Revising Hell's History: Col. Larry James, Interrogation Policies, and Calls for Accountability

If ever the collective mindset surrounding a single word has changed over the last decade, it can be argued that the word “torture” must be high on that list. Prior to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, one may have used the word in passing to describe sitting through a boring lecture in college or their feelings about their grueling nine to five work week. Torture. Nearly a decade later, when one utters the word, their mind probably flashes to images that came out of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the many reports that have been released detailing how this word, how torture, became official governmental policy of the United States. The 2000’s took the concept of torture from that of something unlawful that was only put into practice by brutal dictators, to accepted policy that was put into place by a democracy. Torture had been rebranded and even had a snappy new euphemism: “enhanced interrogation techniques”. Cleaner, professional, sanitized.

Debates on the topic of interrogation policy lit up our television and computer screens. Were we really condoning torture…is the United States justified in using these techniques on detainees…do these policies break laws and should we investigate? We saw a Vice President insist that we (as a country) needed to go to the “dark side” to get information and we saw some defenders of these policies line up in support of what they would have been the first to condemn if done to a U.S. Marine. These were extraordinary times.

In the midst of it all, time continued its relentless march toward the future. America chose a new President who, amidst all of the questions that still surrounded this issue, insisted that we “look to the future” and not get caught up in the past. This new President boldly declared that the old era was over while still continuing to advance policies like extraordinary rendition and indefinite detention without charge. Now, in 2010 we no longer are witnessing intellectual arguments over policies surrounding torture on the evening news and the eight years under the previous Administration seem like an old memory. While there may no longer be a robust collective debate on this issue, there are moments when we are reminded of the continued ramifications that remain unresolved.

Most recently Scott Horton, a reporter for Harper’s, wrote a lengthy piece in which he blew the cover off of the official story of three deaths of detainees that were being held at Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba in 2006. At the time, the deaths were reported as suicides, but new witnesses have come forward to strongly suggest that an investigation needs to take place about the potential that these detainees were killed at a separate “black site” just outside of the official prison grounds. The soldiers who came forward in Horton’s piece did so after they had approached the Obama Justice Department with their story:

The Justice Department thus faced a dilemma; it could do the politically convenient thing, which was to find no justification for a thorough investigation, leave the NCIS conclusions in place, and hope that the public and the news media would obey the Obama Administration’s dictum to “look forward, not backward”; or it could pursue a course of action that would implicate the Bush Justice Department in a cover-up of possible homicides.

The Obama Justice Department did the politically convenient thing and told the soldiers that there was no justification for any such investigation into a cover-up of the deaths of these detainees. This behavior, that of refusing to look into potential criminal behavior by the Bush Administration, is nothing new. Though there is continued insistence that the United States is a land where the rule of law reigns supreme, the actions that can be observed in cases like this one tell a different story. These actions tell a story of concealed truths and a dark history that is eagerly being swept under the rug. While it is evident that some wish to keep that history hidden from sight, others have decided to take an active role in crafting a new, revisionist history. This is a history where those in power in 2002 did not advocate for torturous policies, but instead recognized the evil of the so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” taking place in Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq. This revisionist history consists of a narrative where those in leadership positions not only saw abuse, but actively took steps to correct its spread.

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Col. (Ret.) Larry James is the author of Fixing Hell: An Army Psychologist Confronts Abu Ghraib. James spent 22 years in the Army as a Colonel and was the Chair of the Department of Psychology at Walter Reed Medical Center. Currently, James is the Dean of the School of Professional Psychology at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. In Fixing Hell, James tells the story of how he was sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in January, 2003 and to Abu Ghraib in the summer of 2004 in lieu of the discovery of abusive interrogation tactics. James claims that he was sent to both locations because the leadership wanted these abuses stopped and wanted his services as a psychologist in order to design humane methods of interrogation. Here is a passage from right before he was sent to Cuba:

“I would have to deploy to Cuba and replace Major Leso myself. Colonel Cooper and Colonel Banks agreed that this was the right course of action, particularly because things were getting worse down there. Gitmo needed an experienced senior Army psychologist with a significant background in correctional and forensic psychology.”

