Peter Hilger's "The War You Don't See" (Video)

This remarkable documentary by John Pilger opens with video of an unreported U.S. helicopter gunship attack on unarmed Iraqi captives, and continues with other still and video photography of images from the U.S. wars (and past wars) that you don't see on American news networks or newspapers, and certainly not in U.S. history books. I highly recommend this extraordinary work by one of the finest journalists at work in the world today.

From the YouTube introduction:

From the award-winning director of The War on Democracy comes John Pilger's latest work, The War You Don't See. This hard-hitting exposé and scrutinizes the effects of the media during wartime, asking what is the role of the media in rapacious wars.

When symbols are separated from facts and the facts don't matter, could the media be accused of conspiring to play down the carnage and of using 'embedded journalism' to amplify the lies? This documentary unveils the war you don't see and allows you to make up your own mind.

Winter Moon

Hoagey Carmichael's "Winter Moon", Art Pepper, sax

Bradley Manning and the Torture That Is Solitary Confinement

Solitary confinement will slowly wear down the mental and physical condition of Bradley Manning, held in 23-hour isolation in the brig at Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Quantico, Virginia, the same facility that held John Hinckley, Jr. That is my assessment after talking to David House last weekend. House is the only person, besides Manning’s attorney, David Coombs, who sees the prisoner regularly since he was locked up at the Quanitco brig in what the Department of Defense calls “maximum custody” conditions.

Manning was arrested last May for his alleged role in downloading videos and documentary files for transfer to the muckraking Internet site, Wikileaks. The “maximum custody” conditions include a Prevention of Injury (POI) order which, according to House, “limits his social contact, news consumption, ability to exercise, and places restrictions on his ability to sleep.” As Glenn Greenwald noted last week, the brig regimen is essentially that of a Supermax prison. They are also similar to the “Special Administrative Measures” or SAMs imposed on Syed Fahad Hashmi by the Bush administration, and renewed by Attorney General Holder under President Obama, which kept Hashmi in 23-hour lockdown and isolation before trial for three years.

Indeed, the conditions of solitary confinement are so onerous it led the International Committee of the Red Cross in a 2004 report to state, in regards to the CIA’s detention of so-called high-value detainees, that “strict solitary confinement in cells devoid of sunlight for nearly 23 hours a day constituted a serious violation of the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions.” While Bradley Manning is not being held as an “enemy combatant,” the conditions under which he is being held are redolent of the torture inflicted upon U.S. “war on terror” detainees, or suffered under the terms of the military’s Army Field Manual Appendix M, where such detainees are held in conditions of isolation, including significant limitations on sleep and certain forms of overt sensory deprivation.

The deleterious effects of solitary confinement have been copiously documented. A literature review on the subject, and an excellent discussion of the effects of isolation can be found in a 2003 article by psychology expert Craig Haney.

Solitary confinement is an assault on the body and psyche of an individual. It deprives him of species-specific forms of physical, sensory and social interaction with the environment and other human beings. Manning reported last weekend he had not seen sunlight in four weeks, nor does he interact with other people but a few hours on the weekend. The human nervous system needs a certain amount of sensory and social stimulation to retain normal brain functioning. The effects of this deprivation on individuals varies, and some people are affected more severely or quickly, while others hold out longer against the boredom and daily grind of dullness that never seems to end.

Over time, isolation produces a particular well-known syndrome which is akin to that of an organic brain disorder, or delirium. The list of possible effects upon a person is quite long, and can include an inability to tolerate ordinary stimuli, sleep and appetite disturbances, primitive forms of thinking and aggressive ruminations, perceptual distortions and hallucinations, agitation, panic attacks, claustrophobia, feelings of loss of control, rage, paranoia, memory loss, lack of concentration, generalized body pain, EEG abnormalities, depression, suicidal ideation and random, self-destructive behavior.

In fact, while the Defense Department claims that “maximum custody” and POI are meant to protect Bradley Manning from harm, or mitigate possible agitated or aggressive behavior by the prisoner, the very conditions they have placed him under are known to break down individuals and bring about the very kinds of aggressive behavior the POI orders are supposed to prevent. Indeed, it appears the government wants to impress upon Manning its immense power, and induce in the prisoner a feelings of utter futility and helpless dependence.

A number of courts have found solitary confinement to be unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. According to a report by Physicians for Human Rights (PDF, bold emphasis added):

The United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas… found solitary confinement to be a violation of the Eighth Amendment and even called it tantamount to torture. In a case concerning the prison system in Texas, the court found that inmates in administrative segregation “suffer actual psychological harm from their almost total deprivation of human contact, mental stimulus, personal property and human dignity…. The wounds and resulting scars, while less tangible, are no less painful and permanent when they are inflicted on the human psyche.” (Ruiz v. Johnson. 37 F. Supp. 2d 855, 913. S.D. Tex. 1999)

What are the effects of isolation on Bradley Manning?

Having experience with assessing the response of individuals held in abusive conditions, or even torture, in my capacity of having conducted forensic psychological evaluations for ten years on asylum applicants, and having spoken to David House, I have been considering Manning’s situation and the effects upon his likely mental and emotional status. While an accurate assessment of a person would mean direct access to them, and the application of psychometrically valid psychological instruments, experience allows me to make some general statements.

From what can be ascertained, the effects of solitary confinement are having some effects already on Bradley Manning. His concentration and thinking processes appear somewhat slowed. He avoids certain topics. He has little access to humor. His color is pale, and his musculature is starting to look soft and flabby. It is unknown what stress Manning had prior to his arrest, but if one can believe the published logs between Manning and Adrian Lamo, he suffered from some amounts of stress in the military.

From a number of accounts, Manning appears to be trying to adapt as well as he can. Those people do best in isolation who are able to draw upon deep reservoirs of inner meaning and commitment, and Bradley Manning seems to be that kind of individual. But no human being is impervious to the degradations of isolation.

Manning is not suicidal, though it appears he has trouble sleeping due to various mild to moderate impediments (no pillow, uncomfortable “suicide” blanket, low-level light in the room during sleep hours, being woken up if he sleeps in certain positions that impede the guard’s observation). This is not traditional sleep deprivation, but seems meant to make him uncomfortable and keep him from getting a restful sleep. However, he has asked for and received sleep medications. He has not been forced, either, to take any medication against his will. He has not been subjected to overt sensory deprivation techniques, although isolation itself is a form of sensory and social deprivation.

The brig officials do not appear to be practicing environmental manipulations of temperature, or diet, though Manning felt the cell was a little too cold at times when he first arrived. He may have suffered more traumatic conditions of confinement or abuse while held in Kuwait. I don’t have enough information to determine that, except Manning appears reluctant to talk about it much.

Even if Bradley Manning is not being held in conditions as horrific as those CIA black site prisoners suffered in the early days of the Bush administration, his situation, like those of thousands of Supermax prisoners in the United States, are onerous and destructive enough. We must ask that the unnecessary POI orders be lifted, and Manning allowed social time with other prisoners, according to normal prison rules and safeguards. He should have full access to mail and the ability to write to others, and to exercise unrestricted by shackles and chains. He should be allowed normal bedding, and greater rights of privacy.

Isolation is a technique well-known to break down individuals. Why does the U.S. government wish to break down Bradley Manning? Is it to get him to confess, to force a plea bargain, to implicate Julian Assange or other people, or to make an example of him to those who would choose a higher good over the machinations of the U.S. government in a senseless and criminal war?

Manning’s case should also be a wake-up call to Americans as regards the on-going practice of soul-crushing solitary confinement in America’s prisons. It is unlikely that the government could get away with the kinds of cruel and unusual punishment meted out to prisoners like Manning or Hashmi or Jose Padilla, or to the “war on terror” detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere, if isolation hadn’t been allowed to flourish in the prisons of this country, despite the occasional judicial rebuff.

