As long as we keep evading responsibility for this shit, our nation will have none:
[T]he August 2002 Justice Department legal memo authorized sleep deprivation for Abu Zubaydah for 11 consecutive days, but Mitchell kept him awake far longer, the U.S. officials said, citing classified CIA cables. Abu Zubaydah was stripped naked, strapped into a chair and doused with cold water to keep him awake. He was then interrogated and asked what he knew, at which point, his attorney told Al Jazeera, Abu Zubaydah was “psychotic” and would have admitted to anything.Additionally, the report allegedly says that Abu Zubaydah was stuffed into a pet crate (the type used to transport dogs on airplanes) over the course of two weeks and routinely passed out, was shackled by his wrists to the ceiling of his cell and subjected to an endless loop of loud music. One former interrogator briefed about Abu Zubaydah’s interrogations from May to July 2002 told Al Jazeera that the music used to batter the detainee’s senses was by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
If you had asked me five years ago if the incoming administration would simply turn its back and abjectly ignore the depravities of people who committed horrible crimes in our name, I'd have said you were crazy, that they'd at least make some symbolic gesture towards human decency: a Truth & Reconciliation Commission, perhaps. The fact that they haven't even discussed this and have actively run interference for the torturers is, well, crossing over into "evil" territory, much as it pains me to say it.
---Baron V
Comments