In his book, James immediately establishes the narrative that the problems at Guantanamo Bay were structural. James doesn’t claim that the command structure at the prison was partly to blame, but insists that “all problems” at the prison could be attributed to this flaw. He also makes it known that once he arrived at the prison in January 2003, there was some inappropriate behavior taking place. He even describes witnessing one such interrogation, but instead of interfering or reporting the abuse, he lets it play out (emphasis mine):

“I heard lots of yelling, screaming, and furniture being thrown around. I saw Luther and three MPs wrestling with a detainee on the floor. It was an awful sight. I wanted to run back to my room and wash my eyes out with bleach. The detainee was naked except for the pink panties I had seen hanging on the door earlier. He also had lipstick and a wig on. The four men were holding the prisoner down and trying to outfit him with the matching pink nightgown, but he was fighting hard. My first instinct was to rush in and start barking orders at the men, demanding they stop this ridiculous and abusive wrestling match. But I managed to quell that urge and wait. I opened my thermos, poured a cup of coffee, and watched the episode play out, hoping it would take a better turn and not wanting to interfere without good reason, even if this was a terrible scene. I waited several minutes, but with no good end in sight I had to act.”

This is the only instance in the entire book where James describes witnessing inappropriate conduct in detail during interrogations and despite the initial reaction of wanting to “wash his eyes out with bleach”, his response to this instance is to pour himself some coffee and not “interfere without good reason”. After James does decide to act, he simply speaks with the interrogator, suggests that he instead give the detainee a McDonald’s fish sandwich and the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated, and claims that this new “humane” and trust-building tactic began to spread like wildfire throughout the prison.

During the five months that James spends at Guantanamo Bay, he states that he had free reign to put policies in place to stop the abuses and that psychologists only accessed the medical records of detainees to protect them, not use the information in coordination with interrogators to maximize the effects of the torture. Then, when it was time for Col. James to leave Guantanamo in May of 2003, he says that he was proud to know that he has instituted polices that fixed all of the problems stating that there have been “…no incidents of abuse at Guantanamo Bay by either an interrogator or psychologist reported since my arrival in Cuba in January 2003”.

The accuracy of James’ statement is contradicted by mountains of reports and articles that have been written not only since he left Cuba in 2003, but since his book was published in 2008.

Still, after James left Cuba in 2003, he was summoned to Abu Ghraib in June 2004 to, as he states, clean up the practices at that prison as he did in Guantanamo Bay. In his book he often claims that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were the result of bad leadership and how this led a handful of troubled soldiers to cross the line and commit these abuses. James tells the stories of how sexual frustrations played a role in the chaos at the prison and uses his “psychological expertise” to tell the reader how he knew one of the soldiers at the prison was a lesbian:

“I didn’t have to ask her if she was a lesbian, but as a highly trained psychologist I spotted all the signals that made that a pretty safe conclusion. At the very least, this was one tough gal, no matter her sexual orientation. Her voice was deeper than mine, and if I had any tattoos I’m sure that I would have chosen more feminine ones than hers.”

James tells the same kind of story in Abu Ghraib as he told in Guantanamo and how he became the leader that the prison needed to get turned around. He even makes the claim that there were “no more incidents of abuse reported by an interrogator or a psychologist” after he arrived in June 2004.

Even though James is a psychologist and represents himself as a medical professional, he describes an internal struggle that he has surrounding his role as both a soldier and a healer. Despite this conflict, James picks a side:

“It was clear to me that I was no longer a doctor but rather a combatant with the sole purpose of helping the Army kill or capture the enemy.”

It is this conclusion that leads to questions about whether James felt that he was a combatant when he was interacting with detainees at Guantanamo Bay and when he expresses disdain for groups and individuals that have been critical of United States policy. Here is how James describes the International Committee of the Red Cross in his book:

“Like most other soldiers, I saw the ICRC representatives as a bunch of radical left do-gooders, mostly from Europe, who were as interested in giving America a black eye as they were in truly helping the innocent. Every ICRC rep I met had long, disheveled ‘60s and ‘70s hairstyles as well as Birkenstock sandals—the consummate hippie motif. They thought all of the detainees were completely innocent and only needed to be hugged more.”

James denies that he ever did anything inappropriate or criminal while he was at Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib and claims that his critics have no evidence to back up their charges. In fact, James claims that he was never at either location when abuses were occurring. This is a puzzling claim considering many publicly available documents that shed more light on the time period when James was stationed at Guantanamo Bay.

