An open letter to all those decent American's

At Gitmo, my recollection is that playing loud music, making the prisoners stand, sleep deprivation, scaring the prisoners, etc. are considered torture. I beg to differ.

It was pitch black no lights on in the rooms for most of the time.... They hung me up. I was allowed a few hours of sleep on the second day, then hung up again, this time for two days. My legs had swollen. My wrists and hands had gone numb.... There was loud music, [Eminem's] "Slim Shady" and Dr. Dre for 20 days.... [Then] they changed the sounds to horrible ghost laughter and Halloween sounds. [At one point, I was] chained to the rails for a fortnight.... The CIA worked on people, including me, day and night.... Plenty lost their minds. I could hear people knocking their heads against the walls and the doors, screaming their heads off.

I read your link. To start with, it sounds like it was near Kabul, Afghanistan, not Gitmo.

Sleep deprivation. As a point of interest, have you ever gone through basic military training? Actually, sleep deprivation is in fact a tactic to wear down terrorist suspects to make it more likely for them to talk. Not perhaps pleasant, but I do not think it is torture, although some leftist organizations may wish to call it that.

Playing loud music. I once camped in a campground where a bunch of drunks played loud music until 4 in the morning. Irritating, yes, but I could not sue them for torture. Piping the loud music into their cells may be worse than what I endured, yes mighty unpleasant, but I don't think it rises to the level of torture.

Chaining to the rails is restraint, and may hinder sleep. All of these things are unpleasant and designed to break down the terrorists to reveal information that may save peoples lives.

How do the human rights organizations want us to treat prisoners? I am guessing unless if it is any less than treating them like a full paying holiday cruise passenger, they would classify the treatment as substandard, demeaning, humiliating, and torturous. Ladies and gentlemen, face reality here, we are probably treating prisoners at Gitmo as well or better than prisoners have ever been treated around the world. I will not contend that an abuse here or there does not happen, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, but overall I think our treatment has been at least as good as in the past. I personally know of men stuck in prisons during WWII, and the ones that survived were lucky to survive at all. Many starved or died from other problems.

Last point. The Geneva Conventions. If I understand it correctly, even though we voluntarily aim at abiding by it, we are not under obligation to do so in the case of terrorists, because they wear no uniform and do not represent a country in time of war. They are more like international criminals, but neither do they come under the jurisdiction of our domestic criminal code. They really have put themselves in a position of having no code to protect themselves. And really, these are people that advocate the killing and maiming of civilian men, women, and children, so why should they even expect any mercy or humane treatment in return because of the Geneva Conventions. They do not qualify. The fact that we do give them any humane treatment should be considered as purely undeserved mercy. We should be complimented, but no, we are constantly criticized for any shred of mistreatment anybody can dredge up.

The world needs to wake up to the threat posed by terrorists. Treat them humanely, yes, I think that is adviseable, but to treat them like honored guests, no, absolutely not. And where are the sympathies for the innocent people killed and maimed by them?

I read your link. To start with, it sounds like it was near Kabul, Afghanistan, not Gitmo.

Sleep deprivation. As a point of interest, have you ever gone through basic military training?

Actually, sleep deprivation is in fact a tactic to wear down terrorist suspects to make it more likely for them to talk. Not perhaps pleasant, but I do not think it is torture, although some leftist organizations may wish to call it that.

Playing loud music. I once camped in a campground where a bunch of drunks played loud music until 4 in the morning. Irritating, yes, but I could not sue them for torture. Piping the loud music into their cells may be worse than what I endured, yes mighty unpleasant, but I don't think it rises to the level of torture.

Chaining to the rails is restraint, and may hinder sleep. All of these things are unpleasant and designed to break down the terrorists to reveal information that may save peoples lives.

How do the human rights organizations want us to treat prisoners?

Last point. The Geneva Conventions. If I understand it correctly, even though we voluntarily aim at abiding by it, we are not under obligation to do so in the case of terrorists, because they wear no uniform and do not represent a country in time of war. They are more like international criminals, but neither do they come under the jurisdiction of our domestic criminal code. They really have put themselves in a position of having no code to protect themselves. And really, these are people that advocate the killing and maiming of civilian men, women, and children, so why should they even expect any mercy or humane treatment in return because of the Geneva Conventions. They do not qualify. The fact that we do give them any humane treatment should be considered as purely undeserved mercy. We should be complimented, but no, we are constantly criticized for any shred of mistreatment anybody can dredge up.

The world needs to wake up to the threat posed by terrorists. Treat them humanely, yes, I think that is adviseable, but to treat them like honored guests, no, absolutely not. And where are the sympathies for the innocent people killed and maimed by them?

If any American is stupid enough to fight as a terrorist, then they deserve what ever punishment they receive. You seem to equate American soldiers to these terrorists who have no honor, no code of conduct, and do not follow the generally accepted rules of war.

Stafford Smith has drawn up a 30-page report on the tortures which Begg and Belmar say they have endured, and sent it as an annexe with a letter to the Prime Minister which Downing Street received shortly before Christmas. For the time being - possibly forever - the report cannot be published, because the Americans claim that the torture allegations amount to descriptions of classified interrogation methods.

