Torture

Guantanamo. Over the past few years, any MSM treatment of this terrorist detention center has been accompanied by subtle (and not so subtle) implications that prisoner abuse and torture are practiced regularly. Various investigators (most of whom have never visited the place) allege the same mistreatment. And now, with the release of the Guantanamo hearing transcripts, we know the full extent of these “horrors.”

Scott Burgess reports the testimony of one Feroz Abbasi, a former detainee whose record of his treatment was reproduced as part of the transcripts:

In lengthy handwritten statements, included with the newly-released documents, Mr. Abbasi - who "left Britain to either join the Taliban or fight for Allah in [Indian-occupied] Kashmir", being driven by "pure hate" for Americans - details the extent of the torture to which he was subjected.

The list of abuses (set 5, page 14) makes for unpleasant reading, to say the least - but the whole thing must be included, for the sake of completeness.

During his time in Guantanamo, Mr. Abbasi (writing in the third person) alleges that he was:

• subject to [unspecified] "mental stress and pressure"
  
• "willfully misdirected ... to pray north"
  
• deprived of "comfort items"
  
• subjected to an [apparently failed] "attempt to withdraw Qur'an"
  
• able to hear two guards having sex, while they "assumed he was asleep"
  
• distracted from his prayer by the "sharp intake of breath" of a female MP who'd been "sexually fondled".
  
• offered a plate of pork
  
• the object of a conspiracy "to keep detainee ignorant of detainee's allotted Tuesday recreation"
  
• subjected to a "partially successful" attempt to administer injections "under the guise of immunisation", designed to "unhinge detainee's mental and emotional stability"

While all of these acts are undeniably horrifying, being on a par with the worst excesses of Torquemada, even their totality pales in comparison with the most extreme of the tortures to which Mr. Abbasi was subjected.

Of course, countless abuses have been committed against war prisoners throughout the ages - no one denies that. But, while not downplaying their suffering, it must be admitted that even the most unfortunate of these victims can only breathe a sigh of relief that he was not subject to what Mr. Abbasi was forced to endure when he:

• had his peanut butter eaten by a guard "right in front of him".
  

One needn't be a bleeding heart to shudder at the inhumanity thus displayed.

The only thing that’s tortured” is the logic that allows people to call events like those “suffered” by Mr. Abbasi “torture.” The only thing that’s “abused” is the MSM’s credibility when it aggressively reports alleged abuse, but fails to report that the vast majority of the allegations are patent nonsense.