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Col. Larry James, PH.D. arrived at the Guantanamo Bay prison facility in January 2003 as the Chief Psychologist of the Joint Intelligence Group and a senior member of the Behavioral Science Consultation Team (BSCT). James’ stint at the prison facility lasted until May 5, 2003. According to what James wrote in Fixing Hell he was responsible for improving interrogation methods and his boss, Major General Geoffrey D. Miller, was also on board with implementing humane and respectful tactics:

“General Miller had discussed how I would be replacing Major Leso, and that it would be my job to teach the interrogators how to get intel without yelling, slapping, sleep deprivation, humiliation, or food deprivation.”

[…]

“While working with them [juvenile prisoners], I was still expected to oversee the rest of the interrogation process at Gitmo and to fix what had gone so wrong in the past.”

Through the words of James, it is quite clear that his role was to oversee the interrogation process and while he claims that he did, that abusive techniques were addressed, and that all the problems were fixed during his tenure, officially released documents tell another story.

In November 2008, the Senate Armed Services Committee concluded an investigation into the treatment of detainees that were held in U.S. custody. The bipartisan report was released on April 21, 2009 and covered military interrogations. Some of the conclusions that the report reached were as follows:

- Once President Bush made a written declaration on February 7, 2002 that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, it opened the door for techniques such as waterboarding, nudity, stress positions, and others to be used.
- High level Bush Administration officials and Cabinet members held meetings in 2002-2003 that specifically discussed interrogation techniques.
- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s authorization of “aggressive interrogation techniques” on December 2, 2002 was a direct cause of abuse at Guantanamo Bay.
- When Major General Geoffrey Miller visited Iraq in August and September 2003, he encouraged interrogators to be more aggressive during interrogations.
- The detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 was not the result of a few soldiers acting alone, but the techniques depicted in the infamous photos were the result of their approval in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

The 232 page report also details some of the behavior that transpired at Guantanamo Bay in the Spring of 2003, the same time period that Col. James was present and working to (in his words) “fix what had gone so wrong in the past”. Contrary to the statements made by James in his book regarding Maj. Gen. Miller, on Page 129 of the Senate Armed Services Report it states:

“General Hill’s March 21, 2003 memo stated that both he and MG Miller felt that approval of all of the previously authorized techniques (in Categories I, II and III) was “essential”. General Hill stated that ‘both Geoff Miller and I believe that we need as many appropriate tools as possible’ and called Category II and the one previously authorized Category III technique ‘critical to maximizing our ability to accomplish the mission, now and in the future.” The ‘critical’ techniques referred to by General Hill included stress positions, deprivation of light and auditory stimuli, removal of clothing, use of detainee phobias such as dogs, and the one Category III technique the Secretary had authorized, which included grabbing, poking and light pushing.

This was during a time period when Generals and a Working Group were looking into techniques that should be used and which techniques were appropriate at Guantanamo.

Also during this time period, the SASC Report states that a “Commander’s Inquiry” was launched to investigate claims that military personnel and military police were forcing detainees to participate in “physical training”. According to page 133 of the report, an interrogator, two analysts, and a member of the GTMO Behavior Science Consultation Team (the same BSCT team of which Col. James was a senior member) were interviewed for this inquiry. The report states that all of these figures “believed that the technique was appropriate, approved, applied properly, and was common practice…”

The report goes on to say that a subsequent memo (entitled a “Historic Look at Inappropriate Techniques used at GTMO”) was later filed and was very critical of the Commander’s Inquiry saying that it did not adequately review multiple claims of inappropriate behavior nor follow through with appropriate discipline. One of the incidents that was not reviewed, was one in which a female military interrogator wiped (what she told the detainee was) menstrual blood on his face and forehead. Furthermore according to the SASC Report, this “Historic Look” document concluded that:

"…the incidents occurring during the Spring of 2003 signif[ied] a consistent problem at GTMO.” It stated that it was “clear” that interrogators “may use several if not all of the techniques that require SECDEF notification.” The memo also concluded that the “interpretation of the SECDEF approved techniques has resulted in variations on how techniques are applied (i.e., is yelling, loud music and strobe lights environmental manipulation?)” and “[d]espite these revelations by interrogators, the supervisory chain of command reports that these techniques are not used.”

Not only does the SASC Report refute the claim made by Col. James that “…no incidents of abuse at Guantanamo Bay by either an interrogator or psychologist reported since my arrival in Cuba in January 2003”, but it also shows that these same patterns continued after James left GTMO in May 2003 after he claimed to have instituted policies “intended to prevent prisoner abuse at all military prisons.”