Such treatment has also gained traction through the policies of the current administration which has turned a blind eye to prisoner maltreatment and even torture by agencies of the U.S. government, policies and actions which organizations like Wikileaks have tried to expose. And so the circle comes round and we have the case of a man who tried to expose such policies, whistleblower Bradley Manning, a man held in chains and what the English poet Lord Bryon called “the damp vault’s dayless gloom.” It is our obligation to demand humane treatment for him, and by extension, all prisoners held in U.S. custody.

Story first posted at Firedoglake/FDL

See also:
. Petition to the Commanding Officer of Bradley Manning’s brig urging that his harsh conditions be lifted
. Bradley Manning/Wikileaks Timeline
. Michael Whitney on GritTV with Laura Flanders on Bradley Manning’s detention

Ex-Gitmo Official Told Not to Discuss Policy on Antimalarial Drug Used on Detainees

by Jason Leopold and Jeffrey Kaye, reposted from Truthout

Military officials were instructed not to publicly discuss a decision made in January 2002 to presumptively treat all Guantanamo detainees with a high dosage of a controversial antimalarial drug that has been directly linked to suicide, hallucinations, seizures and other severe neuropsychological side effects, according to a retired Navy captain who signed the policy directive.

Capt. Albert J. Shimkus, the former commanding officer and chief surgeon for both of the Naval Hospital at Guantanamo Bay and Joint Task Force 160, which administered health care to detainees, defended the unprecedented practice, first reported by Truthout earlier this month, to administer 1250 mg of the drug mefloquine to all "war on terror" detainees transferred to the prison facility within the first 24 hours after their arrival, regardless of whether they had malaria or not.

The 1250 mg dosage is what is used to treat individuals who have malaria and is five times higher than the prophylactic dose given to individuals to prevent the disease. One tropical disease expert has said there is absolutely no "medical justification" to support the military's decision to presumptively treat all Guantanamo detainees for malaria with high doses of mefloquine.

Mefloquine is also known by its brand name Lariam. It was researched by the US Army in the 1970s during the Vietnam War and licensed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1989. Since its introduction, it has been directly linked to serious adverse effects, including depression, anxiety, panic attacks, confusion, bizarre dreams, nausea, vomiting, sores, hallucinations and homicidal and suicidal thoughts.

Although there were two media reports in 2002 that quoted Shimkus saying "war on terror" detainees were given antimalarial medication, neither he nor any other military or Pentagon official ever disclosed to lawmakers or military personnel who raised questions about the efficacy of mefloquine, that mass presumptive treatment was the policy in place at Guantanamo.

"There were certain issues we were advised not to talk about," Shimkus told Truthout in an interview, explaining the reason the policy was never publicly disclosed. He could not recall who told him not to discuss the issue.

Shimkus, who is now an associate professor of national security studies at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, said officials from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Navy Environmental Health Center (NEHC) and the Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center at Fort Detrick, Maryland, which is part of the Defense Intelligence Agency, were all involved in the discussions that resulted in the issuance of a January 23, 2002, "Infection Control" Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) that called for the mass presumptive treatment of malaria using mefloquine.

[Added 11/12/2016: Standard Operating Procedure Number 37 (In-processing Medical Evaluation) for the same hospital spells out this therapy in more detail: upon arrival to Camp Delta, all detainees must undergo "empiric treatment" for malaria, where this treatment involves the administration of 1250 mg of mefloquine split in two doses: 750 mg at in-processing time, and 500 mg twelve hours later (see also Standard Operating Procedure Number 29 (Nursing)). - See "The Administration of Drugs with Psychotic Side Effects" at Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas.]

Detainees started arriving at Guantanamo two weeks earlier and were held in a detention center known as Camp X-Ray.

The "Infection Control" SOP, which was signed by Shimkus and has not been previously released, says, "detainees are native to a region plagued by a number of infectious diseases. It is estimated that a number of these detainees will carry one or more of these illnesses upon arrival... Empiric therapies will include... mefloquine 1250 mg."

Medical literature usually describes "empiric therapy," or presumptive treatment for malaria, as the administration or self-administration of antimalarial drugs for symptomatic individuals, or occasionally groups of at-risk patients, who do not have access to laboratories or medical facilities and in whom malaria cannot be formally diagnosed.

At Guantanamo, however, all detainees, whether they had symptoms or not, were given laboratory tests to determine if they had malaria, and doctors were accessible "24/7" in the event symptoms started to surface, Shimkus said, calling into question the rationale for mass presumptive treatment.

Shimkus said the NEHC bore the primary responsibility for recommending that mefloquine be administered to all detainees in treatment doses, but there was consensus among the various government agencies about using the drug in this way.

"There was no one that said, 'Captain, this is not the way to go,'" Shimkus said. "I did not do anything in isolation. Any policy would have been approved by a higher authority" up the medical chain of command.

Shimkus could not recall the names of the officials from the various government agencies who agreed with and signed off on the policy. Nor could he identify his immediate medical supervisor, a colonel at United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), which is responsible for contingency planning and operations in Cuba, who Shimkus said would have also been involved in the decision.

Cuban Government Concerns

Shimkus said one of the reasons that factored into the decision to presumptively treat war on terror detainees with mefloquine was concerns raised by the Cuban government.

In an interview with Miami Herald reporter Carol Rosenberg in February 2002, Shimkus said he and other medical officers stationed at Guantanamo met with Cuban doctors and government officials on February 8, 2002, to "reassure the government that suspected terrorist prisoners are not introducing malaria into" Cuba, "which has been free of the mosquito-borne disease for 50 years."

Rosenberg reported on February 22, 2002, that steps taken to prevent the spread of malaria at Guantanamo included "impregnating the uniforms of both prisoners and troops who handle prisoners with mefloquin [sic] and other agents to kill the parasite ... " The Herald's February 22, 2002, report was the first and only time mefloquine use at Guantanamo has ever been mentioned. But Rosenberg's report did not state that Shimkus had already signed a policy directive authorizing mass presumptive treatment.

Shimkus told Truthout he could not recall specific details of his discussions with the Cubans. He did not respond to follow-up questions about Rosenberg's characterization regarding the use of mefloquine.

Just three days prior to the publication of the Herald's report, Navy Capt. Alan "Jeff" Yund appeared before the Armed Forced Epidemiological Board (AFEB) and was queried about malaria at Guantanamo.

But Yund, the Navy's liaison officer to AFEB, did not disclose that mefloquine was being administered to detainees. He said he believed detainees who were infected with the disease would be treated on a case-by-case basis with a different antimalarial drug known as primaquine, and that other steps would be taken to protect against mosquitoes.

Yund told Truthout via email that he did not refer to mefloquine during the AFEB briefing because, "I do not recall being involved in any consultations regarding the use of mefloquine at Guantanamo and do not recall being aware that it was being used there."

Yund declined to comment further.

Shimkus could not say why Yund was unaware that mefloquine was being used as a form of mass presumptive treatment at Guantanamo.

The use of mefloquine at Guantanamo was not mentioned during numerous other AFEB briefings, particularly one held in May 2003, where concerns were raised by members of the board about the drug's severe neuropsychiatric side effects, which US military personnel who had taken mefloquine in 250 mg prophylactic doses had been complaining about.

Red Flags Raised

Shimkus said he was aware of the alternatives and noted that at one point the antibiotic drug doxycycline and Malarone were under consideration, but the latter had only been approved by the Department of Defense in 2000 and had not been in widespread use yet. Mefloquine, Shimkus said, was considered efficient and effective.

But at an April 16, 2002, meeting of the Interagency Working Group for Antimalarial Chemotherapy, which included Defense Department representatives, participants concluded that study designs on mefloquine were flawed or biased and based on "sensational or [at] best marketed information."

The Working Group, which included representatives from the State Department, the CDC and FDA, stated, "Sufficient evidence exists to raise the question whether the neuropsychiatric adverse events of mefloquine are frequent enough and severe enough to warrant limiting its use..." The group called for additional research, and warned, "Other treatment regimes should be carefully considered before mefloquine is used at the doses required for treatment."

