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Rift Between US Government and US Special Forces - Part 2 "Official" pictures prove prisoners have already been tortured Joe Vialls, 22 January 2002 If you were a “very, very dangerous” person as claimed by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, would you willingly kneel submissively in front of a bunch of American prison guards you are supposed to hate with a passion? Of course you would not. Instead, you would twist and turn at every possible opportunity, and show every imaginable form of resistance known to man. More than anything else perhaps, you would force yourself to hold your head up high. Ask yourself: Would Mel Gibson or Bruce Willis just squat there on their knees? No, of course they would not. Would Jean Paul Van Dam take this crap kneeling down? No, of course he would not. So, in these photos first leaked by the US Navy then hurriedly made “official” by the US Government, who or what has caused this unbelievable change in behavior on the part of the prisoners? Fine details in the still photos shown above actually provide a lot of information, but you have to know what to look for, and how to read the data. The armed forces of most western nations have specialists who do exactly this. Known as Photographic Interpreters or Imagery Analysts, these men and women frequently spend hours at a time examining a single still photograph or video frame using stereoscopes and other aids, trying to make sense out of what they are looking at. When they have finished their deliberations, a final report is then passed on up the military intelligence chain of command. We will borrow these techniques and use them to analyze the photos a little later in this report, but first we need to examine how America (and “soft” ally Britain) are trying to make us all believe that this is “normal humane treatment” as defined by the Geneva Covention. On this, Prime Minister Blair of Great Britain is probably the most sickening, trying as he is to make the plight of these torture victims look like a free holiday in the Bahamas. Mr Blair sent a three-man team to “investigate” conditions at Camp X Ray, and then had his spokesman put out the following Orwellian statement: “The team has confirmed that there are three British nationals in the camp, all of whom were able to speak to freely and without inhibition. There were no gags, no goggles, no ear muffs, no shackles while the detainees are in their cells. They only wear shackles and only shackles - when they are outside their cells. They do get three meals a day including a pre-packed Islamic meal for lunch, they do get as much water as they need and they do get daily medical checks. Nobody is pretending that [conditions] are luxurious but they are basic and they are fit for the requirements of the detainees." Unfortunately this did not sit well with the British tabloid The Daily Mirror, which commented in part: “This is what is being done in the name of humanity, civilisation and the British people. These prisoners are trapped in open cages, manacled hand and foot, brutalised, tortured and humiliated. We are assured they are cruel, evil men, though not one has been charged, let lone convicted, of any offence. Yet that does not justify the barbaric treatment they are receiving from US forces. Barbarism which is backed by our Government. Tony Blair says he is standing shoulder to shoulder with President Bush. Not on our behalf, he isn't. Mr Bush is close to achieving the impossible - losing the sympathy of the civilised world for what happened in New York and Washington on September 11”. The newspaper continues: “If Mr Bush insists on following this path, the rest of the world should leave him in no doubt that he walks it alone. And Tony Blair should be leading the protest.” Can Prime Minister Blair really believe the bland statement: “The team has confirmed that there are three British nationals in the camp, all of whom were able to speak to freely and without inhibition.”? Surely not, his wife is a leading Human Right Lawyer, well versed in the methods employed at concentration camps around the world. Cherie Blair will be aware as anyone of the standard ploy used when “important” visitors are due at the camp. All signs of psychological repression, used hypodermic needles, empty drug vials and so on are hidden in a storeroom somewhere, and the prisoners made acutely aware of exactly what will be done to them later if they dare breathe a word to the “important” visitors. Most prisoners keep their mouths tightly shut as instructed, anxious to avoid a bonus hypodermic of whatever drug it is that makes them feel so terrible. Having mentioned drugs, this is the point at which we turn to the techniques used by photographic interpreters and image analysts, in an attempt to establish which specific forms of torture have been used on these men, for rest assured they have certainly been tortured already. Based on these findings, we will then attempt to predict what is in store for them next, though second-guessing a bunch of crazed shrinks from CIA headquarters might prove difficult. We already know from the Kandahar photographs that all of these prisoners were subjected to sensory deprivation while en-roue to Cuba, a time period of more than thirty hours. The prime objective of this was total disorientation, which would have been achieved. We know they were forced to wear gloves, meaning their tactile senses [touch] were severely limited. We know they were forced to wear full-face hoods, meaning their visual senses were neutralized, and, at best, their auditory senses [hearing] severely affected. We do not yet know whether the prisoners were forced to wear ear muffs inside their hoods during the long flight, so at this stage it is impossible to determine which particular auditory effect was desired by their torturers. If hoods were worn without earmuffs, the prisoners would have been subjected to muffled non-stop monotonous aircraft noise, not unlike the “white noise” used in Northern Ireland by the British (see Part One for details). If hoods and earmuffs were worn together, then all sound would have been suppressed, robbing the prisoners of their ability to compensate balance using the middle ear, every time the aircraft pitched or rolled. If you doubt this is genuine psychological torture, try wearing mittens, handcuffs, leg irons, a full-face hood and a set of earmuffs while riding a roller coaster. You will very swiftly change your mind. Now try riding the same roller coaster in this condition non-stop for thirty hours. Torturers with wives and