The SASC Report discusses the interrogation of Mohamadou Walid Slahi that began in July 2003 and went on through the end of that summer. Slahi was subjected to “variable light patterns” and “rock music to the tune of Drowning Pool’s ‘Let the Bodies Hit the Floor’”. Slahi was also shown a fake letter which contained information that Slahi’s mother had been captured and would soon be brought to GTMO. The fake letter also made sure to point out that she would be the first female prisoner at the “previously all-male prison environment.”

As the summer wore on, Slahi was reported to have been cooperative with interrogators yet his level of interrogation did not change. In an October 17, 2003 email that is highlighted in the SASC Report, that was sent from a GTMO interrogator to a member of the BSCT, it was discussed how Slahi was now hearing voices and knew that this was not normal. The member of the BSCT, LTC Diane Zierhoffer replied, “sensory deprivation can cause hallucinations, usually visual rather than auditory, but you never know…In the dark you create things out of what little you have…”

This is the same BSCT team that Col. James had been a senior member of only months earlier and where he claims he left in place policies that would prevent the abuse of future detainees.

It is clear through the SASC Report as well as through supplemental documents, that torture at Guantanamo Bay was instituted from the top down. It started with President Bush’s declaration that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to the detainees at the prison, continued with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s authorizations, and percolated right down into the individual cells of detainees. As much as Col. James wants his readers to believe that the abuse stopped upon his arrival, it is overwhelmingly clear that it did not. Abuses happened during James’ 5 month tenure at the prison facility and it is clear that health care professionals were involved with interrogations. It is also clear that these problems were not “fixed” once James left GTMO and the Scott Horton piece that I reference in the introduction is further proof that suspicious deaths even occurred 3 years after James supposedly installed measures to protect against abuse.

Major General Miller, who Col. James mentions was on board with treating detainees humanely, made a trip up to Iraq in June 2003. This was one month after Col. James departure from GTMO. The SASC Report mentions that Miller thought they were running a “country club” in Iraq and that they were not “getting the maximum” out of the prisoners. When Miller was asked by another Major General what he meant, Miller replied, “you haven’t broken [the detainees] psychologically” and that he would get back to him on “some techniques you can use” to break them. The Abu Ghraib scandal broke in late 2003 and Miller was put in charge of the prison in March 2004.

General Miller’s conduct both during and after the tenure of Col. James in GTMO, should raise serious questions about the claims that Miller was trying to implement policies that would allow for the humane treatment of detainees. What should also be cause for concern is the amount of fundamentally misleading and false statements that can be found in Col. James’ book. From the characterization of Gen. Miller, to the statement about the absence of abuse at the prison post-2002, and to his statements about the role that he played during his tenure at the prison. When there are so many statements that seem to contradict various reports and official documents, one would think that it would only be appropriate to further examine the actual role that Col. James did play when so many documented abuses were ongoing. No in-depth investigations have been conducted and James is still a licensed psychologist in Louisiana, Ohio and Guam.

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Currently, Col. Larry James is retired from the military and is the Dean of the School of Professional Psychology at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. Though retired from the military, James is still very much involved in issues of terrorism and the psychology of terrorists. This week, on February 3-4, James is leading a “Psychology of Terrorism Executive Workshop” at Wright State University. The stated goals of the Workshop are to:

- Define Psychological Terrorism
- Identify Types of Psychological Terrorism
- Discuss the role of the media in counterterrorism efforts
- Identify how demographics are used to recruit teenage terrorists
- Understand the psychological make-up of the suicide bomber
- Discuss strategies to prevent psychological terrorism

The website indicates that the intended audiences for this Executive Workshop are law enforcement officials, members of the Department of Homeland Security, DOD, and the Border Patrol. According to the agenda, there will be a total of four presenters at this Workshop (including James) and the program fee is $2,000 (lodging and transportation are not included).

The Campus Anti-War Network is planning to protest this event and there are continued calls from the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Canadian Center for International Justice, and Physicians for Human Rights to investigate James and his potential involvement in the abuses that took place in Cuba and Iraq. These organizations feel that it is important for those who were responsible for carrying out and implementing policies of torture, to be held accountable for their actions. It is also important to recognize the difference between actual accounts of what took place in GTMO, Afghanistan and Iraq and the revisionist history that is found in books like Col. James’ “Fixing Hell”.


