
Where Even Nightmares Are Classified: Psychiatric Care at Guantánamo - leephillips
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/world/guantanamo-bay-doctors-abuse.html?src=me
======
hajile
Ultimately, a person cannot control what other people do, but that person can
control what decisions they make. After WW2, we decided that "following
orders" is no excuse for war crimes (Nuremberg principle IV). To me, the
situation seems eerily reminiscent of the doctor in V for Vendetta.

    
    
        Delia Surridge: [Curtains are drawn back, allowing moonlight to come in]
        It's you, isn't it? You've come to kill me?
    
        V: Yes.
    
        Delia Surridge: Thank God.
    
        Delia Surridge: After what happened. After what they did. I thought about
        killing myself. I knew that one day you'd come for me. I didn't know what
        they were going to do. I swear to you. Read my journal.
    
        V: What they did was only possible because of you.
    
        Delia Surridge: Oppenheimer was able to change more than a course of a
        war. It changed the entire course of human history. Is it wrong to hold
        on to that kind of hope?
    
        V: I've not come for what you've hoped to do. I've come for what you did.
    
        Delia Surridge: It's funny. I was given one of your roses today. I wasn't
        sure you were the terrorist until I saw it. What a strange coincidence
        that I should be given one today.
    
        V: There are no coincidences, Delia. Only the illusion of coincidences.

------
75j
One of the most disturbing stories that I don't hear mentioned is of Sean
Baker, who was working undercover for the USAF as part of an attempt to gauge
the abuses at Guantanamo. Baker was beaten by the guards so badly that he got
a serious brain injury.

" _In January 2003, Baker was ordered by an officer at Guantanamo to play the
role of a prisoner in a training drill. [...] The soldiers in the reaction
force were operating under the impression that he was a genuine detainee that
had assaulted a sergeant. [...] Although Baker shouted out the safeword (
"red") he had been given to stop the exercise and stated that he was a U.S.
soldier, the soldier continued beating Baker's head against the floor and
choking him. Only after he ripped his prison jumpsuit in the struggle,
revealing that he was wearing a battle dress uniform and government-issue
boots underneath, did the beating stop._"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Baker_(soldier)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Baker_\(soldier\))

~~~
johnchristopher
How were the soldiers of the reaction force supposed to know the safe word?

The article doesn't mention anything about working under cover to gauge
guantanomo abuses. It says it was a drill exercise for handling uncooperative
prisoners.

~~~
75j
Oi... wrong about that it looks like. I could swear I read something a long
time ago about this that said it was at least part of an internal
investigation, but maybe not. He was a veteran of the USAF and a military
policemen at the time, and one of the higher officers asked him to do the
drill apparently.

------
kutkloon7
It is just plainly hypocritical to have psychiatric care at Guantánamo. The
single purpose of that institution is to destroy people on the inside and
outside.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
In that kind of environment, I imagine the psychiatrists could only make
things worse.

~~~
pavlov
Reminds me of Peter Gabriel's 1982 song "Wallflower":

    
    
      "Loaded questions
      From clean white coats
      Their eyes are all as hidden
      As their Hippocratic Oaths"
    

The song is painfully truthful still.

------
UhUhUhUh
The "we didn't know" bit is eerily familiar and I will not expand. The other
thing that came to mind was the 1971 Stanford Experiment (Zimbardo). It is
ironical that this experiment would not be able to take place today, out of
"ethical" considerations but that its real-life version is publicly funded and
tacitly approved. All this is extremely frightening...

~~~
rz2k
I get the vague impression that there was some sort of unspoken deal not to
prosecute the people who ordered torture and the people who followed those
unlawful orders for the sake of reconciliation between sides of culture wars.

How could we have prosecuted the torturers but not the people giving the
orders? Or, how could we prosecute the former vice president, but not the
former commander in chief? Even though we are part of treaties that promise we
will not torture, practical politics seems to be more powerful than the rule
of law, and there would have had to be a much more overwhelming mandate.

Instead, it seems like we have forgiven people for commandeering the power we
gave them for unlawful uses from one perspective[1], but the other perspective
is that they did not do something wrong. Based on the rhetoric of this
campaign it seems like timidity, instead of leading to some sort of
reconciliation, has lead to the normalization of torture. Now even low caliber
network television shows such as _24_ and _Madame Secretary_ have protagonists
casually carrying out or ordering torture without the implicit condemnation
that would have been written into the plot 20 years ago.

[1] Forgiving the breach of trust for misusing power you gave someone is of
course different than the type of forgiveness actual victims could grant.

~~~
mtgx
Unspoken deal? Obama literally said we "should look forward not backwards" to
Bush's crimes as soon as he got elected. And now Trump may hire some of the
same worst of the worst people that Bush hired, and went unpunished.

History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme, especially when people
refuse to condemn certain past actions and "move forward" as if nothing
happened. And then get surprised that those same actions are done again.

This is one of the best articles I've read post-election. I do hope _this_
time America actually does wake-up and look itself in the mirror. It's about
time it did that.

[https://medium.com/@omarkamel/im-arab-and-many-of-us-are-
gla...](https://medium.com/@omarkamel/im-arab-and-many-of-us-are-glad-that-
trump-won-c98e1c6ae891)

I've also said before that Americans don't _really get_ what mass surveillance
is about, and are thus allowing it to happen and expand under their "favorite
president" because they've never really had to suffer for it, as some eastern
European countries have. Well, now, they may get that opportunity, and even
some staunch surveillance defenders are getting freaked out about it. Good
luck.

[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161111/00230136015/long-...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161111/00230136015/long-
time-mass-surveillance-defenders-freak-out-now-that-trump-will-have-
control.shtml)

~~~
wuschel
Let's not forget that _Obama_ got the Nobel Peace Prize for ...well, for not
being _Bush_?