families, like to play make-believe about treatment like this, because somehow they have to justify their actions to their loved ones and themselves. Some will act like President Bush and claim “they had it coming to them”, while others will try and pretend that the pictures leaked by the US Navy from Camp X Ray simply show the men waiting to be allocated individual cells. No they do not, and besides, who are these men? We have no way of telling whether these pitiful creatures were really members of the largely imaginary al Qaeda, members of the Taliban, or simply Afghan citizens snatched off the street of Kandahar or Kabul by the Central Intelligence Agency. Now take a close look at the photographs. The one of the left was leaked by the US Navy, and the one of the right is my modest attempt to enlarge a section to show the actual equipment attached to each man. The first point to strike any analyst looking at the left hand picture is that all ten prisoners are kneeling with their legs crossed under their buttocks. Not a very comfortable position, and not one they would choose. If the prisoners were merely waiting for cells they could have been seated on simple benches bolted to the ground, but were not. In the position they have been forced to squat, their calves and feet will eventually go numb, thereby enhancing the overall effect of sensory deprivation; a form of torture expressly prohibited in America and most other civilized nations. This point alone provides hard evidence of torture by the three Americans shown in the photograph, who can later be identified and prosecuted for war crimes. Once more in the left picture, although the prisoners cannot see each other at all, all ten are leaning forwards at an angle more acute than that required by the handcuffs attached to the waist belts. Why? Also, with the sole exception of the central figure, all have their heads hanging down close to their chests. Why? For any analyst this is a tough call, but the answer is of critical importance in determining the prisoners’ exact treatment during the hour immediately before this photograph was taken. If the US Government was telling the truth when it stated that these prisoners were being properly fed, watered and housed, then they would still have their strength. If they still had their strength they would be holding their heads up high – an entirely natural thing to do while trying to maintain equilibrium. They are not holding their heads up high, proof enough of maltreatment, but not enough to prove partial starvation or deprivation of water. What, then? The closest we can get at this stage is to consider not just the bowed heads, but also the hunched posture of the bodies. Which position would you naturally and willingly adopt if you had severe stomach cramps? Correct – you would bend forwards as far as possible, trying to ease the pain. We do not have absolute proof of this yet, but drug induced stomach cramps are as old as the KGB in the Gulag, and the CIA in Cambodia and Laos. There are a number of different drugs that cause this effect, most of which have been used by both the KGB and CIA during their long and despicable pasts. Another way this posture could be created in all of the men would be by electrodes applied to the genitals, though this seems unlikely in the confines of a quasi-military establishment like Camp X Ray. Both photographs provide additional supportive proof that induced stomach cramps are the most likely cause of the unbelievable subservience of these “very, very dangerous” men. Look at the picture on the right and decide which part of the equipment strapped to this prisoner is effectively surplus to requirement, i.e. not required at all in terms of restraint or sensory deprivation. Have you taken a good look? OK, the only surplus item is the paper surgical mask obscuring each prisoner’s lower face. It is far too thin to be of any use in blocking the olfactory senses [smell] in sensory deprivation terms, but it does effectively mask the entire face from the gaze of casual passers by. Stomach cramps are excruciatingly painful, and the pain always shows on the face, especially around the mouth when the victim grits his teeth and sometimes dribbles. Now then, we wouldn’t want a passing US Navy rating from the nearby base copping an eyeful of that, would we? Prisoners gnashing their teeth and foaming at the mouth might be deemed reason enough [even for a lowly rating] to report the matter to his commanding officer. Hence the paper face masks, because realistic analysis provides no other reasonable explanation. All this from a single photograph? It does seem a little unlikely, but trained photographic interpreters and imagery analysts have in the past derived far more detail from a single frame, simply because they knew what they were looking for. If the US Government wishes to prove this analysis wrong then all it has to do is allow the general public access at designated visiting times, as is normal at other prisons. Naturally enough the US Government will do no such thing, gripped as its members are at the moment by the need to exact revenge on anyone, innocent or guilty, in order to bolster its flagging integrity. George Dubya Bush and Donald Rumsfeld in particular, appear to be in the grip of severe Redneck Swamp Fever. The incredibly brave spook torturers at Camp X Ray are proceeding with their rerun of the Spanish Inquisition, happy in the belief that they are immune from prosecution. After all, has not their Commander in Chief George Dubya Bush stated publicly that Cuba lies outside United States jurisdiction? Well yes he has, but George Dubya is almost certainly wrong. Guantanamo Bay was first leased by the United States from the new Republic of Cuba in 1903, to implement an act of Congress of the United States approved 2 March 1901, and an appendix to the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba promulgated 20 May 1902. The lease stipulates the area is to be used only for a coaling and naval station. No provisions exist at all for prisoner of war or concentration camps. For nearly one hundred years, the United States has exercised the essential elements of sovereignty over this territory, without actually owning it. Persons on the reservation are amenable only to United States legislative enactments. Guantanamo Bay is thus a Naval reservation which, for all practical purposes, is American sovereign territory, with all that implies for American torturers later caught on the mainland of the United States. As George Dubya himself is so fond of saying: “These are evil men, and we will bring them to justice.”