This piece is cross posted here.

Confusion Surrounding Afghanistan Exit Strategy

As the Obama Administration's deadline on closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay came and went without the prison being close to closing, it is important to try and get the Administration to use as specific language as possible when they make future commitments to the American people.

One of these issues is the date for when troops will begin to withdraw from Afghanistan. As you can see by this recent video that was posted by Rethink Afghanistan, the message isn't even that clear to members of the Administration:



If the Obama Administration is serious about a troop withdrawal and is not just hedging their bets with conflicting statements, then it would certainly be helpful for the President to clarify the confusion that is surrounding this issue.

Scott Horton Discusses GITMO on MSNBC

After writing this extensive piece for Harper's the other day, Scott Horton appeared on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night to discuss his article. You can read my summary of his piece here, but his work certainly deserves a full read.

Here is the video from Countdown last night:



It is simply a lie when you continue to hear either former Bush Administration officials or other pundits continue to claim that torture was not the official policy of the United States. There are documented instances of many detainees that have died while in U.S. custody and there are credible accounts of mistreatment and torture that continue to be brought to light. The "look to the future, not to the past" mantra of the Obama Administration on this topic continues to become more insulting as more and more stories of mistreatment are reported. It is especially alarming when (as appears to be the case in this instance) the Obama Administration actually has a chance to investigate substantive claims of wrong-doing and actively refuse to do so.

We are said to live in a nation where no one is above the law, but instead we are witnessing a system where those in power are actively shielding their eyes from those who break the law. We deserve better.

The Many Secrets of Guantanamo Bay

Whether it be in conversations about Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, or any other country around the world, the policies of the Bush Administration are essential to take into consideration when examining where we find ourselves today. The election of Barack Obama to the Presidency did not change this fact no matter how much he wants to "move forward" and "not look to the past". The policies of the last Administration have far-reaching consequences and unless they are investigated to the fullest, we will not be able to fully heal as a country.

One of the areas where this especially holds true is in policies surrounding detention and interrogation. Scott Horton has a striking and disturbing new piece that was published in the latest edition of Harper's Magazine that demonstrates just how relevant this topic continues to be, even when the corporate media isn't reporting on the implications.

Horton's piece is entitled "The Guantanomo 'Suicides': A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle". It is a well researched and a very detailed account that should be read in full, but I will do my best to provide a summary.

The article begins with the story of three detainees who died on June 9, 2006 while being held in the Guantanamo Bay prison facility in Cuba. The official story goes that the prisoners coordinated a type of "suicide pact" and elaborately tricked the guards into thinking that they were sleeping when they were actually binding their hands and feet, stuffing a towel down their throats, and hanging themselves in their cells.

Now, some of the former personnel at the prison have come forward and raised questions about this official story and have indicated that this country should be investigating three homicides that took place at a special "dark-site" in Guantnamo Bay.

According to the NCIS, each prisoner had fashioned a noose from torn sheets and T-shirts and tied it to the top of his cell’s eight-foot-high steel-mesh wall. Each prisoner was able somehow to bind his own hands, and, in at least one case, his own feet, then stuff more rags deep down into his own throat. We are then asked to believe that each prisoner, even as he was choking on those rags, climbed up on his washbasin, slipped his head through the noose, tightened it, and leapt from the washbasin to hang until he asphyxiated. The NCIS report also proposes that the three prisoners, who were held in non-adjoining cells, carried out each of these actions almost simultaneously.

[...]

The fact that at least two of the prisoners also had cloth masks affixed to their faces, presumably to prevent the expulsion of the rags from their mouths, went unremarked by the NCIS, as did the fact that standard operating procedure at Camp Delta required the Navy guards on duty after midnight to “conduct a visual search” of each cell and detainee every ten minutes. The report claimed that the prisoners had hung sheets or blankets to hide their activities and shaped more sheets and pillows to look like bodies sleeping in their beds, but it did not explain where they were able to acquire so much fabric beyond their tightly controlled allotment, or why the Navy guards would allow such an obvious and immediately observable deviation from permitted behavior. Nor did the report explain how the dead men managed to hang undetected for more than two hours or why the Navy guards on duty, having for whatever reason so grievously failed in their duties, were never disciplined.

