Specialist Brandon Neely
tells of an atmosphere of
casual abuse directed at
prisoners detained at
Guantanamo Bay.
As part of its Guantanamo Testimonials Project, the Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas interviews guards, prisoners, investigators, interrogators, physicians and others about the conditions that prevailed at the U.S. detention center at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Among those interviewed was Specialist Brandon Neely, a military policeman stationed at Camp X-Ray. There's plenty to be horrified about in the United States government's treatment of prisoners held as terrorism suspects, but the following struck me in particular because of its casual, purposeless nature:
I talked about the detainee who came to Camp X-Ray wounded from a .50 caliber. His bicep had attached to his forearm due to the fact his arm was in the sling for so long. I escorted this detainee to medical a couple times for physical therapy as he could not bend his arm down at all. On one occasion, when I escorted him there the medic began to massage the area that was attached and he keep rubbing harder and harder to the point the detainee started to cry and squirm all over the bed. The medic stopped massaging and started to stretch the detainee's arm down a little at a time. You could tell this was very painful and uncomfortable for him. The medic said "You really want to watch him scream." Then he stretched the arm all the way down until it was straight out on the bed. The detainee started screaming loud and crying. The medic finally put his arm back up and did it again. And then he said he was finished with the physical therapy. The whole time the medic just laughed at what he was doing. We then escorted the detainee back to his cage.
Note that pain was inflicted on a disabled prisoner in the course of physical therapy for an injury. The pain served no punishment purpose and there was no intention to elicit information or compliance. The prisoner was abused by a medic for ... fun.
Neely admits to participating in one incident abuse, so he exposes himself to liability with his testimony. He also talks of acts of kindness by some of the guards who pitied the prisoners and were ashamed of conditions at the detention center.
President Barack Obama has promised to close Guantanamo -- in a year. Well, that's a start. So is his promise to "review" detention and interrogation policies, provided that the review results in reforms. We don't need more of the same, which is what we're getting with the new administration's protection of "state secrets."
But official policies are one thing. What do we do about a culture of casual cruelty toward detainees for entertainment prurposes?
You might also enjoy these:
- Obama suspends military commissions, may close Guantanamo
- A look at the youngest prisoners detained and tortured at Guantanamo
- Former Guantanamo prosecutor, ACLU support detainee's bid for freedom
- Plans in place to close Guantanamo -- eventually
- More evidence that torture is ineffective in war on terrorism
- Trials the only reasonable step for Guantanamo detainees
- Guantanamo Bay detainees require new president's quick attention
- Courts torn over Guantanamo torture
- Prosecutor Darrel Vandeveld resigns over fairness of Guantanamo trials
- Hamdan proceeding rotten to the core
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Comments
I have no high opinion of people in the medical field. They are all Mengele to me. I have seen the impact that medical training has had on formerly thinking, humane people I have known. So, it doesn't surprise me that any of them would be complicit in torture. It's what they do as medical personnel.
We are in culture right now where there seems to be little humanity. I hope that there are enough good people left who are aware and in a position to do something.
The current President has no interest in putting and end to torture. In fact, based on the sum of his actions since he has been in office, he seems entirely sociopathic.
Your work is consistently superb! Keep it up!
Broderick Perkins
National Real Estate News Examiner
Replying as an anonymous guard that served at Guantanamo, that is totally absurd and not even close to being truthfull. The detainees being held there are the aggressors, not the guards. They have more than adequate freedoms and priveleges. Frankly, unless you were actually there, you just wouldn't understand. I'm getting quite sick of hearing "expert" opinions from college kids that don't have a clue. If you want to change the world, go find a cure for cancer or something worthwile instead of trying to fight for America's enemies.
Maybe you guys haven't taken the time to realize that the detainees in GTMO are terrorists. They are there for a reason. If you like them so much move to the middle east where you'll have your head cut off for being an american. Before you run your mouth enlist in the military and be around those that you are sticking up for.
This young specialist is an MP, not a medic. His claim is that this treatment had no medical purpose, but on what authority does he say this? If the treatment was medically necessary, it was perhaps somewhat twisted for the doctor to enjoy the pain he was inflicting, but it was not objectively unethical. I have seen a real piece of scum criminal given a medically necessary MRI which was painful to him because of the iron-laden prison tattoos he had adorned himself with. The doctor called the pain the prisoner experienced "no more than he deserved." How are we to know that this case at Guantanamo wasn't simply more of the same?
Sean,
The problem is this: We do NOT know that these people are terrorists. We have heard that one was a cook and some were random camel-herders, rounded up to fill the cells and put a notch on the belts of their captors. One of them was a 16-year old child, a pathetic slip of a boy who was probably forced to whatever he was accused of. But, we don't even know that... because these people have never had a trial. That is the first issue. No trial. What kind of country has this become??? I want to cover my eyes and bury my head, too, but I have to look. This is tyranny. These are the seeds of more tyranny to come.
Sean,
The problem is this: We do NOT know that these people are terrorists. We have heard that one was a cook and some were random camel-herders, rounded up to fill the cells and put a notch on the belts of their captors. One of them was a 16-year old child, a pathetic slip of a boy who was probably forced to whatever he was accused of. But, we don't even know that... because these people have never had a trial. That is the first issue. No trial. What kind of country has this become??? I want to cover my eyes and bury my head, too, but I have to look. This is tyranny. These are the seeds of more tyranny to come.
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