Detainee Abuse At Guantanamo
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in The War On Terrorism
I guess we didn’t learn from history, so we’re doomed to repeat it.
The allegations come from a Marine Corps sergeant, 23-year-old Heather Cerveny, who spent a week at the base in late September as a legal aide to a military lawyer representing detainees. [...]“One sailor specifically said, ‘I took the detainee by the head and smashed his head into the cell door,’” Sgt. Cerveny tells ABC News in an exclusive interview. [...]
“Everyone in the group laughed at all their stories of beating detainees,” she recalled. “None of them looked like they cared. None of them looked shocked by it.”
What strikes me when I read stuff like this, is the idea of the “banality of evil” whereby grotesque things start to become no big deal because they’re so common place, so part of the routine.
The reason I say this is because of this laughter the Sgt. describes. Sure, everybody needs to blow off steam, but this type of behavior speaks to an enivornment where it’s acceptable to joke about treatment that’s clearly out of line. And one can’t help but think that many at the base are simply turning a blind eye to this.
Think I’m overreacting? Well…read this and see if you change your mind…
Sgt. Cerveny says the guards also talked about taking away detainees’ privileges “even when they’re being good” and denying their requests for water. In her affidavit, she states she was told “they do this to anger the detainees so they can punish them when they object or complain.”
Within the walls of Guantanamo, at least within camps 5 and 6 where these guards are from, it appears to be completely normal to do whatever you want to a detainee. Don’t like him? Punch him the face. It’s no big deal…he’s a terrorist. And forced provocation is completely justified so these guards can take out their frustrations. After all, it’s a tough job and they’re just blowing off some steam.
Yep, there’s no good reason to give detainees any legal rights. Lock ‘em up forever and do what you want to them.
After all, Al Qaeda will make more…
This entry was posted on Friday, October 13th, 2006 and is filed under The War On Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 13th, 2006 at 11:14 am
Hearsay.
Assuming that everything Heather heard others talking about, but apparently didn’t witness herself, is true, I’d still rather be in Gitmo than any Dept. of Corrections facility in the state of Missouri.
October 13th, 2006 at 11:34 am
I’m surprised that we don’t hear about more of this, considering the crap the inmates are allowed to get away with. I just shows that, by and large, are guys are professionals (even though Justin can’t accept it).
I think every time one of them throws feces at a guard, he SHOULD have his head bashed against the wall. Screw them, they don’t deserve any form of coverage from the American constitution or the Geneva convention.
October 13th, 2006 at 11:55 am
Both you guys just stole my thunder. Justin reminds me of Ed Exley towards the beginning of “L.A. Confidential.” You should watch the movie all the way through and see what happens.
October 13th, 2006 at 12:20 pm
No, guys, why just base your world-view on one fictional movie – how about “24″ or “Private Ryan”. Too bad the Founding Fathers didn’t have fictional portrayals of unreal situations to base all of our beliefs and values on.
Back to reality for the rest of us – yes, they are most probably “bad guys” (although in most cases we don’t know that) and they might be representing a barbaric, evil way of life.
But thats not us or the US. We’re better.
Remember – you’re beliefs are not what you say, you’re beliefs are what you do. Either we represent a system of higher justice and humanity to the world or we look just like every other despotic empire in history. The choice is ours.
October 13th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
The frustrating part of this story is that it’s hearsay. We don’t know if the Sgt. misinterpreted what the guards were saying. We don’t know if the guards were just trying to look tough and exagerating or fabricating stories. We don’t know and thus this story cannot really be included in the debate. I am anti-torture and take a pretty hardline stance against those who seek to justify brutality, but hearsay doesn’t hold up in a court of law for a reason–it’s unreliable. Not saying these things didn’t happen. Just saying I don’t want to jump to conclusions based on what one Sgt. heard other people saying.
October 14th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
You’re right. It’s hearsay.
But let me ask you this…do you believe it? And what does the Sgt. have to gain by making something up?
October 16th, 2006 at 3:48 am
What makes this almost unbearable is not so much the question of whether this alleged abuse happened or not, but rather the reaction from our fellow Americans, as exemplified by DosPeros, JustAnotherIdjut, and Jimmy the Dhimmi. These are good people, who love our country and everything it stands for, probably upright citizens who pay their taxes on time and follow the law and yet it is disturbing to see how easily they can dehumanize others, view them as nothing more than just “the enemy” and through that classification be able to somehow legitimize those things which go against the very ideals upon which this country was founded and which we would all die to defend.
You see, it isn’t so much a question of whether these detainees deserve worse than what we are giving them, it has never been and should never be about that. What this has been about is the manner in which we uphold those values we claim to be fighting for. We are a nation of laws, a nation that values human life (as opposed to our enemy in this conflict) and as such we need to act on those values, even in the case of enemy combatants we have captured. Can we interrogate them? of course. Can we exert some pressure on them to get them to divulge what they may know? yes. But while doing that we need to ensure that we stay true to our ideals, meaning that whenever our people are seen to be stepping out of line and doing things that we would consider reprehensible (like purposely denying detainees privileges even when they were good) then it is our duty to correct and punish those who are taking it upon themselves to do such things. The reason is that the treatment of detainees, even under the best of circumstances opens the door to a very slippery slope that could very well lead to torture and war crimes. There are rules with regard to the treatment of detainees for a reason, and those rules need to be followed otherwise such deviation from the rules becomes permissible and discipline within our forces is lost, as are the values that call on us to treat our enemy captured with at least the minimum amount of decency. Any officer, guard etc. who violates such rules needs to be punished accordingly.
That said, we need to make sure that these allegations are investigated and if the guards are found guilty then punished accordingly. If found innocent, at least we demonstrate to the world that we practice what we preach. Otherwise, the human rights reports our State Dept. issues on a yearly basis will be nothing more than a joke.
October 16th, 2006 at 9:12 am
Don’t ever accuse me of paying my taxes on time. I do everything I can to delay and screw the government on my taxes and, thus, I DO MORE THAN MOST in shutting down Gitmo. I consider it my patriot duty.
Nyk, some of us just are not as quick to indict the US military. I have faith in our military justice system, in part, because I’ve worked in it. I have experienced the tremendous integrity of the vast number of officers and enlisted personnel in the armed forces. Make no mistake, this kind of jump-before-the-evidence-is-in (based on hearsay) mentality exposes an anti-military bias and is one of the reasons the Dems have problems with patriotic Americans.
October 16th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
Dos, these accusations are coming from INSIDE the military.
This is not jump before the evidence just because you don’t believe a Sgt. And let’s be clear here, YOU don’t believe the Sgt., not me.
It burns me how easily you guys twist this stuff around…
October 16th, 2006 at 9:29 pm
Justin – who exactly are you kidding? the name of your post is “Detainee Abuse At Guantanamo”. No question mark. No “allegations of”. No “new investigation”. No, you state “abuse” as a matter of fact because it fits your political agenda. I don’t believe or disbelieve the Sgt. What I think is that a legal aide for JAG in Gitmo who overhears a conversation of questionable treatment of detainees & instigates an investigation should not rush to the press to tell her story. It is incredibly irresponsible and she should know better. From a prosecutorial prospective, she has made it much more difficult to prove the case. Hearsay is all they’re going to get now, good luck on a conviction. I have no problem btw saying that I give the military the benefit of the doubt, in much the same way, you doubt the military and are eager to find them guilty on unreliable evidence.