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Monday, June 13, 2005

It's what they leave out that counts

Time has obtained a log detailing the treatment of Mohammed al Qahtani, Detainee 063 at Gauntanamo Bay. Captain Ed says it's no big deal:

Standing for prolonged periods (perhaps best referred to as the Disneyland treatment)
Shaving of facial hair
Solitary confinement
Pouring water on his head
Poking a finger into his chest
Removal of some clothing
Puppet shows -- no, I'm not kidding
Being in the same room as attractive women

Worst of all, the one method on which Human Rights Watch could nail the US military, is the playing of music by Christina Aguilera as a punishment for non-cooperation. Other than Michael Bolton, which I believe would be an explicit Geneva Convention violation, it's hard to imagine a crueler torture.

Seriously, though, is this the worst Time could dig up? This treatment hardly qualifies as anything except mundane for intelligence work -- and this suspect has to have been potentially the highest-value detainee held at Gitmo. If the guards had been tempted to turn the screws on anyone, it would have been Qahtani. Instead, they harassed him and annoyed him, but other than the Aguilera music, no one could possibly claim that Qahtani had been tortured based on this oversensationalized report of his treatment.

Cpt. Ed plays at empathy and totally fails. The willful ignorance is staggering. Just as Donald Rumsfeld before him, Cpt. Ed pretends that stress positions are the same as standing in line for the roller coaster. This is a stress position. This is what Cpt. Ed compares to standing in line at Disneyland.

Cpt. Ed completely ignores two salient points:

Although the log does not appear obviously censored, it is also plainly incomplete: there are numerous gaps in the notes about what is said and what is happening in the interrogation booth beyond details like "Detainee taken to bathroom and walked for 10 minutes," TIME reports.

Why the gaps? Someone might have been forgetful, bored, or thought nothing worth recording happened. Or someone might have chosen not to record what happened, because no one wanted a written record of what was done.

Cpt. Ed demonstrates this principle but what he omits: that isolation lasted for weeks at a time, that dogs were used for intimidation, and that Aguilera was played as part of a prolonged sleep deprivation plan:

But a much more serious problem develops on Dec. 7: a medical corpsman reports that al-Qahtani is becoming seriously dehydrated, the result of his refusal to take water regularly. He is given an IV drip, and a doctor is summoned. An unprecedented 24-hour time out is called, but even as al-Qahtani is put under a doctor’s care, music is played to "prevent detainee from sleeping."

Cpt. Ed knows just as well as anyone: you don't write down the really bad stuff.

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Monday, June 13, 2005

It's what they leave out that counts

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