Little Known Military Thug Squad Still Brutalizing Prisoners at Gitmo Under Obama

[spooked911]

The war crimes continue in the name of "fighting terror". This is truly evil, Nazi-like behavior carried out by our government. Please read the whole article-- it goes through several specific cases and what is described is absolutely horrific.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/140022/little_known_military_thug_squad_still_brutalizing_prisoners_at_gitmo_under_obama/

As the Obama administration continues to fight the release of some 2,000 photos that graphically document U.S. military abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, an ongoing Spanish investigation is adding harrowing details to the ever-emerging portrait of the torture inside and outside Guantánamo. Among them: "blows to testicles;" "detention underground in total darkness for three weeks with deprivation of food and sleep;" being "inoculated … through injection with 'a disease for dog cysts;'" the smearing of feces on prisoners; and waterboarding. The torture, according to the Spanish investigation, all occurred "under the authority of American military personnel" and was sometimes conducted in the presence of medical professionals.

More significantly, however, the investigation could for the first time place an intense focus on a notorious, but seldom discussed, thug squad deployed by the U.S. military to retaliate with excessive violence to the slightest resistance by prisoners at Guantánamo.

The force is officially known as the the Immediate Reaction Force or Emergency Reaction Force, but inside the walls of Guantánamo, it is known to the prisoners as the Extreme Repression Force. Despite President Barack Obama's publicized pledge to close the prison camp and end torture -- and analysis from human rights lawyers who call these forces' actions illegal -- IRFs remain very much active at Guantánamo.

(snip)

But human rights lawyers, former prisoners and former IRF team members with extensive experience at Guantánamo paint a very different picture of the role these teams played. "They are the Black Shirts of Guantánamo," says Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has represented the most Guantánamo prisoners. "IRFs can't be separated from torture. They are a part of the brutalization of humans treated as less than human."

Clive Stafford Smith, who has represented 50 Guantánamo prisoners, including 31 still imprisoned there, has seen the IRF teams up close. "They're goons," he says. "They've played a huge role."

While much of the "torture debate" has emphasized the so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" defined by the twisted legal framework of the Office of Legal Council memos, IRF teams in effect operate at Guantánamo as an extrajudicial terror squad that has regularly brutalized prisoners outside of the interrogation room, gang beating them, forcing their heads into toilets, breaking bones, gouging their eyes, squeezing their testicles, urinating on a prisoner's head, banging their heads on concrete floors and hog-tying them -- sometimes leaving prisoners tied in excruciating positions for hours on end.

[BeFree]

1. Cheney's legacy

An Iraqi interrogator speaks:

The final pragmatic argument that I offer against torture and abuse is that future adversaries will be less likely to surrender to us during combat. During the first Gulf War, thousands of Iraqi troops surrendered to American forces knowing that they would be fairly treated as prisoners of war. This same rational was present during World War II, where German soldiers fought and evaded in the vicinity of Berlin for the privilege of being captured by American versus Russian troops. If future adversaries are unwilling to surrender to us because of the manner in which we've treated prisoners in the current conflict, it will have a real cost in American lives.

From:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5672356&mesg_id=5672356

[vincent_vega_lives]

2. IRF

QRF, STOP team, all the same just different names. Every prison and detention facility in the US has one. Meant to deal with unruly detainees/prisoners.