The Slippery Slope to Widespread Torture

Martin Longman

19 years ago

For those of you who haven’t read it yet, make sure to take a look at the Washington Post article on torture.

I can understand the frustration of investigators when they couldn’t get the so-called 20th hijacker to cooperate. I can even see making a special exemption from the Geneva Conventions for this one individual. I would not be completely outraged if the exemption were specific, limited, and the tactics were known to be effective.

But I have doubts about the effectiveness of these tactics, and they were not limited at all to this one individual.

Interrogators at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, forced a stubborn detainee to wear women’s underwear on his head, confronted him with snarling military working dogs and attached a leash to his chains, according to a newly released military investigation that shows the tactics were employed there months before military police used them on detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The techniques, approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for use in interrogating Mohamed Qahtani — the alleged “20th hijacker” in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — were used at Guantanamo Bay in late 2002 as part of a special interrogation plan aimed at breaking down the silent detainee.

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