing, raping, and slaughtering indiscriminately. Would you not take up arms should a foreign army do to your country what your country has done to Afghans and Iraqis? Sheesh!

    • 3 years ago
  • ii386
    • 0
      ii386  
    • spanky07:

      It is absolutely amazing that violating rights and habeas corpus is actually acceptable to some people if they feel that it might in some way bring them a little bit more security (which is unlikely). Scooter82 first and now spanky07...

    • 3 years ago
  • synclaire
    • 0
      synclaire  
    • spanky07:

      Ooo a spanken "new" conservative troll spanky07! I really wish current had an 'ignore user' option so I wouldn't have to see their hate filled comments shitting up an otherwise great website.

    • 3 years ago
  • scoot82
  • ChristmasAsen
  • iloveravi
    • 0
      iloveravi  

    • This is brutal.

      I hope none of you americans like traveling because I don't imagine you will be welcome or safe in other countries in the near future.

      All of this shit of detaining, torturing and holding prisoners without trial is EVIL. You even have children held there for christ's sake!!!!

      You need to STOP IT NOW!!!!

      Not complain, not cry, not blog about it. STOP IT!!!

      You need to realize that there is a scary mob growing that is called "the rest of the world" and we are getting very fed up with this behavior.

      You have been considered "the good guys" for a long time but to even think that americans are the "good guy" anymore is a laughable idea.

      You and your government are doing the same shit that THE WORST countries in history have done. But at least those people could say they were ruled by a fascist leader beyond their control.

      Your leaders are elected.

      The final responsibility lies in the hands of the people. It is a horrible burden but the trade off you make for living in a free society.

      Sadly this is the society you have built. You are the worst kind of country imaginable. Evil, untrustworthy, arrogant, violent and hypocritical.

      Shame on america and americans.

    • 3 years ago
  • scoot82
    • 0
      scoot82  
    • iloveravi:

      It should be mention that most countries whose populations hold vast anti-American views/sentiments are pissed off at the fact that they used to be a superpower/controller of the region and have lost that status to the Americans. Keep in mind that if you look in the history books, you will find that these countries did the same thing America is doing-if not worse. The true hipocrites are the French, Palestinians, and Sunnis.

    • 3 years ago
  • FazeB
    • 0
      FazeB  

    • Conditions in the American prison system leaves much to be desired, so I can't even imagine the deplorable conditions of a "non-American" prison, in Cuba, with torturers lurking outside one's cell....

      There's a difference between detainee and convict.

    • 3 years ago
  • Greg_Ramone1
  • Sara_Airey
  • TrikyNiki
    • 0
      TrikyNiki  

    • Now our tax money will go for psychiatric treatment for detainees... If whatever we hear is true from Guantanamo Bay, we will owe millions.

    • 3 years ago
  • Sara_Airey
    • 0
      Sara_Airey  

    • I don't have to go two steps from my door for life to be hard, and I still manage to keep my "bullshit utopian ideas".

      The average American who respects life "as much as you and I" ran my dad off the freeway for no reason and nearly killed him. He now has significant brain damage and will never work again, not to mention the horrors of visiting him in the hospital. All because some punks thought it would be funny, entertaining. Do I think it would fit for them to rot in a cell with no interaction at all- slowly digressing in insanity until their death? Hell no!

      Look around, there is apathy everywhere, not just the Middle East. You don't have to enlist and be handed a gun to experience the horrors of humanity. I think the toughest part is keeping your ideals and extending your compassion and forgiveness to all regardless.

    • 3 years ago
  • onechance
  • Sara_Airey
  • scoot82
    • 0
      scoot82  
    • Sara_Airey:

      At least you don't have do live every moment of your life in fear of being blown up or shot. At least you have power and running water. At least you have access to basic education, and a hope that tomorrow will be better. At least you have food to eat.
      Until one has been reduced to animalistic needs for an extended period of time, one will never fully understand what is happening "over there."
      Count your many blessings. Best wishes.

    • 3 years ago
  • scoot82
    • 0
      scoot82  

    • No I am not kidding you Sara. When you have arrested terrorists who were trying to blowup your footpatrol with an IED, your perspective changes. They all try to pretend like they weren't doing anything wrong. They all have some bullshit excuse. They all get their battered wives to lie for them. Even when you have solid proof against them. I would rather have one hundred possible terrorists detained, than see one dead American soldier.

      People over there don't value life as much as you and I. If you saw how they lived you would understand why.
      If they were wearing uniforms when they fought, then they should be given the rights guaranteed by the Geneva conventions. But when they blow you up from a distance and then try to mix in with a crowd (putting innocent civilians-including children-in harms way), then they can all rot in hell.

      Break your bubble, get cultured shocked, come back to America, then try to keep all your bullshit utopian ideas. It doesn't work.

    • 3 years ago
  • onechance
  • ChristmasAsen
  • Sara_Airey
    • 0
      Sara_Airey  

    • Are you kidding me scoot82?

      Even an officer who is constant contact with people who have been suspect of murdering or worse realizes this is inhumane and unjustified.

      Why don't you go and figure out why they are in there with no charges made yet? As of now, they are in there for nothing so I don't exactly think this story is unbiased.

    • 3 years ago
  • scoot82
    • 0
      scoot82  

    • Good, he probably deserves it. Let's hear what he did to get in Gitmo. What a biased one sided story! This bastard would be getting no sympathy from anyone if we were to find that he had beheaded someone.

    • 3 years ago
  • ii386
    • 0
      ii386  
    • scoot82:

      you are absolutely missing the point. HE IS HELD WITHOUT CHARGES INDEFINITELY. WHAT DID HE DO? HE HAS NO CHARGES! how can that POSSIBLY be justified?

      how many years before a trial?
      have evidence? prosecute ASAP. don't? RELEASE THEM. The law isnt perfect but evidence is absolutely necessary. its not a utopia, its common sense.

    • 3 years ago
  • brain_sik
  • GreenTransman
    • 0
      GreenTransman  

    • Why must we treat our fellow human beings like this? Even animals don't deserve that kind of treatment. (Not that animals deserve any kind of bad treatment at all... )

    • 3 years ago
  • Sara_Airey
  • onechance
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