[lit-ideas] (no subject)
- From: JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 12:50:57 EST
_http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4523825.stm_
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4523825.stm)
A former US soldier who worked on interrogations at Guantanamo Bay has
written a damning expose of the brutal, degrading treatment he says was meted
out
to prisoners there.
Sgt Erik Saar's book, Inside the Wire, comes with the US military's treatment
of prisoners in the spotlight due to court hearings over the Abu Ghraib
prison scandal.
In an interview with the BBC, Sgt Saar says that bizarre, sexual abuses at
the prison camp set dangerous precedents that paved the way for mistreatment of
US detainees in Iraq.
And the former translator argues that despite attempts to right wrongs at
Guantanamo, the camp still defiles the values the US is fighting for in the war
on terror.
'Does that please Allah?'
One of the most disturbing interrogations Sgt Saar says he saw in his six
months at the prison concerned a female interrogator trying to break a Saudi
detainee, captured after enrolling in a US flight school.
He tells how she began peeling off her clothes, taunting the man sexually in
an attempt to shame him and stop him relying on his faith for support.
She left the interrogation room, Sgt Saar says, and found a red marker pen.
"'Brooke' came back round his [the prisoner's] other side, and he could see
that she was beginning to withdraw her hand from her pants," said Sgt Saar.
"As it became visible, the Saudi saw what looked like red blood on her hand."
When the interrogator wiped what he thought was menstrual blood on his face,
the prisoner raged, almost breaking free from his handcuffs.
But "Brooke" taunted him further, said Erik Saar, asking whether Allah would
be pleased with him and telling him to have fun trying to pray.
Finally the detainee was returned to his cell without water, leaving him
unable to cleanse himself.
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