Additionally, in October 2002, William Winkenwerder, the assistant secretary for defense, admitted that "recent press articles and scientific studies have raised concerns regarding the adverse effects associated with mefloquine use."

Winkenwerder's admission was made in a letter written in response to questions raised by John McHugh, then chair of the subcommittee on military affairs for the House Armed Services Committee. The letter said, "recent peer-review reports" showing adverse events levels associated with mefloquine are "much higher than previously reported." Winkenwerder told McHugh, now secretary of the Army, that the CDC had initiated a review in 2001, which was then still underway, of all chemoprophylactic drugs, including mefloquine.

Shimkus said he did not believe Winkenwerder was part of the consulting team who signed off on administering treatment doses of mefloquine to detainees. But Shimkus said the policy was "well-known in the [military] medical community." Winkenwerder did not respond to calls for comment.< The use of mefloquine as a mass presumptive treatment at Guantanamo continued until at least July 2005, despite the presence of ongoing warnings. In June 2004, the CDC issued a new set of guidelines on malaria treatment, which warned that mefloquine "is associated with a higher rate of severe neuropsychiatric reactions when used at treatment doses," and recommended that mefloquine be used "only when ... [other] options cannot be used."

As far back as 1990, the CDC warned in a set of recommendations for malaria prevention for travelers that mefloquine should not be used for presumptive self-treatment "because of the frequency of side effects, especially dizziness, which has been associated with therapeutic dosages of mefloquine."

"This was a one time treatment only [for detainees]," Shimkus said. "My focus on mefloquine was specifically for preventing malaria from occurring."

However, other Guantanamo documents obtained by Truthout say that on February 28, 2002, 59 detainees allegedly refused to take medication, including antimalarial drugs, and noted that the "series must start over." It is unclear whether this included readministration of mefloquine, or whether the "series" described included further antimalarial doses of primaquine or cholorquine, also administered to the detainees.

Maj. Remington Nevin, an Army public health physician, who formerly worked at the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center and has written extensively about mefloquine, previously told Truthout the decision to administer high doses of the drug, even as a one-time treatment "is, at best, an egregious malpractice."

Nevin added, "many dozens of detainees, possibly hundreds" likely experienced side effects "as severe as those intended through the application of 'enhanced interrogation techniques.'"

Truthout was unable to locate a single malaria expert who was willing to go on the record to defend the government's policy of mass presumptive treatment of the disease using mefloquine or any other antimalarial drug.

Shimkus told Truthout that, "clinically," he could not recall if any detainees experienced any side effects associated with taking mefloquine, but if they did, that data would have been noted in their medical records.

"We have robust medical records," Shimkus said. "If anything occurred that was a cause for concern it would have been documented in their medical records."

But the government has refused to release Guantanamo detainees' medical records to the media or to their attorneys citing, among other reasons, privacy concerns.

As first documented in a separate report on mefloquine use at Guantanamo published earlier this month by Seton Hall University School of Law's Center for Policy and Research, medical files for detainee 693 released by the Defense Department in connection with his alleged suicide at the prison facility in June 2006, contradict Shimkus's assertions. Those records show that two weeks after the detainee was given mefloquine in June 2002, he was interviewed by Guantanamo medical personnel and reported that he was suffering from nightmares, hallucinations, anxiety, auditory and visual hallucinations, sleep loss and suicidal thoughts.

A Guantanamo medical officer who interviewed the detainee, however, did not state that the detainee may have been experiencing mefloquine-related side effects in notes he took evaluating the detainee's condition.

Shimkus dismissed the significance of the medical officer's failure to connect the detainee's psychological state to the possible side effects resulting from mefloquine, stating that the medical officer may have been unaware "the patient had taken [the drug], because there was a lot of turnover of staff at that point."

Scott Allen and Vince Iacopino, medical doctors affiliated with Physicians for Human Rights, a doctors' organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said, "the questionable use of mefloquine for malaria prevention at Guantanamo underscore the need for transparency of detention policies and procedures" at the prison facility.

"Benefits Outweighed Risks"

Shimkus, who is a nurse by training, acknowledged that the mass presumptive treatment of malaria using mefloquin was unprecedented. However, he said the "benefits outweighed the risks."

When asked, Shimkus did not indicate that contraindications for the use of mefloquine, such as pre-existing cases of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, seizures. or other mental illness, which would have heightened mefloquine's side effects, were ever pursued for the individual detainees. He simply reiterated that the benefits of administering treatment doses of mefloquine outweighed the risks.

Yet, when told that the Defense Department took a radically different approach a decade earlier, when thousands of Haitian refugees housed at Guantanamo were first tested to determine if they had malaria and, only then, were given a treatment dosage of a different medication, chloroquine, if they had the disease, Shimkus said war on terror detainees "were a different cohort of individuals."

"You have to remember that this was in the context of February 2002," Shimkus said. "The detainees came from Afghanistan and other areas that may have been chloroquine resistant."

Moreover, in two articles published in 2002, Shimkus claimed statistics showed that 40 percent of Afghanistan's population was infected with malaria. But according to figures from the World Health Organization, in 2002, the number infected in Afghanistan was about 13 percent.

Shimkus also indicated that malaria cases at Guantanamo could have led to a public health crisis at the base, and reintroduction of malaria into Cuba. Once an outbreak begins, Shimkus told Truthout, one "loses control" of the situation and there is an epidemic.

However, when the CDC examined the influx of tens of thousands of refugees to the United States from hyper-epidemic sub-Saharan Africa, where the falciparum form of malaria kills more than a million people yearly, they concluded that "sustained malaria transmission" in a nonmalarial endemic country, like the US, from this population "would be unlikely."

Still, the CDC called for mass presumptive treatment (with a drug other than mefloquine) of these refugees before they came to the US - mainly because they feared many US doctors wouldn't recognize malaria symptoms - but noted that such mass presumptive treatment from other parts of the world, including Afghanistan, was not recommended, because "the risk and cost of post-arrival presumptive treatment currently outweighs the potential benefits."

Of the more than 700 detainees held at Guantanamo, only four tested positive for malaria, all in January and February 2002.

But Shimkus still defended the mass administration of mefloquine, saying, "One [infection] is too many." Shimkus said he believes he and other military officials "made the right policy decisions based on the information we had to prevent the introduction of malaria" in Cuba and protect the health of the detainees.

Shimkus said after he retired from the military he became involved with the Open Society Institute, funded by the Soros Foundation, and has since taken a role in the work the organization has done to raise awareness about abusive interrogation measures contained in the Army Field Manual.

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

Obama Seizes Power from the Courts

That may sound sensationalistic to some, but what else could a proposal for the Executive Branch to set up its own determinations regarding the indefinite detention of prisoners mean? No habeas appeal will release a prisoner, if the President says so. No charges brought. Hope of liberty will rest in a kangaroo "parole board" assembled by the President. If this is not the epitome of tyranny, I don't know what is.

See some great coverage here:

White House Drafts Executive Order For Indefinite Detention by Dafna Linzer

Guantánamo Prisoners Sacrificed In Political Horse-Trading Over “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
by Andy Worthington

Obama’s EO on Indefinite Detention: Wanting Bud McKeon’s Cake and Eating It Too
by Marcy Wheeler

The Obama Administration's Indefinite Detention Policy: The Return Of The President As King? by Big Tent Democrat

From the latter, who was willing to consider, grant you, some kind of system of indefinite detention, if it had checks and balances:

The key to my analysis was the President's statement that:

If and when we determine that the United States must hold individuals to keep them from carrying out an act of war, we will do so within a system that involves judicial and congressional oversight[.]

The reported proposed executive order on indefinite detention violates this condition. Instead, it reverts to the Bush system that President Obama criticized by saying "we must recognize that these detention policies cannot be unbounded. They can't be based simply on what I or the executive branch decide alone." Now the Obama Administration appears to be proposing an indeifinte detention system that indeed is based "simply on what [he] or the executive branch decide alone."

