Road to Guantanamo
Last night I watched the Channel 4 film, which can be downloaded from http://www.tiscali.co.uk/entertainment/film/features/road_to_guantanamo/index.html for those who have not seen it, on how three wide boys from Tipton in the UK ended up in Guantanamo Bay. What stunned me was how, despite their persistent denial of involvement in Al Quaida no-one belived them and they spent 3 years in Cuba. See Channel 4 http://www.channel4.com/film/newsfeatures/microsites/G/guantanamo/index.html for more information.
I was horrified at the graphic depictions of the treatment handed out and the way they were housed, fed, etc. Dogs in kennels get treated that way, if not better, but not humans. Just for the record, I have seen the inside of a German prison during my legal studies (day excursion, and normal prisoners get treated better than those poor bastards locked up in Guantanamo or any of the other US prison camps in Diego Garcia, Iraq or Afghanistanhttp://www.channel4.com/news/microsites/T/torture/chains.html. Hell, we don't even know what those are like as they officially do not exist, no-one is allowed in and who knows if anyone ever comes out of those alive. In my mind there are no two ways about it, but that the treatment given out to prisoners in these camps does amount to torture, both physical and mental. Channel 4 also has a site on this subject http://www.channel4.com/news/microsites/T/torture/index.html
A question I asked myself is just how those guards/soldiers became so brutal. Yes, we (should) all know that experiments have shown that when one group of people is given control over a supposedly criminal group, they become brutal. For those who don't, the Stanford experiment on trying to recreate Abu Ghraib should be enlightening http://www.prisonexp.org/. And still, even then there must be some feelings left, yet even those who feel things are wrong seem unable to stand up. Somehow the horrors humans inflict on each other become worse, as you realise that most people will not go against the system. All the pogroms, camps etc become easier to understand when you know that poeple just fall into their roles. Not nicer or cosier or more acceptable, but it helps understand how people can be so cruel. And still it worries me that we, as a species, can be so vicious against our own. After all we always claim to be better than animals. I also ask myself what I would be like in such a situation as a guard or a prisoner.
And if a country which claims not to torture can hand out such treatment, how can it expect to be taken seriously on the human rights issue? The Asia Times is certainly not, but is laughing itself silly http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HC10Ak02.html. Furthermore, they just will not learn from other countries prior experiences, the latest instance being the force feeding of prisoners in Guantanamo who are on hunger strike http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article350367.ece. The UK tried this and failed, and the whole procedure and descriptions thereof just look like more calculated cruelty. You cannot insist on the Geneva Convention for everyone else, but reserve for yourself the right to ignore it.
The final touch for me, and I think the makers wanted us to remember another famous camp, was the sign outside the prison stating "Honor bound to defend freedom". What honor is there in treating people as punch bags and hating them for their religion? What honor in torturing them, humiliating them, abusing them (sexually or otherwise)? How does it defend freedom if you lock people up without trial? Does freedom benefit when cruelty and circumvention of laws becomes more important than justice and legal conventions? Is there honor in bombing from high altitudes, potentially killing innocent civilians? In using cluster bombs or depleted uranium? Do we become freer is we destroy a county and occupy it? If we claim its natural resources, destroy its infrastructure, and use mercenaries within its border are we freer? Are the civilians of that country feer? And who is showered with honor in such an undertaking?
P.S.
Articles have already been written on whether or not the US is on the road to fascism ( a word which carries many conotations and whose meaning is hotly disputed, just check Wikipedia), and on some levels the administration is certainly heading that way. Worse yet seems to be that the population is going down the road of equating Muslim= Terrorists, why else the outcry over the ports deal? Don't they know how much is already in Arabic hands? Then again the Iran/Iraq war will correct this...
I was horrified at the graphic depictions of the treatment handed out and the way they were housed, fed, etc. Dogs in kennels get treated that way, if not better, but not humans. Just for the record, I have seen the inside of a German prison during my legal studies (day excursion, and normal prisoners get treated better than those poor bastards locked up in Guantanamo or any of the other US prison camps in Diego Garcia, Iraq or Afghanistanhttp://www.channel4.com/news/microsites/T/torture/chains.html. Hell, we don't even know what those are like as they officially do not exist, no-one is allowed in and who knows if anyone ever comes out of those alive. In my mind there are no two ways about it, but that the treatment given out to prisoners in these camps does amount to torture, both physical and mental. Channel 4 also has a site on this subject http://www.channel4.com/news/microsites/T/torture/index.html
A question I asked myself is just how those guards/soldiers became so brutal. Yes, we (should) all know that experiments have shown that when one group of people is given control over a supposedly criminal group, they become brutal. For those who don't, the Stanford experiment on trying to recreate Abu Ghraib should be enlightening http://www.prisonexp.org/. And still, even then there must be some feelings left, yet even those who feel things are wrong seem unable to stand up. Somehow the horrors humans inflict on each other become worse, as you realise that most people will not go against the system. All the pogroms, camps etc become easier to understand when you know that poeple just fall into their roles. Not nicer or cosier or more acceptable, but it helps understand how people can be so cruel. And still it worries me that we, as a species, can be so vicious against our own. After all we always claim to be better than animals. I also ask myself what I would be like in such a situation as a guard or a prisoner.
And if a country which claims not to torture can hand out such treatment, how can it expect to be taken seriously on the human rights issue? The Asia Times is certainly not, but is laughing itself silly http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HC10Ak02.html. Furthermore, they just will not learn from other countries prior experiences, the latest instance being the force feeding of prisoners in Guantanamo who are on hunger strike http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article350367.ece. The UK tried this and failed, and the whole procedure and descriptions thereof just look like more calculated cruelty. You cannot insist on the Geneva Convention for everyone else, but reserve for yourself the right to ignore it.
The final touch for me, and I think the makers wanted us to remember another famous camp, was the sign outside the prison stating "Honor bound to defend freedom". What honor is there in treating people as punch bags and hating them for their religion? What honor in torturing them, humiliating them, abusing them (sexually or otherwise)? How does it defend freedom if you lock people up without trial? Does freedom benefit when cruelty and circumvention of laws becomes more important than justice and legal conventions? Is there honor in bombing from high altitudes, potentially killing innocent civilians? In using cluster bombs or depleted uranium? Do we become freer is we destroy a county and occupy it? If we claim its natural resources, destroy its infrastructure, and use mercenaries within its border are we freer? Are the civilians of that country feer? And who is showered with honor in such an undertaking?
P.S.
Articles have already been written on whether or not the US is on the road to fascism ( a word which carries many conotations and whose meaning is hotly disputed, just check Wikipedia), and on some levels the administration is certainly heading that way. Worse yet seems to be that the population is going down the road of equating Muslim= Terrorists, why else the outcry over the ports deal? Don't they know how much is already in Arabic hands? Then again the Iran/Iraq war will correct this...
Posted at 3/10/2006 08:28:00 AM UTC
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