One of the soldiers that Horton spoke to is Army Staff Sergeant Joseph Hickman. When Hickman arrived at Guantanomo Bay, he quickly stumbled upon a compound near the main prison that he says other soldiers called "Camp No". The name refers to the answer that anyone would get when they asked about this compound: "no, it doesn't exist". Hickman then described some of his duties that seemed odd, including a secret van that was dubbed "the paddy wagon":

Hickman was instructed to make no record whatsoever of the movements of one vehicle in particular—a white van, dubbed the “paddy wagon,” that Navy guards used to transport heavily manacled prisoners, one at a time, into and out of Camp Delta. The van had no rear windows and contained a dog cage large enough to hold a single prisoner. Navy drivers, Hickman came to understand, would let the guards know they had a prisoner in the van by saying they were “delivering a pizza.”

The paddy wagon was used to transport prisoners to medical facilities and to meetings with their lawyers. But as Hickman monitored the paddy wagon’s movements from the guard tower at Camp Delta, he frequently saw it follow an unexpected route. When the van reached the first intersection, instead of heading right—toward the other camps or toward one of the buildings where prisoners could meet with their lawyers—it made a left. In that direction, past the perimeter checkpoint known as ACP Roosevelt, there were only two destinations. One was a beach where soldiers went to swim. The other was Camp No.

Hickman claims that on the night of June 9, he watched this "paddy wagon" depart his location at "Camp America" and drive to Camp No. He observed this three times in a row and then, a few hours later, he says that the paddy wagon returned and various soldiers unloaded something out of the back of the van. 45 minutes to an hour later, Camp Delta was abuzz:

He asked a distraught medical corpsman what had happened. She said three dead prisoners had been delivered to the clinic. Hickman recalled her saying that they had died because they had rags stuffed down their throats, and that one of them was severely bruised. Davila told me he spoke to Navy guards who said the men had died as the result of having rags stuffed down their throats.

[...]

By dawn, the news had circulated through Camp America that three prisoners had committed suicide by swallowing rags. Colonel Bumgarner called a meeting of the guards, and at 7 a.m. at least fifty soldiers and sailors gathered at Camp America’s open-air theater.

[...]

According to independent interviews with soldiers who witnessed the speech, Bumgarner told his audience that “you all know” three prisoners in the Alpha Block at Camp 1 committed suicide during the night by swallowing rags, causing them to choke to death. This was a surprise to no one—even servicemen who had not worked the night before had heard about the rags. But then Bumgarner told those assembled that the media would report something different. It would report that the three prisoners had committed suicide by hanging themselves in their cells. It was important, he said, that servicemen make no comments or suggestions that in any way undermined the official report. He reminded the soldiers and sailors that their phone and email communications were being monitored. The meeting lasted no more than twenty minutes. (Bumgarner has not responded to requests for comment.)

The rest of Horton's piece describes how documents were seized from prisoners at the compound regardless of client-attorney privilege and how the autopsies of the three men who died, seemed suspicious (all of their neck organs had been removed during the autopsy). The families of each of the three men had independent autopsies performed and there was bruising and other evidence of torture on the bodies.

Upon returning to the United States, the soldiers that Horton spoke with for this piece went to the Justice Department so that they could look into this matter and after much silence from the DOJ, on November 2, 2009 they concluded that the "gist of the information" could not be confirmed.

The silence here is deafening and the greater details that are present in Horton's piece should be read as they are even more disturbing than the brief outline that I have provided here. What is necessary to remember here is that there are still close to 200 people being held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Many without charge and many with uncertain futures. Despite President Obama's pledge to close the facility within a year, it remains open and many question marks continue to be raised about the conduct within this facility.

It is alarming at best to continue down the road of "looking forward" when stories like this one continue to come out. For a country that claims to be a "nation of laws" to simply ignore these gross abuses and ignore rather than investigate potential criminal wrong-doing should simply be unacceptable. It is true that there is a lot on the plates of those in Washington these days, but it is stories like this one that emphasizes just how deep our countries wounds are. This is not something that can be swept under the rug rather it is a topic that needs to be shouted from the rooftops until it is constructively addressed. Policies that were deliberately in place to create conditions in which things like this could happen are not simply forgotten without consequence. There are very lasting and harmful effects from the last eight years that must be addressed before we can heal and move on as a better and a more humane people.

It is time to bring this conversation back into the national dialogue.

