AP reports Guantanamo guards laughing about beating detainees
The Associated Press reports that a paralegal at a bar on the Guantanamo base was regailed with stories of beating and otherwise abusing the detainees. [AP Learns Gitmo Guards Brag of Beatings]:
Guards at Guantanamo Bay bragged about beating detainees and described it as common practice, a Marine sergeant said in a sworn statement obtained by The Associated Press.
The two-page statement was sent Wednesday to the Inspector General at the Department of Defense by a high-ranking Marine Corps defense lawyer.
The lawyer sent the statement on behalf of a paralegal who said men she met on Sept. 23 at a bar on the base identified themselves to her as guards. The woman, whose name was blacked out, said she spent about an hour talking with them. No one was in uniform, she said.
A 19-year-old sailor referred to only as Bo “told the other guards and me about him beating different detainees being held in the prison,” the statement said.
“One such story Bo told involved him taking a detainee by the head and hitting the detainee’s head into the cell door. Bo said that his actions were known by others,” the statement said. The sailor said he was never punished….
Other guards “also told their own stories of abuse towards the detainees” that included hitting them, denying them water and “removing privileges for no reason.”
“About 5 others in the group admitted hitting detainees” and that included “punching in the face,” the affidavit said.
“From the whole conversation, I understood that striking detainees was a common practice,” the sergeant wrote. “Everyone in the group laughed at the others stories of beating detainees.”
Note that this was September 23ed. Even after all the attention focussed there, sadistic abuse is apparently an everyday occurrence. Evidently, the disregard for the law or for human decency is pervasive there. In addition to the detainees who may be locked up in these horrific conditions for life, other victims of Guantanamo include the young soldiers, the more decent of whom will live the rest of their lives trying to cope with the fact that they became sadistic monsters while serving there.
And the rest of us will live with the effects of having the less decent among them, having enjoyed the pleasures of omnipotent sadism, will come homer one day, striving to recover the pleasures of absolute power.
Add comment October 6th, 2006