Such a system is in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Constitution. It would be a travesty, and likely, a war crime.

Surveillance State Über Alles

Glenn Greenwald spins a marvelous and important article off the latest installment of the Washington Post's "Top Secret America" series. In "Monitoring America," Dana Priest and William M. Arken describe "an alternative geography of the United States, one that has grown so large, unwieldy and secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs or how many programs exist within it."

The Post also supplies a nice database for your state where you can search for "a detailed profile of counterterrorism efforts in your community."

Greenwald describes how "the Post reporters document how surveillance and enforcement methods pioneered in America's foreign wars and occupations are being rapidly imported into domestic surveillance (wireless fingerprint scanners, military-grade infrared cameras, biometric face scanners, drones on the border)."

What we are observing and the Post article documents, is the process whereby the counterterror state sucks up all dissent into its greedy maw, having developed a full-scale sub-world that threatens to rise up and swallow the entire country in its tyrannical grasp. The example du jour: the U.S. campaign against Wikileaks.

It's crystal clear that the Justice Department is engaged in an all-out crusade to figure out how to shut down WikiLeaks and imprison Julian Assange.  It is subjecting Bradley Manning to unbelievably inhumane conditions in order to manipulate him into providing needed testimony to prosecute Assange.  Recall that in 2008 -- long before anyone even knew what WikiLeaks was -- the Pentagon secretly plotted on how to destroy the organization.  On Meet the Press yesterday, Joe Biden was asked whether he agreed more with Mitch McConnell's statement that Assange is a "high-tech terrorist" than with those comparing WikiLeaks to Daniel Ellsberg, and the Vice President replied:  "I would argue that it's closer to being a high tech terrorist. . . ."  "A high-tech terrorist."  And consider this pernicious little essay from Eric Fiterman -- a former FBI special agent and founder of Methodvue, "a consultancy that provides cybersecurity and computer forensics services to the federal government and private businesses" -- that clearly reflects the Government's view of WikiLeaks:

In the WikiLeaks case, a fringe group led primarily by foreign nationals operating abroad is illegally obtaining, reviewing and disseminating American intelligence information with the stated intent of hurting the United States (WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange himself made this declaration). That not only meets the definition of aggressive, hostile and war-like activity, but squarely targets America's diplomatic positions and intelligence interests while inflicting collateral damage against our financial institutions and service providers who cut-off their relationship with WikiLeaks. This, folks, is war.

That's the mindset of the U.S. Government:  everything it does of any significance can and should be shielded from public view; anyone who shines light on what it does is an Enemy who must be destroyed; but nothing you do should be beyond its monitoring and storing eyes.  And what's most remarkable about this -- though, given the full-scale bipartisan consensus over it, not surprising -- is how eagerly submissive much of the citizenry is to this imbalance.  Many Americans plead with their Government in unison:  we demand that you know everything about us but that you keep us ignorant about what you do and punish those who reveal it to us.  Often, this kind of oppressive Surveillance State has to be forcibly imposed on a resistant citizenry, but much of the frightened American citizenry -- led by most transparency-hating media figures -- has been trained with an endless stream of fear-mongering to demand that they be subjected to more and more of it.

This is an awful time in American history, possibly even more dire than in the dark first years of the Bush, Jr. administration. Back then, after an initial post-9/11 stumble, progressives managed to speak out against the worst of what the government was doing, and the beginnings of an opposition were formed. Now, under a Democratic administration, it is being dissembled. Not actually (not yet) because of government repression (at least not directly), but out of political obeisance to the Democratic Party, and maintenance of the status quo.

How long will the virtuous stomach collaborating with those who promote or tolerate war, torture, financial robbery of the commons, and racist attacks on defenseless minorities and immigrants?

The U.S. desperately needs a new political party to challenge the entrenched interests and the power elite. Only a party based on the social power of the mass of working people could stand a chance with that. But that would be socialism, real socialism in action. And that kind of politics is taboo in America. But it's likely not to remain that way. Because at a certain point, it will be the only chance the people will have.

Unreported Detainee Deaths at Guantanamo in Jan-Feb 2002?

Originally posted at Firedoglake/MyFDL

According to the transcript (PDF) of a February 19, 2002 meeting of the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board (AFEB), "[a] number of the detainees have died of the wounds that they arrived with" at Guantanamo. This statement came from Captain Alan "Jeff" Yund, a preventive medicine doctor and the Navy's liaison officer to the AFEB, as he discussed "mortuary affairs" at Guantanamo, part of a larger discussion on health issues at the new prison facility. [Update: See here for a transcript of the AFEB meeting, as the older link apparently is dead.]

During the meeting, Captain Yund identified himself as working directly with Admiral Steven Hart, the Director of Navy Medicine Research and Development, as well as "a number of other admirals."

Yund's full quote is as follows, on pg. 108 of the transcript (bold added):

Mortuary affairs is an important but hopefully small aspect of the activities of the [Guantanamo] hospital. A number of the detainees have died of the wounds that they arrived with. So there's attention being paid to doing the things with the body that would be appropriate for their culture.

In a December 7 email interview with Captain Yund, who is now retired, Yund stated he does "not recall that I was ever very directly involved in detainee health issues" at Guantanamo. Accordingly, he said the following in regards to his statement about detainee deaths:

"I did not make that statement from personal or direct knowledge. It may have come from CAPT Shimkus’ presentation, or possibly from conversations or meetings with other Navy Preventive Medicine personnel colleagues. It is not the type of statement I would have made without having learned it from a source I considered reliable."

The reference to "CAPT Shimkus" is to Captain Albert J. Shimkus, commanding officer of the U.S. Naval Hospital at Guantanamo at the time, and JTF 160 chief surgeon. Captain Lund explained that he remembered hearing a "a detailed and fascinating account" of "events and issues" at Guantanamo, though he couldn't remember the date or place. This is the "presentation" to which Captain Yund refers in his explanation above.

In a telephone interview on December 13 with Captain Shimkus, who now is an Associate Professor in National Security Decision Making at the U.S. Naval War College, Shimkus expressed shock over the claims there were any deaths at Guantanamo while he was there. (Captain Shimkus left Guantanamo in August 2003.) He said that "no deaths occurred" while he was there, but that he did speak at the time of the task force preparing for possible deaths. He could not offer any explanation for what Captain Yund reported.

In the AFEB transcript itself, there is no surprise or other comment or correction made on on Yund's announcement concerning detainee deaths. The meeting was also attended by other military medical staff, civilian medical advisers, and upper-levels of the DoD bureaucracy, including Admiral Hart, and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Health Protection and Readiness, Dr. William Winkenwerder, and his deputy, Ellen Embrey. The meeting, held at the Island Club, North Island Naval Air Station, San Diego, was chaired by Dr. Steven Ostroff from the Centers for Disease Control.

By all accounts, in the initial days of prisoner transfer to Guantanamo, a number of detainees arrived with serious battle wounds. Notes from a doctor working at the facility, dated February 22, 2002, which I reviewed, discuss the previous day's cardio-thoracic and neurosurgeries. A thoracotomy (excision of a portion of a lung) was said to have been performed on detainee "205." The same day's notes also describe an incident in which a detainee was handcuffed via a broken arm.

In response to my initial inquiry on 2002 detainee deaths at Guantanamo, Major Bradsher replied fully as follows:

The first detainee death at Guantanamo Bay was in June 2006. The [June 16] press
release is below:
http://www.defense.gov/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=9656

The press release refers to the "three detainees who died of apparent suicides on June 10, 2006," and is a summary of the disposition of the remains.

After receiving this first communication from DoD's press operations office, I asked for further clarification, and in particular "as to why a Captain at an Armed Forces Epidemiological Board meeting in Feb. 2002 would refer to earlier deaths at Guantanamo, ostensibly from battlefield wounds."

