NYT: Ex-Detainee Says He Was Tortured (Sexual/Physical Abuse at Gitmo)

[Maven]

SYDNEY, Australia, Feb. 12 - Mamdouh Habib still has a bruise on his lower back. He says it is a sign of the beatings he endured in a prison in Egypt. Interrogators there put out cigarettes on his chest, he says, and he lifts his shirt to show the marks. He says he got the dark spot on his forehead when Americans hit his head against the floor at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

After being arrested in Pakistan in the weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, he was held as a terror suspect by the Americans for 40 months. Back home now, Mr. Habib alleges that at every step of his detention - from Pakistan, to Egypt, to Afghanistan, to Guantánamo - he endured physical and psychological abuse.

...

Mr. Habib said he was taken to a room with hooks on the wall and a barrel, set sideways like a roller, on the floor. His arms were stretched out, he said, and each wrist was handcuffed and fastened to a hook on the wall. By his description, the only way not to be left hanging was to stand on the barrel; an electric wire ran through it. Mr. Habib said he believed the interrogators in that room were Pakistani.

Mr. Habib said that when he refused to confess to being part of a 1995 terror plot, one man turned on the current. He lifted his feet to avoid the shock, he recalled, and he was suspended from the wall. more...

[arcane1]

1. held as a terror SUSPECT

and went through 40 MONTHS of torture, without any evidence that he was guilty of ANYTHING

welcome to the new America

[flyarm]

2. ohhh but we don't believe in torture...no sireee!!

nope * would never sanction torture...nor would gonzalez..nope no way..

well folks there are dems in congress and senate who have looked the other way too..and there are dems who voted to confirm gonzalez...unless we even hold our own accountable on this...each and every congress and senator accountable who let this happen and just sanctioned gonzalez..then we are hypocrites as well..i want every dem who voted gonzalez held accountable..they had these reports and what the hell have our own done about this??

we need to look at our own and any that allowed this and stayed silent we need to replace them within our own ranks..while going after the repugs as strongly as we can...this is not partisan..this is inhumane..and we better hold the so called humans who allowed this accountable...

or expect the same for our sons and daughters when they are held as prisoners...and they will be held at one time or another prisoners.

we either stand up as humans for human rights ...or we get what we give!

fly

[Maven]

3. I don't think this particular story is going away that easily.

This guy is suing the Australian government for failing to protect him. I wonder if he'll sue the U.S. as well. We'll see I guess.

[Technowitch]

4. Torture is wrong, always

It's sad and funny at the same time... I know that the Repugs and Shrub and the rest of them keep bringing up this bizarre justification for torture. That somehow causing great pain and distress (physically and mentally) can be justified on the basis that information desperately needs to be extracted from these poor sods, to prevent another 9/11.

It's most commonly called "the ticking bomb" rationale -- the scenario being, "Would you torture someone, if you knew that in doing so, you could get information that would save countless lives?"

Of course, the assumption always goes that the suspect is already PRESUMED guilty, and the information is there to be had.

We know now what happens when you even head a little bit down this road. You get people who've done nothing wrong, aside from being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they're tortured until they say something the interrogators want to hear. And I'm sure the torture doesn't stop then either, because, well, you have to be certain they really said it, right?

I have come to the conclusion that torture -- the intentional infliction of pain on a prisoner is 100% wrong, all the time, whatever the situation. Yes, maybe lives could be saved if you wrung a key bit of information from someone who is guilty of complicity in mass-murder. But you never know ahead of time whether you really do have the right person -- and even more importantly, sometimes the cost of saving lives is too high. Just look at the damage done so far -- and they haven't stopped! They're still trying to justify and legalize their actions.

We need to spread this meme loud and far: The Republican Party is the party of legalized torture.