However, Stafford Smith's letter to Tony Blair - which has been declassified - says that on his visit to the Guantanamo prisoners, he heard 'credible and consistent evidence that both men have been savagely tortured at the hands of the United States' with Begg having suffered not only physical but 'sexual abuse' which has had 'mental health consequences'.

According to the memos, the abuse was 'systematic', with frequent beatings, chokings, and sleep deprivation for days on end. Religious humiliation was also routine, with one agent reporting a case in which a prisoner was wrapped in an Israeli flag.

'On a couple of occasions I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a foetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water,' an anonymous FBI agent wrote on 2 August. 'Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18 to 24 hours or more.'

Reports of identical treatment were first published by The Observer last March, in interviews with three British detainees who had been released - Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Rhuhel Ahmed. They were then strenuously denied by the Pentagon. But according to another FBI memo dated 10 May, when an agent asked Guantanamo's former commander, Major General Geoffrey Miller, about techniques the FBI regarded as illegal, he was told that the interrogators 'had their marching orders from the Sec[retary] Def[ense]', Donald Rumsfeld. General Miller told the US Congress under oath that although Rumsfeld had authorised the use of dogs to intimidate prisoners at Guantanamo, this had never happened. According to the memos, this was inaccurate.

Having fled Afghanistan where he had been trying to set up a school before the war against the Taliban began in October 2001, Begg was abducted by American agents from the house the family was renting in Islamabad.

Belmar was captured after attending a religious school for a few weeks before the 11 September terrorist attacks. An FBI source who personally questioned him before he was sent to Guantanamo has told The Observer he recommended his immediate release because he had 'no involvement' with terrorism, but was overruled by MI5.

Stafford Smith says in his letter to Baroness Symons that Begg made a false written confession after being tortured in February 2003, when two agents who had abused him at Bagram - where Begg witnessed the deaths of two prisoners officially classed as homicide - came to Guantanamo. But neither he nor Stafford Smith have been allowed to see this statement, which apparently forms the main grounds for his continued incarceration. Stafford Smith asks the Foreign Office for help in obtaining a copy, and asks: 'What kind of civilised legal system does not allow the suspect to see his own statements? How can the prisoner's statement be said to be classified information when, if it were true, the prisoner would already know it?'

If any American is stupid enough to fight as a terrorist, then they deserve what ever punishment they receive. You seem to equate American soldiers to these terrorists who have no honor, no code of conduct, and do not follow the generally accepted rules of war.

I also see them dispensing a dread of terrorism to cower the population … it is not happening in Britain and it's not happening in Australia where we have a mechanism of checks and balances built into our Westminster System of Government.

Therefore when I hear some of these so-called human rights organizations cry abuse, it is a little bit like the story of crying "wolf." After a while, I really don't even listen to the accusations or take them seriously.

And when I hear that sleep deprivation is one of their prime complaints, then I take the accusations even less serious.

There is an effort here to redefine the term, "torture."

Bybee's interpretations guided the Bush Administration for twenty-two months. And a powerful case has been made that Bybee's extraordinary reading of the law led to Americans engaging in torture at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.

The memo defines torture so narrowly that only activities resulting in "death, organ failure or the permanent impairment of a significant body function" qualify. It also claims, absurdly, that Americans can defend themselves if criminally prosecuted for torture by relying on the criminal law defenses of necessity and/or self-defense, based on the horror of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Finally, the memo asserts that the criminal law prohibiting torture "may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations undertaken of enemy combatants pursuant to the President's Commander-in-Chief powers."

We need to remember here that we did not create this problem. The terrorists did.

No, it's not one of the prime complaints. The prime complaint is the lack of due process, beatings sometimes to the death, and being driven insane. There are other complaints too, but those appear to be classified.

I can never understand the argument that other countries do/did it so that makes it okay for us to do it.

Aren't we trying to show these other countries that our way of doing things is better?

If we become more like them, to show them that they should be more like us.....

... President Bush's insistance that torture be legal....

Would you feel the same if it were American forces locked away, in a duplicate of Guantanmo Bay, and subject to the same treatment as those prisoners who have been held for four years without charge, or access to lawyers … I certainly hope you would not?

Be very careful of what you support, if your government is allowed to practice this vile business it would set a precedent for your enemies to do the same …

Lack of due process. This is a very difficult problem, because as I said before, these people do not qualify as domestic criminal cases, and they also do not qualify as enemy soldiers representing a country or wearing an official uniform as covered by the Geneva Convention. So you wish to give such people all the rights and due process of somebody accused of a crime in the United States.

It is difficult to know whether there are any innocents, and if so, how many are in Gitmo.

By virtue of where most were captured, a strong link or connection to terrrorists is indicated.

Being driven insane. That is kind of a nebulous charge hard to pin down. Being captured is stressful, and some people will crack under severe stress. This is unavoidable. You need to provide more information than simply making a charge of being driven insane. That does not tell us anything or prove abuse.

I do not believe the administration sanctioned any severe abuse. And I think there have been some false accusations.

I do not believe the press has done a decent job of presenting a balanced picture of how well most prisoners are treated, along with all the trumpeting of supposed abuse.