Major Bradsher responded, "I can't speak for Captain Yund. As I have stated before, the first detainee fatality in Guantanamo was in June 2006."

At this point, what we have is a mystery. There are no other reports regarding early battlefield deaths among the prisoners rendered to Guantanamo. We know that some of them arrived on litters, and needed immediate medical attention. We know that officials there even expected some deaths. But DoD maintains that no deaths prior to June 2006 occurred, and the principal reporter to the AFEB meeting on this subject, Captain Yund, does not remember the statement, though he notes "it is not the type of statement I would have made without having learned it from a source I considered reliable."

Dr. Steven Miles, author of Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity, and the War on Terror, shared his reaction to news of the possible deaths reported here:

This is an enormously important event. I have tried, without success to have the DoD or the media, clarify the huge inconsistencies in prisoner death reporting to no avail. My article on this remains unpublished by the medical media and by Slate etc.

The uncertainty over what really occurred in the early days at Guantanamo was accentuated by recent revelations by Truthout.org and Seton Hall University of Law's Center for Policy and Research on the mass administration of the drug mefloquine to detainees who arrived at Guantanamo. Ostensibly described as an antimalarial measure, there are numerous reasons to question its use, not least because of its well-known high rates of neuro-psychiatric side effects, and also because such mass empiric treatment of mefloquine has never occurred and experts found such use potentially harmful and without medical justification.

Truthout has promised further investigation into the mefloquine scandal, including interviews with some of the principles involved, in a report to be published in the coming week.

There is a tremendous need for Congressional and/or independent investigations that have full mandate and subpoena power to ferret out the truth about what has occurred at Guantanamo and other U.S. "war on terror" prisons. The biggest obstacle to this, besides the Pentagon and the GOP, is the Democratic Party leadership itself, which refuses to undertake or fund such investigations, and whose leader in the White House, President Barack Obama, opposes -- against treaty obligations described in Article 12 of the Convention Against Torture -- such investigations.

AP: CIA Gave $5 Million to Mitchell-Jessen Defense

Originally posted at Firedoglake/FDL

Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo at Associated Press report this morning on the CIA's largesse in helping fund the legal defense for their former SERE psychologists contractors-cum-torturers, Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell. This shouldn't come as much of a surprise, but reading about it turns one's stomach.

The secret agreement means taxpayers are paying to defend the men in a federal investigation over an interrogation tactic the U.S. now says is torture. The deal is even more generous than the protections the agency typically provides its own officers, giving the two men access to more money to finance their defense.

The two psychologists were the proprietors of Mitchell-Jessen and Associates, who sold their expertise in waterboarding and other psychological and physical forms of torture, formerly applied in teaching U.S. military personnel how to withstand torture, for the torture of Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abd al-Nashiri, and possibly others. The article describes how the contractors anxiously importuned their superiors to destroy the videotapes of their torture. After the CIA complied, and the Justice Department launched a criminal investigation with the accompanying scandal, the kabuki over the atrocities played out, paid for entirely from scarce taxpayer dollars, ending with a decision by feckless special prosecutor John Durham, not to prosecute anyone, whether for torture, destruction of evidence, obstruction of justice, or anything.

The U.S. has long passed the Rubicon now, wherein it has become an official torture state. Its official military manuals of interrogation prescribe isolation (of the type people are noticing is being inflicted on Bradley Manning), sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, use of drugs, and other kinds of torture. The current President and the past either endorse torture, or consciously advocate turning a blind eye to it. Meanwhile, America's official torture center remains open for business, and Congress isn't even interested in shutting it down, blocking funds for either that or any transfer of prisoners to the United States.

What are we going to do now? The power elite's media machine drones on about espionage against journalists, and news providers, like Wikipedia's Julian Assange, while politicians of all stripes snap to attention.

It's time for something new in this stale, corrupt, monstrous political world we live in.

The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Protest over Assange at Wandsworth, Attacks on Wikileaks, as New Revelations Emerge

Journalist John Pilger has written a letter to the UK Guardian, signed by a number of others as well, protesting the arrest, incarceration and international campaign of suppression against Julian Assange and Wikileaks. This comes as Mr. Assange remains imprisoned at London's Wandsworth prison, held without bail under dubious sexual assault charges from Sweden.

Meanwhile, new leaks from the State Department cache of cables continue to be released and analyzed. Most amazing recently: how Shell Oil has "inserted staff into all the main ministries of the Nigerian government, giving it access to politicians' every move in the oil-rich Niger Delta." This is an incredible example of how modern imperialism operates. On the other hand, information from the cables have to be analyzed carefully. Andy Worthingon is looking at how the cables reflect upon the case Aafia Siddiqui, and explains that diplomatic communications are not always as straight-forward as one would think.

As comic-terror relief from all this, we have U.S. politicians, like Dianne Feinstein, calling for Assange to be charged with violations of the Espionage Act, a crazy law born out of fear of Reds and Anarchists right after the Russian Revolution (and with the U.S. entering the senseless slaughter of World War I). Unfortunately, Feinstein and others aren't joking. This kind of demagoguery is a serious attack on press freedoms, endangering us all. We are living in very dangerous times.

Kevin Zeese of Voters for Peace writes:

As attorney and writer Scott Horton wrote in “WikiLeaks: The National-Security State Strikes Back,” a highly classified Army Counterintelligence Center 32-page memorandum said that the threat presented by WikiLeaks can only be eliminated by striking WikiLeaks not only in cyber attacks, but against the individuals, particularly Julian Assange, who were critical to the operation of WikiLeaks.

A prosecution of Assange, if the U.S. terror war courts allow the case to come to trial, could be the John Peter Zenger case of the digital age. It will define government transparency and free speech for the initial decades of the 21st Century and therefore is of great import to all Americans and, in particular, to the media.

Mr. Pilger's letter:

We protest at the attacks on Wikileaks and, in particular, on Julian Assange (Report, 9 December) The leaks have assisted democracy in revealing the real views of our governments over a range of issues which have been kept secret and are now irreversibly in the public domain. All we knew about the mass killing, torture and corruption in Iraq and Afghanistan has been confirmed. The world's leaders can no longer hide the truth by simply lying to the public. The lies have been exposed. The actions of major corporations such as Amazon, the Swiss banks and the credit card companies in hindering Wikileaks, are shameful, bowing to US government pressure. The US government and its allies, and their friends in the media, have built up a campaign against Assange which now sees him in prison facing extradition on dubious charges, with the presumed eventual aim of ensuring his extradition to the US. We demand his immediate release, the dropping of all charges, and an end to the censorship of Wikileaks.

John Pilger, Lindsey German Stop the War Coalition, Salma Yaqoob, Craig Murray, Alexei Sayle, Mark Thomas, Caryl Churchill, AL Kennedy, Celia Mitchell, Ben Griffin (former soldier), Terry Jones, Sami Ramadani, Roger Lloyd Pack, David Gentleman, Miriam Margolyes, Andy Delatour, Katharine Hamnett, Iain Banks

Le partisan

Leonard Cohen, The Partisan (Le partisan)

When they poured across the border
I was cautioned to surrender,
this I could not do;
I took my gun and vanished.
I have changed my name so often,
I've lost my wife and children
but I have many friends,
and some of them are with me.

An old woman gave us shelter,
kept us hidden in the garret,
then the soldiers came;
she died without a whisper.

There were three of us this morning
I'm the only one this evening
but I must go on;
the frontiers are my prison.

Oh, the wind, the wind is blowing,
through the graves the wind is blowing,
freedom soon will come;
then we'll come from the shadows.

Les Allemands e'taient chez moi, (The Germans were at my home)
ils me dirent, "Signe toi," (They said, "Sign yourself,")
mais je n'ai pas peur; (But I am not afraid)
j'ai repris mon arme. (I have retaken my weapon.)

