The Great Unraveling, Cont.

The Council on Europe, the EU's human rights watchdog, has spoken. In its final report on CIA rendition, Dick Marty, the lead Swiss investigator, concluded the US has maintained secret prisons around the globe, including in Poland and Romania, where inmates were tortured by CIA staff using methods of interrogation drawn from our Nazi and Soviet enemies. The elegantly worded report-- jaw dropping in its detail-- begins:

1. What was previously just a set of allegations is now proven: large numbers
of people have been abducted from various locations across the world and
transferred to countries where they have been persecuted and where it is known
that torture is common practice. Others have been held in arbitrary detention,
without any precise charges levelled against them and without any judicial
oversight – denied the possibility of defending themselves. Still others have
simply disappeared for indefinite periods and have been held in secret prisons,
including in member states of the Council of Europe, the existence and operations
of which have been concealed ever since.

2. Some individuals were kept in secret detention centres for periods of
several years, where they were subjected to degrading treatment and so-called
“enhanced interrogation techniques” (essentially a euphemism for a kind of
torture), in the name of gathering information, however unsound, which the
United States claims has protected our common security. Elsewhere, others have
been transferred thousands of miles into prisons whose locations they may never
know, interrogated ceaselessly, physically and psychologically abused, before
being released because they were plainly not the people being sought. After the
suffering they went through, they were released without a word of apology or any
compensation – with one remarkable exception owing to the ethical and
responsible approach of the Canadian authorities – and also have to put up with
the opprobrium of doubts surrounding their innocence and, right here in Europe,
racist harassment fuelled by certain media outlets. These are the terrible
consequences of what in some quarters is called the “war on terror.”

The report describes torture within the secret prisons-- interrogation regimes engineered to elicit fear and total dependency:

253. In the process of being transferred into secret detention, all detainees are physically screened in order to assess their health and conditioning, identify any injuries or scars they may bear, and get a complete picture to compare them against once they are in detention. These screenings, for which the subject is stripped naked, used a body chart, similar to the inventory diagrams provided by rent-a-car companies upon leasing a vehicle, on which specific marks are noted. In every case, the subject is videotaped or at least photographed naked before transfer.

254. The air in many cells emanated from a ventilation hole in the ceiling, which was
often controlled to produce extremes of temperature: sometimes so hot one would
gasp for breath,sometimes freezing cold.

255. Many detainees described air conditioning for deliberate discomfort.

256. Detainees were exposed at times to over-heating in the cell; at other times drafts of freezing breeze.

257. Detainees never experienced natural light or natural darkness, although most
were blindfolded many times so they could see nothing.

258. Detainees speak hatefully about the surveillance cameras,
positioned so that in every inch of the cell they would be observed.

259. Detainees were also listened to by interrogators, over hidden microphones in the walls.

260. Notwithstanding the presence of video cameras inside the cells,
masked prison guards regularly looked in and knocked on the door of the cell,
demanding detainees to raise their hands to show that they are alive.

261. Breakfast was delivered in the morning, followed by lunch in the early afternoon. The morning food was typically two or three triangles of cheese with no foil, two slices of tomato, some boiled potatoes, bread and olives. The afternoon food was typically boiled white rice with sliced luncheon meat.

262. On some special occasions, including certain religious holidays, special foods including cooked meat with sauce, nuts and dates, fresh fruit and vegetables, or pieces of chocolate were delivered to the cells. There was even provision for treats like unwrapped candy bars and dessert cakes.

263. Special routines developed around the delivery of food. The light bulb, which was always on,would be briefly turned off; the food would be delivered; and then the light bulb would be turned back on again. There was a hatch in the door of the cell for delivery of food but it was completely unpredictable whether the guards would use the hatch, or open the doors and bring the food in.

264. Detainees had a bucket for a toilet, which was about a foot deep and ten inches in diameter.

265. At time the electricity supply went dead. The music stopped and the light went out. For a brief period one could heard different voices shouting, some more distant than others but all incoherent.

266. There was a shackling ring in the wall of the cell, about half a
metre up off the floor.Detainees’ hands and feet were clamped in handcuffs and
leg irons. Bodies were regularly forced into contorted shapes and chained to this
ring for long, painful periods.

267. Most persons in CIA custody attempted sooner or later to resist or protest their treatment and interrogation. Yet their efforts would largely be in vain. According to one source involved in CIA interrogation: “you know they are starting to crack when they come back at you; when they get really vocal or they try to challenge your authority. So you hold out… you push them over the edge”.

268. The sound most commonly heard in cells was a constant, low-level hum of white noise from loud speakers. Other recollections speak of an external humming noise, like aircraft, engines or a generator. The constant noise was punctuated by blasts of loud Western music – rock music, rap music and thumping beats, or distorted verses from the Koran, or irritating noises – thunder, planes taking off, cackling laughter, the screams of women and children.

269. Detainees were subjected to relentless noise and disturbance were deprived of the chance to sleep.

270. The torture music was turned on, or at least made much louder, as punishment for perceived infractions like raising one’s voice, calling out, or not waving quickly enough when guards demanded a response from you.

271. The gradual escalation of applied physical and psychological exertion, combined in some cases with more concentrated pressure periods for the purposes of interrogation, is said to have caused many of those held by the CIA to develop enduring psychiatric and mental problems.

Finally, the report also makes some very serious conclusions about the counter-productivness of using terror to fight terror:

14. We are fully aware of the seriousness of the terrorist threat and the
danger it poses to our societies. However, we believe that the end does not
justify the means in this area either. The fight against terrorism must not
serve as an excuse for systematic recourse to illegal acts, massive violation of
fundamental human rights and contempt for the rule of law. I hold this view not
only because methods of this nature conflict with the constitutional order of
all civilised countries and are ethically unacceptable, but also because they
are not effective from the perspective of a genuine long-term response to
terrorism.

15. We have said it before and others have said it much more forcefully,
but we must repeat it here: having recourse to abuse and illegal acts actually
amounts to a resounding failure of our system and plays right into the hands of
the criminals who seek to destroy our societies through terror. Moreover, in the
process, we give these criminals a degree of legitimacy – that of fighting an
unfair system – and also generate sympathy for their cause, which cannot but
serve as an encouragement to them and their supporters.