Musicians Speak Out on Using Music as Torture, Closing Guantanamo

From Lisa Derrick at La Figa:

Musicians, including R.E.M and Pearl Jam, launched a formal protest of the use of music used in conjunction with torture that took place at Guantanamo Bay and other facilities. And they’ve announced they are supporting an effort seeking the declassification of all secret government records pertaining to how music was utilized as an interrogation device.

Both Tom Morello and Trent Reznor–the music of Rage Against the Machine and Nine Inch Nails were used as part the torture of inmates–are involved in the campaign. Says Morello in a statement:

Guantanamo is known around the world as one of the places where human beings have been tortured – from water boarding, to stripping, hooding and forcing detainees into humiliating sexual acts – playing music for 72 hours in a row at volumes just below that to shatter the ear drums.

Morello, Rage Against the Machine’s guitarist, adds:

Guantanamo may be Dick Cheney’s idea of America, but it’s not mine. The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me – we need to end torture and close Guantanamo now.

Also on board united in finding out about the abuse: Jackson Browne, Billy Bragg, Michelle Branch, T-Bone Burnett, David Byrne, Rosanne Cash, Marc Cohn, Steve Earle, the Entrance Band, Joe Henry, Pearl Jam, Bonnie Raitt, R.E.M., Rise Against, and The Roots. The campaign was organized by long time music fan and political organizer Trevor FitzGibbon.

You can go here to sign a letter, joining the musicians who are speaking out against torture and advocating the closure of the prison facility in Guantanamo Bay.

Here is what R.E.M has to say:

We signed onto the campaign in complete support of President Obama and the military leaders who have called for an end to torture and to close Guantanamo. As long as Guantanamo stays open, America’s legacy around the world will continue to be the torture that went on there. We have spent the past 30 years supporting causes related to peace and justice – to now learn that some of our friends’ music may have been used as part of the torture tactics without their consent or knowledge, is horrific. It’s anti-American, period.

and from the Roots:

When we found out that music was being used as part of the torture going on at Guantanamo, shackling and beating people - we were angry. Just as we wouldn’t be caught dead allowing Dick Cheney to use our music for his campaigns, you can be damn sure, we wouldn’t allow him to use it to torture other human beings. Congress needs to shut Guantanamo down.

Today's Cage Match Between Obama and Cheney

President Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney will both be giving speeches on the topic of anti-terrorism and national security later this morning and the corporate media are eating this up, portraying this as if it were a championship fight between two heavyweight boxers.

"Obama vs. Cheney" reads this headline on MSNBC and Politico has a headline entitled, "Barack Obama, Dick Cheney plan dueling speeches". My how the media loves a good political speech-off! So much so, that CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News all plan to carrying Dick Cheney's speech in its entirety and predictably, will debate both speeches as if they carry equal weight.

I, for one, would like to see analysis of these speeches given in the following context. President Obama's speech, which will reportedly focus on Guantanamo Bay and the issues surrounding the closure of the base, actually has meaning considering that Obama is the President. Dick Cheney's speech, which will reportedly focus on how torture is a necessary tool in combating terror, are the words of a man who is not only making torture a partisan issue, but has been on a media tour trying to justify the lawless legacy that the Bush Administration has left behind.

This is only a "duel" because the corporate media are presenting it that way. What we really have is one speech by the President of the United States and another speech by a former Vice President who is desperate to defend the lawless legacy that he has left behind and in doing so, will rely on his continued strategy of defending torture and using fearmongering to claim we are "less safe" under Obama.

More thoughts and reactions on this after the two speeches.

Is Bagram the New Guantanamo?

Rachel Maddow and Michael Isikoff discuss the Obama Administration's push to deny habeus corpus rights to detainees held at Bagram airfield in Afghanistan (sound familiar?) and Thursday's important decision on whether to release the Bush Administration's "torture memos":

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Obama's Order to Close Guantanamo and Reasserting Basic Judicial Principles

The reinvigorated patriotic glow of the inaugural festivities has quickly grown dim as the daunting task of reshaping America is already causing some backlash in the media and in the blogosphere. Most notably is President Obama's decision to halt prosecutions at Guantanamo Bay for 120 days and the eventual closure of the facility within one year. This action has sparked outrage that has spilled over into some conservative blog entries with opponents to Obama's order making the claim that this action has made America less safe.