J'ai change' cent fois de nom, (I have changed names a hundred times)
j'ai perdu femme et enfants (I have lost wife and children)
mais j'ai tant d'amis; (But I have so many friends)
j'ai la France entie`re. (I have all of France)

Un vieil homme dans un grenier (An old man, in an attic)
pour la nuit nous a cache', (Hid us for the night)
les Allemands l'ont pris; (The Germans captured him)
il est mort sans surprise. (He died without surprise.)

Oh, the wind, the wind is blowing,
through the graves the wind is blowing,
freedom soon will come;
then we'll come from the shadows.

CCR Responds to Arrest, Denial of Bail for Julian Assange

From Center for Constitutional Rights:

CCR Statement on Arrest of WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange

Rights Group Alarmed by Legal Overreach and Concerned Assault Allegations Be Taken Seriously While Ensuring Process Not Manipulated for Political Reasons

December 7, 2010, New York – In response to the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange today, the Center for Constitutional Rights issued the following statement:

As a human rights organization, the Center for Constitutional Rights is alarmed by multiple examples of legal overreach and irregularities in the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, especially given concerns that they are meant to clear the way for Mr. Assange to be extradited to the U.S. via Sweden.

Standard procedure in these cases is to call in a suspect for interrogation, and he has offered on numerous occasions to cooperate with the authorities. Similarly, a suspect who has surrendered, having never gone into hiding or attempted to flee, would normally be allowed to post bail. Yet Mr. Assange has been arrested and denied bail.

Allegations like these should be taken seriously, and in this regard Assange has made every effort to cooperate in this matter. He should be afforded all due process, and steps should be taken to ensure that the investigation process is not manipulated for political reasons.

We are concerned that the United States may seek to punish Mr. Assange for his journalistic efforts at uncovering and exposing the truth underlying key world events exactly as other news media, including The New York Times, have done. The documents published by WikiLeaks are providing important information about significant government wrongdoing and serious human rights violations that must be addressed, rather than focusing entirely on punishing the messenger.

Protect Press Freedom! List of Wikileaks Mirror Sites

Lisa Derrick at FDL has it up (and thanks Vern and a host of anonymous technicians and bloggers). We're going to need this, as the ruling elite tempest against Wikileaks and public spokesperson Julian Assange is going into overdrive. Their aim reaches far beyond Assange and Wikileaks, to control over information.

Hey kids, I bet it’d be fun to print out a few cables as holiday cards, wrapping paper and decoupage! Make silkscreens for tee shirts and posters! Or use them for logomancy and Burroughs-esque cut up.  Just get ‘em while you can at any of the these of sites:

http://wikileaksmirrorlist.blogspot.com/:

wikileaks.ch – Official Wikileaks Page [173.227.66.20, 208.65.130.26 and others]

wikileaks.fi – Mirror Finland [46.59.1.2]

wikileaks.nl – Mirror Netherlands [46.59.1.2]

wikileaks.de – Mirror Germany [88.80.13.160]

wikileaks.eu – Mirror Europe [88.80.13.160]

wikileaks.pl – Mirror Poland [88.80.13.160]

wikileaks.at – Mirror Austria [46.59.1.2]

wikileaks.lu – Mirror Luxembourg [46.59.1.2]

wikileaks.se – Mirror Sweden [88.80.6.179]

wikileaks.no – Mirror Norway [46.59.1.2]

wikileaks.is – Mirror Iceland [46.59.1.2]

nyud.net – Mirror United States [129.170.214.192]

wikileaks.ca – Mirror Canada [46.59.1.2]

wikileaks.info – Mirror of previous leaks [62.2.16.94]

For a list of all 729 mirror sites for Wikileaks now up around the world, see this page from http://wikileaks.ch/mirrors.html. You might want to bookmark that page, but if it’s down, you’ll need another reference to find a proper mirror site, and you can try the ones above, or going to wikileaksmirrorsite.

Reprint: Controversial Drug Given to All Guantanamo Detainees Akin to "Pharmacologic Waterboarding"

The following article, which I co-authored with Jason Leopold, is cross-posted from Truthout. It should be read in conjunction with the report by Seton Hall University School of Law's Center for Policy and Research , "Drug Abuse? An Exploration of the Government's Use of Mefloquine at Guantanamo." The Seton Hall study and the Truthout investigation were carried out independently. The Seton Hall paper largely examines the legal ramifications of DoD's blanket use of mefloquine on the Guantanamo detainees, in particular in regards to the statutes against torture, while the Truthout article concentrates on what went on inside DoD, and comparative instances of antimalarial measures in similar circumstances.

The Truthout article is the first in-depth look at what kinds of drugs and medical treatment were applied to the Guantanamo prisoners.

*    *    *    *

The Defense Department forced all "war on terror" detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison to take a high dosage of a controversial antimalarial drug, mefloquine, an act that an Army public health physician called "pharmacologic waterboarding."

The US military administered the drug despite Pentagon knowledge that mefloquine caused severe neuropsychiatric side effects, including suicidal thoughts, hallucinations and anxiety. The drug was used on the prisoners whether they had malaria or not.

Interviews conducted over the past two months with tropical disease experts and a review of Defense Department documents and peer-reviewed journals show there were no preexisting cases where mefloquine was ever prescribed for mass presumptive treatment of malaria.

The revelation, which has not been previously reported, was buried in  documents publicly released by the Defense Department (DoD) two years ago as part of the government's investigation into the June 2006 deaths of three Guantanamo detainees.

Army Staff Sgt. Joe Hickman, who was stationed at Guantanamo at the time of the suicides in 2006, and has presented evidence that demonstrates the three detainees could not have died by hanging themselves, noticed in the detainees' medical files that they were given mefloquine. Hickman has been investigating the circumstances behind the detainees' deaths for nearly four years.

Click here to listen to Jason Leopold discuss this story on The Peter B. Collins Show.

All detainees arriving at Guantanamo in January 2002 were first given a treatment dosage of 1,250 mg of mefloquine, before laboratory tests were conducted to determine if they actually had the disease, according to a section of the DoD documents entitled "Standard Inprocessing Orders For Detainees." The 1,250 mg dosage is what would be given if the detainees actually had malaria. That dosage is five times higher than the prophylactic dose given to individauls to prevent the disease.

Maj. Remington Nevin, an Army public health physician, who formerly worked at the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center and has written extensively about mefloquine, said in an interview the use of mefloquine "in this manner ... is, at best, an egregious malpractice."

The government has exposed detainees "to unacceptably high risks of potentially severe neuropsychiatric side effects, including seizures, intense vertigo, hallucinations, paranoid delusions, aggression, panic, anxiety, severe insomnia, and thoughts of suicide," said Nevin, who was not speaking in an official capacity, but offering opinions as a board-certified, preventive medicine physician. "These side effects could be as severe as those intended through the application of 'enhanced interrogation techniques.'"

Mefloquine is also known by its brand name Lariam. It was researched by the US Army in the 1970s and licensed by the Food and Drug Administration in 1989. Since its introduction, it has been directly linked to serious adverse effects, including depression, anxiety, panic attacks, confusion, hallucinations, bizarre dreams, nausea, vomiting, sores and homicidal and suicidal thoughts. It belongs to a class of drugs known as quinolines, which were part of a 1956 human experiment study to investigate "toxic cerebral states," as part of the CIA's MKULTRA mind-control program.

The Army tapped the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) to develop mefloquine and it was later licensed to the Swiss pharmaceutical company F. Hoffman-La Roche. The first human trials of mefloquine were conducted in the mid-1970s on prisoners, who were deliberately inoculated with malaria at Stateville Correctional prison near Joliet, Illinois, the site of controversial antimalarial experimentation in the early 1940s.

The drug was administered to Guantanamo detainees without regard for their medical or psychological history, despite its considerable risk of exacerbating pre-existing conditions. Mefloquine is also known to have serious side effects among individuals under treatment for depression or other serious mental health disorders, which numerous detainees were said to have been treated for, according to their attorneys and published reports.