A prize from a war profiteur in explosives and munitions to a war monger of
drones.

So many things are failing, sometimes I think we are a hopeless race.

But fortunately, there are decent people around - and that gives me hope.

------
Kenji
Remember when Obama promised to close the Guantánamo prison? I think that was
more than 8 years ago now. Good times. I even believed it. I guess he didn't
care that much about human rights after all.

~~~
pavlov
Read this:

[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/01/why-obama-
has-f...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/01/why-obama-has-failed-
to-close-guantanamo)

Yes, it's very long. It turned out to be much harder to close Guantánamo Bay
than Obama thought, with powerful forces in the government opposing or
stalling.

(It's also illustrative of the difficulties Trump may have carrying through
any of his promises that are controversial with the Republican orthodoxy.)

~~~
cloakandswagger
Whether it was feasible for Obama to close it or not, it's hard to deny that
there was a fundamental shift in Obama's ideology once he took office (see:
extra-judicial assassinations, abandoning Guantanamo closure, etc)

I suspect that there are some pretty powerful briefings a new president
receives that draw back the veil in such a way that targeted killings and
torture seem like the only effective response.

~~~
pavlov
There was an interesting article in the Washington Post today about these
covert-op and nuclear briefings for the president-elect:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/presi...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/president-elect-donald-trump-is-about-to-learn-the-nations-deep-
secrets/2016/11/12/8bf9bc40-a847-11e6-8fc0-7be8f848c492_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-
top-table-main_trumpsecret-430pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory)

Some quotes that kind of confirm what you inferred about Obama:

 _After one of the briefings in 2008, Obama told a close adviser that it was
perhaps one of the most sobering experiences of his life. He said, “I’m
inheriting a world that could blow up any minute in half a dozen ways, and I
will have some powerful but limited and perhaps even dubious tools to keep it
from happening.”_

 _“Events are messy out there,” he said. “At any given moment of the day,
there are explosive, tragic, heinous, hazardous things taking place.” He
acknowledged that as president it was his responsibility to deal with all
these problems. “People are saying, ‘You’re the most powerful person in the
world. Why aren’t you doing something about it?’ ”_

The following made my hair raise a bit:

 _Trump will receive a book of options benignly called the “Presidential
Decision Handbook.” This top secret /code-word book, known as the “Black
Book,” of about 75 pages has separate contingency plans for using nuclear
weapons against potential adversaries such as Russia and China. ... Two
officials said that the “Black Book” also includes estimates on the number of
casualties for each of the main options that run into the millions, and in
some cases over 100 million._

A man who habitually gets into 3am Twitter fights will command choices that
can result in the near-instant death of 100+ million people. That's way more
than Hitler, Stalin and Mao managed to kill all together. It's a strange
world.

------
pmoriarty
Trump has said that _" torture works"_, and _" I like waterboarding a lot"_,
and that he would _" bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding"_.

When asked about former CIA Director Michael Hayden’s recent comments that the
military could defy unlawful orders to torture or kill civilians, Trump said,
_" They won’t refuse. They’re not going to refuse, believe me."_

Thanks 50% of American voters. You're helping to make the world an even worse
shithole than it already is.

Trump couldn't have done it without you.

~~~
gragas
I think people voted for Trump because they agree with his stance. Is that
such a ridiculous idea?

~~~
truth_sentinell
Trump is a reflection of American society.

~~~
Chris2048
Or not?

------
bitJericho
The staff and all involved are traitors to the human race. I hope they're
charged as war criminals some day.

~~~
wruza
For that it must be a war.

Killing random people in terror acts is not making you a warrior, it just de-
facto withdraws your human rights.

~~~
lambertsimnel
Isn't terrorism outside war a criminal act? Aren't human rights so called
because all humans have them?

~~~
wruza
Formally, yes. But let's remember why rights and laws exist at all. To
regulate the society and reintegrate erroneous elements after correction. In
practice, you cannot reintegrate extremist outsiders, because they are not
even 'our elements'. (I'm not american, if that is important.)

If we get human rights as an axiom, then yes, these are broken. But the
picture is much wider now than just 'all humans are equal and same in rights',
because enemy doesn't think so (also as an axiom). When two axioms clash, only
bigger theory can resolve that. Am I wrong?

~~~
lambertsimnel
As I understand it, human rights aren't entirely uniform. There is a right to
liberty that doesn't extend to all convicted criminals. However, convicted
criminals (even those convicted of serious crimes) should be (and often are)
granted some rights. For one thing, they might be innocent or improperly
convicted.

~~~
atsaloli
There are no exceptions to human rights as listed in the UN Declaration on
Human Rights. [http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-
rights/inde...](http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-
rights/index.html) However, article 29 says:

(2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only
to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of
securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and
of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general
welfare in a democratic society.

So you can be limited, legally, in the exercise of your rights, but you still
have all the rights.

~~~
atsaloli
There is a simplified version of the UNDHR (easily readable and intended for
young people) at [http://www.youthforhumanrights.org/what-are-human-
rights/uni...](http://www.youthforhumanrights.org/what-are-human-
rights/universal-declaration-of-human-rights/articles-1-15.html)

Youth for Human Rights International is a non-profit organization whose
purpose is to educate the young on human rights and activate supporters and
promoters and defenders of human rights.

------
wruza
>Even interviewing prisoners to assess their mental health set off
recriminations and claims that she was torturing them. “What would your Jesus
think?” they demanded.

Oh, so you didn't expect symmetric suffering, right?

