"According to the NCIS, each prisoner had fashioned a noose from torn sheets and T-shirts and tied it to the top of his cell’s eight-foot-high steel-mesh wall. Each prisoner was able somehow to bind his own hands, and, in at least one case, his own feet, then stuff more rags deep down into his own throat. We are then asked to believe that each prisoner, even as he was choking on those rags, climbed up on his washbasin, slipped his head through the noose, tightened it, and leapt from the washbasin to hang until he asphyxiated. The NCIS report also proposes that the three prisoners, who were held in non-adjoining cells, carried out each of these actions almost simultaneously."

In 2006, I was a Marine. I vaguely remember news reports of a triple-suicide of prisoners at Camp Guantanamo. It was discussed by the guys, like any kind of military news; the consensus was that one of two things happened.

First, the guards might have been grossly incompetent. Three suicides in one night in a prison where the cell "walls" are chain-link fence, suggests that the guards were playing spades rather than going on patrol. They were Navy people, so we were willing to hypothesize total lack of discipline.

The other possibility was that the three prisoners were murdered, probably while being tortured. We gravely shook our heads at that. The Marines are proud of how we have treated prisoners; the various scandals have almost all involved Army personnel, who Marines are always willing to suspect of incompetence and indiscipline. We are shamed that there was one prisoner mistreatment scandal, that came out before Abu Gharib was publicized, when an Iraqi in Marine custody died. In that case not only did a couple of guards go to jail, so did the Officer-In-Charge. Quick quiz, how many Army officers have received so much as a written reprimand for abuse? Let alone jail time?

Anyway, we were deeply suspicious of the deaths, but we were busy, and the news moved on. This evening, I came across a long but very illuminating article from Harper's Magazine. They point out the inconsistencies in the official report, and have a by-name, on-the-record interview with the sergeant of the guard for that sector's perimeter. This is non-trivial information, as he was given a direct order to never discuss this stuff. From the article, he doesn't seem to be a disgruntled troublemaker making up lies, and there are enough holes in the official story to drive a truck through. I'm not a forensic scientist, but I get to wondering about how did three guys tie themselves hand and foot, shove rags into their own throats, tie masks on, and then hang themselves? And while the theory that hard-core jyhadists might commit suicide in such a way as to make their captors look bad is, at least, not totally implausable, the Harper's article has several sources that directly suggest that no prisoners were found dead in their cells; rather, they died somewhere outside the regular prison, and were hustled to the medical center in a off-the-books, never-logged vehicle. That's the damning bit.

As always, it's not the crime, it's the cover-up. Specifically, the article's main source went to the Justice Department after the Bush presidency ended. Instead of making a clean breast of it and taking the easy opportunity of blaming their predecessors, the Obama people re-buried the investigation. That is why I titled this post "Shame, Shame". Shame once for what was done in our names. Shame a second time for neglecting the chance to, if not atone, at least punish the guilty.

Posted by: Boviate at 01:02 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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