If you were a detainee at Guantanamo Bay during the Bush administration you likely incurred sleep deprivation, prolonged isolation, painful
body positions, feigned suffocation and beatings.
If a detainee were really lucky, according to Gregg Bloche and Jonathan H. Marks, they were subjected to "sexual provocation" and "displays of contempt for Islamic symbols." These measures were used to force cooperation.
The tactics above constitute cruel and inhuman treatment and torture, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The word choice used by the International Committee of the Red Cross is odd because it shows hesitancy in calling the above tactics torture. Putting "cruel and inhuman treatment" before torture dilutes the torture claim and makes it appear like the Committee does not actually want to call feigned suffocation torture.
But let's be honest, the above tactics, even the display of contempt for Islamic symbols (if you are Muslim) is torture. Adding the cruel and inhuman treatment is unnecessary, and it only serves to minimize the severity of the tactics used on detainees.
While the Pentagon and the Defense Department assert that detainees' health information was not used at Guantanamo to craft interrogation strategies, Bloche and Marks found evidence to the contrary. The duo claims that in 2003 health information was available and used to craft and carry out interrogation. Psychiatrists and psychologists, since late 2002, have been using medical information in order to create extreme stress to extract intelligence from unwilling detainees.
Could this mean that the Pentagon and the Defense Department blatantly lied to Americans? If this is true, is this even surprising?
The article found evidence to support their claim on the SouthCom Website. It said that caregivers are required to provide clinical information to interrogation teams both voluntarily and by request. If this is the case, it would mean that the Pentagon's separation between intelligence gathering and patient care is a farce.
According to the research by Bloche and Marks by late 2002 there was growing frustration at Guantanamo because intelligence was not being gained from the detainees. This led to the creation of the Behavioral Science Consultation Team (BSCT). BSCT was tasked with developing new strategies to seek intelligence.
In developing new strategies, the duo found strong evidence to support their claim that BSCT had access to personal health information.
BSCT methods consisted of putting detainees through tailored stressors. They would use personal medical information to learn about a detainees phobia's and use those to create situations that would lead to extreme stress.
Proponents of this type of interrogation argue that high stress interrogation leads to unreliable information because detainees are willing to say anything to bring relief.
Ultimately, Bloche and Marks conclude that using detainees' health information is wrong. It makes every caregiver an accessory to torture, it undermines patient trust, and worst of all it puts the prisoners in a position to experience serious abuse.
The last reason is most effective in their overall argument because it appeals to a readers ethos. Many of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were not guilty of anything. Yet they were tortured nonetheless with tactics that were specially crafted to ensure that the detainee experience as much stress as possible. Doing this to a human is wrong. It is that simple.
Gerard Hauser, in his book "Prisoners of Conscience," uses rhetorical analysis to demonstrate how framing was employed at Abu Ghraib for prisoner's bodies. He uses a similar technique to the one I used in this blog post to analyze how using particular words or phrases can frame an issue in whatever light you want.
Hauser's chapter explores how rhetoric helped play down the atrocities that occurred at Abu Ghraib. He demonstrates how powerful words can be and how important it is to pay attention to the way politicians are framing certain issues.
If a detainee were really lucky, according to Gregg Bloche and Jonathan H. Marks, they were subjected to "sexual provocation" and "displays of contempt for Islamic symbols." These measures were used to force cooperation.
The tactics above constitute cruel and inhuman treatment and torture, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The word choice used by the International Committee of the Red Cross is odd because it shows hesitancy in calling the above tactics torture. Putting "cruel and inhuman treatment" before torture dilutes the torture claim and makes it appear like the Committee does not actually want to call feigned suffocation torture.
 |
| Torture |
But let's be honest, the above tactics, even the display of contempt for Islamic symbols (if you are Muslim) is torture. Adding the cruel and inhuman treatment is unnecessary, and it only serves to minimize the severity of the tactics used on detainees.
While the Pentagon and the Defense Department assert that detainees' health information was not used at Guantanamo to craft interrogation strategies, Bloche and Marks found evidence to the contrary. The duo claims that in 2003 health information was available and used to craft and carry out interrogation. Psychiatrists and psychologists, since late 2002, have been using medical information in order to create extreme stress to extract intelligence from unwilling detainees.
Could this mean that the Pentagon and the Defense Department blatantly lied to Americans? If this is true, is this even surprising?
The article found evidence to support their claim on the SouthCom Website. It said that caregivers are required to provide clinical information to interrogation teams both voluntarily and by request. If this is the case, it would mean that the Pentagon's separation between intelligence gathering and patient care is a farce.
According to the research by Bloche and Marks by late 2002 there was growing frustration at Guantanamo because intelligence was not being gained from the detainees. This led to the creation of the Behavioral Science Consultation Team (BSCT). BSCT was tasked with developing new strategies to seek intelligence.
In developing new strategies, the duo found strong evidence to support their claim that BSCT had access to personal health information.
BSCT methods consisted of putting detainees through tailored stressors. They would use personal medical information to learn about a detainees phobia's and use those to create situations that would lead to extreme stress.
Proponents of this type of interrogation argue that high stress interrogation leads to unreliable information because detainees are willing to say anything to bring relief.
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| Gerard Hauser's Book |
The last reason is most effective in their overall argument because it appeals to a readers ethos. Many of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were not guilty of anything. Yet they were tortured nonetheless with tactics that were specially crafted to ensure that the detainee experience as much stress as possible. Doing this to a human is wrong. It is that simple.
Gerard Hauser, in his book "Prisoners of Conscience," uses rhetorical analysis to demonstrate how framing was employed at Abu Ghraib for prisoner's bodies. He uses a similar technique to the one I used in this blog post to analyze how using particular words or phrases can frame an issue in whatever light you want.
Hauser's chapter explores how rhetoric helped play down the atrocities that occurred at Abu Ghraib. He demonstrates how powerful words can be and how important it is to pay attention to the way politicians are framing certain issues.
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