Jan 20, 2010

What asymmetric warfare entails, apparently

"On June 9th, 2006, [Aamer] was beaten for two and a half hours straight. Seven naval military police participated in his beating. Mr. Aamer stated he had refused to provide a retina scan and fingerprints. He reported to me that he was strapped to a chair, fully restrained at the head, arms and legs. The MPs inflicted so much pain, Mr. Aamer said he thought he was going to die. The MPs pressed on pressure points all over his body: his temples, just under his jawline, in the hollow beneath his ears. They choked him. They bent his nose repeatedly so hard to the side he thought it would break. They pinched his thighs and feet constantly. They gouged his eyes. They held his eyes open and shined a mag-lite in them for minutes on end, generating intense heat. They bent his fingers until he screamed. When he screamed, they cut off his airway, then put a mask on him so he could not cry out."
— Zachary Katznelson, lawyer of one of the three men tortured to death at Gitmo in 2006. Their deaths were presented as suicides, and thus deemed acts "assymetrical warfare" by the US military. The three men, one of whom was just 17 when captured, were never charged with any crime and had in fact been cleared for release. The story has gone unreported in the American media, distracted by the fact that a Republican has finally managed to win elective office, but the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Independent and the Irish Times have not been so obliging.

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