Dr. G. Richard Olds, a tropical disease specialist and the founding dean of the Medical School at the University of California at Riverside, said, in his "professional opinion there is no medical justification for giving a massive dose of mefloquine to an asymptomatic individual."

"I also do not see the medical benefit of treating a person in Cuba with a prophylactic dose of mefloquine,” Olds said. Mefloquine is "a fat soluble, and as a result, it does build up in the body and has a very long half-life.This is important since a massive dose of this drug is not easily corrected and the ‘side effects’ of the medication could last for weeks or months."

In 2002, when the prison was established and mefloquine first administered, there were dozens of suicide attempts at Guantanamo. That same year, the DoD stopped reporting attempted suicides.

By February 2002, there were at least 459 detainees imprisoned at Guantanamo. In March of that year, according to the book "Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay: A Memoir of a Citizen Warrior" by Montgomery Granger, "the situation" at the prison began "deteriorating rapidly."

"There is more and more psychosis becoming evident in detainees ...," wrote Granger, an Army Reserve major and medic who was stationed at Guantanamo in 2002. "We already have probably a dozen or so detainees who are psychiatric cases. The number is growing."

"Presumptively Treating" Malaria

Though malaria is nonexistent in Cuba, DoD spokeswoman Maj. Tanya Bradsher told Truthout that the US government was concerned that the disease would be reintroduced into the country as detainees were transferred to the prison facility in January 2002.

A "decision was made," Bradsher said in an email, to "presumptively treat each arriving Guantanamo detainee for malaria to prevent the possibility of having mosquito-borne [sic] spread from an infected individual to uninfected individuals in the Guantanamo population, the guard force, the population at the Naval base or the broader Cuban population."

But Granger wrote in his book that a Navy entomologist was present at Guantanamo in January and February 2002 and during that time only identified insects that were nuisances and did not identify any insects that were carriers of a disease, such as malaria.

Nevertheless, Bradsher said the "mefloquine dosage [given to detainees] was entirely for public health purposes ... and not for any other purpose" and "is completely appropriate."

"The risks and benefits to the health of the detainees were central considerations," she added.

A September 13, 2002, DoD memo governing the operational use of mefloquine said, "Malaria is not a threat in Guantanamo Bay." Indeed, there have only been two to three reported cases of malaria at Guantanamo.

The DoD memo, signed by Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs William Winkenwerder, was sent to then-Rep. John McHugh, the Republican chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Military Personnel. McHugh is now Secretary of the Army.

A Senate staff member told Truthout the Senate Armed Services Committee was never briefed about malaria concerns at Guantanamo nor was the committee made aware of "any issue related to the use of mefloquine or any other anti-malarial drug" related to "the treatment of detainees." 

When questions were raised at a February 19, 2002 meeting of the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board (AFEB) about what measures the military was taking to address malaria concerns at Guantanamo, Navy Capt. Alan J. Yund, the liaison officer to the AFEB, did not disclose that mefloquine was being administered to detainees as a form of presumptive treatment and indicated that infected detainees who may have had the disease would be treated on a case-by-case basis. 

Yund also said detainees were given a different anti-malarial drug known as primaquine and noted that "informed consent" was "absolutely practiced" prior to administering drugs, an assertion that contradicts claims made by numerous detainees who said they were forced to take drugs even if they protested. Yund did not return calls for comment.

Bradsher declined to respond to a follow-up question about who made the decision to presumptively treat detainees with mefloquine.

An April 16, 2002, meeting of the Interagency Working Group for Antimalarial Chemotherapy, which DoD, along with other federal government agencies, is a part of, was specifically dedicated to investigating mefloquine's use and the drug's side effects. The group concluded that study designs on mefloquine up to that point were flawed or biased and criticized DoD medical policy for disregarding scientific fact and basing itself more on "sensational or best marketed information."

The Working Group called for additional research, and warned, "other treatment regimes should be carefully considered before mefloquine is used at the doses required for treatment."

Still, despite the red flags that pointed to mefloquine as a high-risk drug, the DoD's mefloquine program proceeded.

In fact, a June 2004 set of guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says mefloquine should only be used when other standard drugs were not available, as it "is associated with a higher rate of severe neuropsychiatric reactions when used at treatment doses."

According to the CDC, "'presumptive treatment' without the benefit of laboratory confirmation should be reserved for extreme circumstances (strong clinical suspicion, severe disease, impossibility of obtaining prompt laboratory confirmation)."

A CDC spokesman refused to comment about the "presumptive treatment" of malaria at Guantanamo and referred questions to the DoD.

Nevin said, if "mass presumptive treatment has been given consistently, many dozens of detainees, possibly hundreds, would almost certainly have suffered such disabling adverse events."

"It appears that for years, senior Defense health leaders have condoned the medically indefensible practice of using high doses of mefloquine ostensibly for mass presumptive treatment of malaria among detainees from the Middle East and Asia lacking any evidence of disease," Nevin said. "This is a use for which there is no precedent in the medical literature and which is specifically discouraged among refugees by malaria experts at the Centers for Disease Control."

Even proponents of limited mefloquine usage are seriously questioning the logic behind the DoD's actions. Professor James McCarthy, chair of the Infectious Diseases Division of the Queensland Institute of Medicine in Australia, who is an advocate of the safe use of mefloquine under proper safeguards, and takes it himself when traveling, told Truthout he was unaware of the use of mefloquine for mass presumptive treatment as described by the DoD, but could imagine it under certain circumstances.

However, when informed that lab tests were available and the detainees were screened for the blood product G6PD, used to determine the suitability of certain antimalarial drugs, McCarthy found the DoD's use of mefloquine at Guantanamo difficult to understand and "hard to support on pure clinical grounds as an antimalarial."

Treatment, Torture or an Experiment?

Another striking point about the DoD's decision to presumptively treat mostly Muslim detainees with mefloquine beginning in 2002 is that it is the exact opposite of how the DoD responded to malaria concerns among the Haitian refugees who were held at Guantanamo a decade earlier.

Between 1991 and 1992, more than 14,000 Haitian refugees were held in temporary camps set up at Guantanamo. A large number of Haitian refugees - 235 during a four-month period - were diagnosed with malaria. But instead of presumptively treating the refugee population at Guantanamo, the DoD conducted laboratory tests first and only the individuals who were found to be malaria carriers were administered chloroquine.

Another example of how the DoD approached malaria treatment differently for other subjects is in the case of Army Rangers who returned from malarial areas of Afghanistan between June and September 2002 and were infected with the disease at an attack rate of 52.4 cases per 1,000 soldiers.

However, the Rangers did not receive mass presumptive treatment of mefloquine. They were given other standard drugs after laboratory tests, according to documents obtained by Truthout.

Nevin said the DoD's treatment of Haitian refugees represented "a situation that arguably presented a much higher risk of disease and secondary transmission, but one which US medical experts stated at the time could be safely managed through more conservative and focused measures."

Why did the government use the "conservative and focused" approach in treating Haitian refugees and the Army rangers, but then revert to presumptive mefloquine treatment in the case of the Guantanamo detainees, who - a month after the prison facility opened in January 2002 - were stripped of their protections under the Geneva Conventions?

According to Sean Camoni, a Seton Hall University law school research fellow, "there is no legitimate medical purpose for treating malaria in this way" and the drug's severe side effects may actually have been the DoD's intended impact in calling for the drug's usage.

Camoni and several other Seton Hall law school students have been working on a report about mefloquine use on Guantanamo detainees. Their work was conducted independently of Truthout's investigation.

A copy of the Seton Hall report, "Drug Abuse? An Exploration of the Government's Use of Mefloquine at Guantanamo," says mefloquine's extreme side effects may have violated a provision in the antitorture statute  related to the use of "mind altering substances or other procedures" that "profoundly disrupts the senses or the personality."

Legal memos prepared in August 2002 by former DoD attorneys Jay Bybee and John Yoo for the CIA's torture program permitted the use of drugs for interrogations. The authority was also contained in a legal memo Yoo prepared for the DoD less than a year later after Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld convened a working group to address "policy considerations with respect to the choice of interrogation techniques."