There are some common themes and arguments that those who have written about this topic tend to put forth. These include, and may not be limited to:

- Those who are being detained in Guantanamo Bay are the worst of the worst and pure evil, so you cannot charge them as if they were citizens of the United States.
- Closing the base at Guantanamo Bay and trying the detainees on American soil will invite terrorist attacks on the United States.
- The trials that have been operating under the military commission system are the proper place for "enemy combatants" to be tried.

I should start off by saying that some of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay have been held for over seven years without a single charge being brought against them. At the same time the Bush Administration, and many who offer their support for this facility, continue to put forth the argument that those detained are the worst of the worst and guilty of wanting to destroy America. How do we know this? Because the former Administration has told us so! So in the framing of this discussion and to keep with one of the cornerstones of our system of justice, we must first acknowledge that those accused of crimes, even those as heinous as terrorism, are innocent until proven guilty.

This leads me into the first point that I have listed above. Those who continue to advance the argument that those captured are an exception to "normal" criminals and therefore should not be tried as such. I am not advancing the argument that all of those who are being held at Guantanamo Bay are innocent, in fact there are probably some very dangerous people who are currently being detained. In the same breath, these detainees are human beings. Human beings who have made choices, aligned themselves with various ideologies, and hold strong beliefs (right or wrong) about the way the world should operate. If the choices they have made and the actions that they have taken are illegal, then they should be charged with a crime and have the opportunity for a fair trial just like any other person accused of wrong-doing.

In addition to upholding the basic tenets of justice that the United States was founded upon, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in June, 2008 in which the writ of habeus corpus was restored and it was ruled that detainees had a right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts. So contrary to some arguments, yes, detainees do have the right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts.

Another popular argument of late is that trying the detainees from Guantanamo, on U.S. soil, will make the United States less safe and invite terrorist attacks on the country. This argument has been put forth by members of Congress, columnists, and bloggers alike. Some columnists, like David Stokes, have even suggested that detainees have been treated so well at Guantanamo Bay, that they would be more likely to be abused in the U.S. prison system. From his most recent piece:

People who have spent time at GITMO tell me that prisoners have been treated better there than they are at prisons in America. In fact, it is commonplace for American personnel to be the recipients of abuse meted out by the Guantánamo detainees.

Surely claiming that American captors are the "recipients of abuse" at the hands of the captive is an interesting argument, but it is Glenn Greenwald who does a very good job pointing out in a recent piece that the United States has tried, convicted, and imprisoned terrorists for years without incident. Greenwald sums it up nicely:

If it were really the goal of Terrorists to attack American prisons where their members are incarcerated and if they were actually capable of doing that, they already have a long list of "targets" and have had such a list for two decades. If U.S. civilian courts were inadequate forums for obtaining convictions of Terrorism suspects, then the above-listed individuals would not be imprisoned -- most of them for life -- while the Guantanamo military commission system still has nothing to show for it other than a series of humiliating setbacks for the Government.

Still after these "humiliating setbacks" with the military commission system, as Greenwald calls them, there are many who continue to argue that this is the system in which the detainees should be tried. As I continue to hear this argument, I am reminded of Lt. Col. Darrell Vandeveld, a former prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay that resigned in mid-September due to his objections to the military commission system. In a piece from October at Salon.com, Vandeveld says that he was "truly deceived" by the commission system. From the piece:

His deep ethical qualms hinged foremost on the fact that potentially critical evidence had been withheld from the defense by the government.

In addition to the resignation of prosecutors from Guantanamo Bay over the military commission system, the very idea that evidence obtained using coerced interrogation is able to be used against those charged underlines what a mockery of justice these commissions are. Suppression of evidence from the defense of those accused of serious crimes combined with the ability to admit evidence obtained through coercive interrogation are two very positive reasons why these trials have been halted and why this system has been placed under review by the Obama Administration.

Standing up for the rule of law and a system of justice that this country has prided itself in since its founding is not "coming to the defense of terrorists" or "wanting to put Americans at greater risk", as some have claimed of those who praise Obama's decision. We are talking about adhering to the basic principles of justice that have set this country apart from dictators in the past. Indefinite detention without charge and the implementation of torture by the leaders of a government is the mark of dictatorships and not a society that prides itself on justice through the rule of law. A return to these fundamental beliefs and practices is necessary for the United States to reassert itself as a country that not only treats its captives with respect, but has a strong judicial process which offers the accused their basic rights.