I think you're being somewhat unfair in how you represent my take on the Washington Post article. I'm not creating a "false transitive association" between "our prisoners are gaining weight" and "we're over-feeding ... them." The article just plain says that. That such food is offered is not in dispute. What is in dispute is: how much of the weight gain is caused by overeating and how much is caused by lack of exercise? Also: is such lack of exercise that exists caused by coercive management, or is it valid punishment for misbehavior?
Now, one of the reasons I brought the article up is because the Rolling Stone article alleges that borderline starvation is one of techniques employed at Guantanamo, so there's a blatant contradiction right there. However, you don't take the Tietz's article seriously, so this is something of a moot point.
It is also true, as you point out, that the mere fact the prisoners are, as I said, treated "to a quality buffet tailored to their dietary preferences" does not prove that we aren't doing some torture on the side. (Keep in mind, however, that unless the Post is being played for a fool, it is a fact that they are getting such service.) The same can be said about the fact that detainees are given opportunities to pray, access to chaplains, and other necessities to practice their faith. We could be doing all of this and still beating them with rods at the end of the day. It just means that, if we are engaging in regular torture, we're being stupid about it.
The Rolling Stone article has many flaws, but one of the things it actually gets right is its depiction of SERE. Tietz explains (page four):
The most effective form of torture turned out to have two components. The first is pain and harm delivered in unpredictable, sometimes illusory environments -- an absolute denial of physical comfort and spatial-temporal orientation. The second is a removal of the inner comfort of identity -- achieved by artfully humiliating people and coercing them to commit offenses against their own religion, dignity and morality, until they become unrecognizable to and ashamed of themselves. ... In SERE theory, the techniques are be used in concert and continuously -- coercive interrogation should become a life experience.
Now, if we were seriously interested in breaking the detainees at Guantanamo in any systematic fashion, this is what we would be doing. What articles like the Post one demonstrate is that we are not, at least, employing the second method "advocated" by SERE. The identity of the detainees at Gitmo is still very much intact. This, ironically, is part of the problem.
You state, "that the prisoners routinely attack their guards with makeshift weapons, directly undermines your first point. If we're treating our prisoners so well … why are they attacking their captors? What do they hope to gain?"
There's a fairly obvious answer to this question. What they hope to gain is exactly what they hoped to gain when they joined their terrorist outfit of choice: dead and maimed Americans (and Israelis and Australians and Spaniards and Italians and etc., etc.--but only Americans are there). Only if we assume that a (large) majority of detainees are not in fact terrorists does that question even make sense. The proper phrasing of the question is: What do they have to lose by attacking the guards? Exercise privileges?
The "identity" of the Guantanamo detainees seems for the most part to be exactly the same as it was when they arrived. That is, they are still thugs devoted to a murderous ideology. And there's very little we can do about that, short of subjecting them to the sorts of tortures that SERE trains our servicemen to resist until we break them completely. But this hasn't happened, and it won't.
As regards the last point: It remains to be seen what the Military Commissions Act of 2006 will do as far as oversight is concerned. If nothing else, it provides some hard and fast guidelines about what is and is not torture or otherwise banned.
no subject
Now, one of the reasons I brought the article up is because the Rolling Stone article alleges that borderline starvation is one of techniques employed at Guantanamo, so there's a blatant contradiction right there. However, you don't take the Tietz's article seriously, so this is something of a moot point.
It is also true, as you point out, that the mere fact the prisoners are, as I said, treated "to a quality buffet tailored to their dietary preferences" does not prove that we aren't doing some torture on the side. (Keep in mind, however, that unless the Post is being played for a fool, it is a fact that they are getting such service.) The same can be said about the fact that detainees are given opportunities to pray, access to chaplains, and other necessities to practice their faith. We could be doing all of this and still beating them with rods at the end of the day. It just means that, if we are engaging in regular torture, we're being stupid about it.
The Rolling Stone article has many flaws, but one of the things it actually gets right is its depiction of SERE. Tietz explains (page four):
Now, if we were seriously interested in breaking the detainees at Guantanamo in any systematic fashion, this is what we would be doing. What articles like the Post one demonstrate is that we are not, at least, employing the second method "advocated" by SERE. The identity of the detainees at Gitmo is still very much intact. This, ironically, is part of the problem.
You state, "that the prisoners routinely attack their guards with makeshift weapons, directly undermines your first point. If we're treating our prisoners so well … why are they attacking their captors? What do they hope to gain?"
There's a fairly obvious answer to this question. What they hope to gain is exactly what they hoped to gain when they joined their terrorist outfit of choice: dead and maimed Americans (and Israelis and Australians and Spaniards and Italians and etc., etc.--but only Americans are there). Only if we assume that a (large) majority of detainees are not in fact terrorists does that question even make sense. The proper phrasing of the question is: What do they have to lose by attacking the guards? Exercise privileges?
The "identity" of the Guantanamo detainees seems for the most part to be exactly the same as it was when they arrived. That is, they are still thugs devoted to a murderous ideology. And there's very little we can do about that, short of subjecting them to the sorts of tortures that SERE trains our servicemen to resist until we break them completely. But this hasn't happened, and it won't.
As regards the last point: It remains to be seen what the Military Commissions Act of 2006 will do as far as oversight is concerned. If nothing else, it provides some hard and fast guidelines about what is and is not torture or otherwise banned.