Alleging torture when no torture has taken place is a move straight out of the Al-Qaeda playbook. When Al-Qaeda operatives are jailed, they are told to claim that they have been tortured. From the Al-Qaeda playbook:
1. At the beginning of the trial, once more the brothers must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by State Security [investigators ]before the judge.
2. Complain [to the court] of mistreatment while in prison.
3. Make arrangements for the brother “s defense with the attorney, whether he was retained by the brother “s family or court-appointed.
4. The brother has to do his best to know the names of the state security officers, who participated in his torture and mention their names to the judge.[These names may be obtained from brothers who had to deal with those officers in previous cases.]…
6. During the trial, the court has to be notified of any mistreatment of the brothers inside the prison.
This game has been played the world over, but nowhere has it achieved more success than in the demonization of American personnel at Guantanamo Bay. Even the President of the United States has lent the prestige of his office to this baseless smear.
Here is an account from an eyewitness, filtered through the pen of a disapproving reporter:
“Drew Brees raises eyebrows with comments about Guantanamo Bay,” by Jeff Duncan for The Times-Picayune, July 28 (thanks to DFS):
Drew Brees is a great quarterback but every once in awhile he makes a bad pass.
Off the field, he’s a terrific ambassador, not only for the organization, but for the NFL and city of New Orleans. That’s why he’s asked to represent various organizations on trips like the U.S.O. tour he went on earlier this summer to the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo Bay.
After the visit, Brees conducted several interviews to discuss the trip, including one with the Times-Picayune’s Mike Triplett and one with San Diego-based radio station, XX1090-AM.
I was on vacation at the time of the radio interview on July 10, but I’m surprised his comments about the controversial facility did not raise more eyebrows locally or nationally.
“I can say this after that experience — the worst thing we can do is shut that baby down, for a lot of reasons,” Brees said. “But I think there’s a big misconception as to how we are treating those prisoners; those detainees over there. They are being treated probably 10 times better than any prisoner in a U.S. prison.”
Brees made some other eye-opening statements:
“I mean, they’re allowed to call and write letters home, and receive letters and calls. They get five opportunities a day to pray, and they have arrows in the prison pointing towards where Mecca is. And the prison goes dead silent so these guys can have their religious time. They have rooms where they can watch movies and play Nintendo Wii. So I think that just goes ahead and says it right there.”
And:
“And you just talk to all the guards that are Army and Navy personnel, they’ll tell you stories about how these prisoners, they’ll be walking the cell blocks as they’re keeping an eye on these guys and they’ll be throwing the feces and urine in the faces of the guards as they walk by and the guards are not allowed to do anything. They’re not allowed to physically retaliate or do anything hardly to try to restrain these guys at all. These guys get away with whatever they want.”…
Duncan goes on to insist that conditions must have changed at Gitmo, given the report of the UN Commission on Human Rights and Obama’s actions. That both could have been based more on political calculation than on fact does not seem to enter his mind.