Leaked GITMO Operating Manuals Reveal Isolation, Sensory Deprivation Official Army Policy

[babylonsister]

On Democracy Now! today:


http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/26/1516210

Leaked Guantanamo Military Operating Manual Reveals Isolation, Sensory Deprivation Was Official Army Policy to Break Prisoners

Just over a week ago, a major operating manual for the US military's prison camp at Guantanamo Bay was leaked and posted on the Internet. Among other disclosures, it reveals that isolation and sensory deprivation of prisoners was official Army policy. We take a look at how this affects the debate within the American Psychological Association and the participation of its members in interrogations. Just over a week ago, a major operating manual for the US military's prison camp at Guantanamo Bay was leaked and posted on the internet .

The 238-page manual titled "Standard Operating Procedures for Camp Delta," is dated March 27, 2003, and signed by Army Major General Geoffrey Miller, who was then the commander of the prison.

The document shows that the military had an official policy of denying some prisoners any access to independent monitors of the International Committee of the Red Cross, or ICRC, something the military has repeatedly denied.

Another disclosure is the use of isolation and sensory deprivation techniques as a means of "preparing" detainees. It says incoming prisoners are to be held in near-isolation for the first two weeks to foster dependence on interrogators and "enhance and exploit the disorientation and disorganization felt by a newly arrived detainee in the interrogation process."

This disclosure has strong relevance to the debate within the American Psychological Association which continues to condone psychologists" work on interrogations at Guantanamo and CIA black sites. Its counterparts, the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association, have both banned their members from participating in interrogations.

* Dr. Stephen Soldz, a psychologist, public health researcher, and professor at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. He joins me from now Boston. Dr. Soldz is a founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology and maintains the Psyche, Science, and Society blog.

[gratuitous]

1. Five years and counting

I don't suppose keeping someone locked up without charge or prospect of having that incarceration adjudicated probably has something to do with it, too. But after five years in detention, what "hot" intelligence does the military suppose even the guiltiest of these never-tried terrorists could possibly possess?

This is a shameful episode in American history, and there will surely be a latter day Solzhenitsyn to write about the despot Bush and his Gulag Archipelago.

[sam sarrha]

2. CIA people have said 'it only takes a few days to turn them into a piece of furniture'

[notanotherday]

3. water boarding gets all the news, but Isolation is Torture too. And its the primary tool we use.

Isolation is torture. If you do not believe it, watch the movie V, it illustrates the technique quite well(for a movie).