In September, Truthout reported that the DoD's inspector general (IG) conducted an investigation into allegations that detainees in custody of the US military were drugged. The IG's report, which remains classified, was completed a year ago and was shared with the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Kathleen Long, a spokeswoman for the Armed Services Committee, told Truthout at the time that the IG report did not substantiate allegations of drugging of prisoners for the "purposes of interrogation."

The medical files for detainee 693 released in 2008 shows that, two weeks after he first started taking mefloquine in June 2002, he was interviewed by Guantanamo medical personnel and reported he was suffering from nightmares, hallucinations, anxiety auditory and visual hallucinations, anxiety, sleep loss and suicidal thoughts.

The detainee said he had previously been treated for anxiety and had a family history of mental illness. He was diagnosed with adjustment disorder, according to the DoD documents. Guantanamo medical staff who interviewed the detainee did not state that he may have been experiencing mefloquine-related side effects in an evaluation of his condition.

Mark Denbeaux, the director of the Seton Hall Law Center for Policy and Research, who looked into the 2006 deaths of the three Guantanamo detainees, said in an interview "almost every remaining question here would be solved if the [detainees'] full medical records were released."

The government has refused to release Guantanamo detainees' medical records, citing privacy concerns in some cases, and assertions that they are "protected" or "classified" in other instances. The few medical records that have been released have been heavily redacted.

"A crucial issue is dosage" Denbeaux said. "Giving detainees toxic doses of mefloquine has mind-altering consequences that may be permanent. Without access to medical records, which the government refuses to release, the use of mefloquine in this manner appears to be grotesque malpractice at best, if not human experimentation or 'enhanced interrogation.' The question is where are the doctors who approved this practice and where are the medical records?"

Bradsher did not respond to questions about whether the government kept data about the adverse effects mefloquine had on detainees.

An absolute prohibition against experiments on prisoners of war is contained in the Geneva Conventions, but President George W. Bush stripped war on terror detainees of those protections. Some of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" also had an experimental quality.

At the same time detainees were given high doses of mefloquine, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz issued a directive changing the rules on human subject protections for DoD experiments, allowing for a waiver of informed consent when necessary for developing a "medical product" for the armed services. Bush also granted unprecedented authority to the secretary of Health and Human Services to classify information as secret.

Briefings on Side Effects

As the DoD was administering mefloquine to Guantanamo prisoners, senior Pentagon officials were being briefed about the drug's dangerous side effects. During one such briefing, questions arose about what steps the military was taking to address malaria concerns among detainees sent to Guantanamo.

Internal documents from Roche, obtained by UPI in 2002, indicated that the pharmaceutical company had been tracking suicidal reactions to Lariam going back to the early 1990s.

In September 2002, Roche sent a letter to physicians and pharmacists stating that the company changed its warning labels for mefloquine.

Roche further said in one of two new warning paragraphs that some of the symptoms associated with mefloquine use included suicidal thoughts and suicide and also "may cause psychiatric symptoms in a number of patients, ranging from anxiety, paranoia, and depression to hallucination and psychotic behavior," which "have been reported to continue long after mefloquine has been stopped."

Military Struggles

Cmdr. William Manofsky, who is retired from the US Navy and currently on disability due to post-traumatic stress disorder and side effects from mefloquine, said those are some of the symptoms he initially suffered from after taking the drug for several months beginning in November 2002 after he was deployed to the Middle East to work on two Naval projects.

In March 2003, "I became violently ill during a night live-fire exercise with the [Navy] SEALS," Manofsky said. "I felt like I was air sick. All the flashing lights from the tracers and rockets ... targeting device made me really sick. I threw up for an hour straight before being medevac'd back to the Special Forces compound where I had my first ever panic attack."

For three years, Manofsky said he had to walk with a cane due to a loss of equilibrium. Numerous other accounts like Manofsky's can be found on the web site lariaminfo.org.

In 2008, Dr. Nevin published a study detailing a high prevalence of mental health contraindications to the safe use of mefloquine in soldiers deployed to Afghanistan. Responding in part to concerns raised by the mefloquine-associated suicide of Army Spc. Juan Torres, internal Army presentations confirmed that the drug had been widely misprescribed to soldiers with contraindications, including to many on antidepressants.

A formal policy memo in February 2009 from Army Surgeon General Eric Schoomaker removed mefloquine as a "first-line" agent, and changed the policy so that mefloquine would not be prescribed to Army personnel unless they had contraindications to the preferred drug, the antibiotic doxycycline. Nor could mefloquine be prescribed to any personnel with a history of traumatic brain injury or mental illness.

By September 2009, the policy was extended throughout the DoD.

New prisoners are no longer arriving at Guantanamo and the prison population has been in decline in recent years as detainees are released or transferred to other countries. Currently, the detainee population at Guantanamo is a reported 174.

But Nevin said the justification the Pentagon offered for using mefloquine to presumptively treat detainees transferred to the prison beginning in 2002 "betrays a profound ignorance of basic principals of tropical medicine and suggests extremely poor, and arguably incompetent, medical oversight that demands further investigation."

Exposé: Gitmo Detainees Mass Recipients of Controversial Drug

Cross-posted from Firedoglake

Jason Leopold and I have written an investigatory report for Truthout on the mass administration of the controversial antimalarial drug mefloquine (brand name Lariam) to all Guantanamo detainees through 2005. The drug was applied without regard to whether or not a detainee had malaria, and despite the fact there was no malaria in Guantanamo.

Mefloquine has been a controversial drug since it received FDA approval in 1989, as evidence grows regarding its neurotoxicity and propensity to cause very serious neuropsychiatric side effects. "Adverse events" associated with mefloquine include depression, suicidal thoughts and behaviors, intense rage, paranoia, hallucinations and anxiety. An Army public health physician told us that use of the drug was akin to "pharmacologic waterboarding."

The article has evidently struck a nerve with DoD and/or members of Congress, as one of the key documents in our story, a September 2002 letter from Deputy Secretary of Defense William Winkenwerder to the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, was scrubbed from government servers. The original PDF URL was http://armedservices.house.gov/comdocs/reports/pdfs/02-10-04Mefloquine.pdf. If you click there now, unlike just a day ago, you get a message "the page cannot be found." The document itself is still available through Google docs cache, and is also being posted at Truthout servers.

Winkenwerder's letter notes that "malaria is not a problem at Guantanamo," and makes other statements that undermine DoD's insistence that treating hundreds of detainees presumptively with a treatment dose of mefloquine was a mere public health measure.

What does mefloquine do to people? Here's some testimony gathered by the website lariaminfo.org, which is a treasure trove of information on the drug:

"After taking Lariam ... I [developed] rapid heartbeat, paranoia, and panic. I have since had episodes of severe panic, depression, sleep disturbances, shaking, flushing and feeling of foreboding ... This is by far the worst thing that has ever happened to me. The psychotic episodes were nearly unbearable."

"I was not warned of the dangerous side effects ... ended up in a mental hospital by the end of the trip because no one could explain my manic behavior. My brother flew down from the States to get me because I called home several times stating that my boyfriend was trying to drug me and kill me."

"I served in Somalia in 1993 for 5 months. I took Lariam once a week for the entire tour. That was 8 years ago. I have been diagnosed with PTSD [Post Traumatic Stress Disorder] by the VA and received 100% disability. I have attempted suicide 10 times and have shot myself twice. I suffer from severe depression. I learned about Lariam on the Internet about 3 years ago but was just too depressed to do anything about it."

And this is what they were giving to the detainees? The primary story is out for all to read, and it is my hope that this will help lift the lid off the secrecy that still permeates U.S. government torture of the "war on terror" detainees. A Seton Hall report, "Drug Abuse? An Exploration of the Government's Use of Mefloquine at Guantanamo," will be released in the next day or two, and will expand on the legal repercussions of using this dangerous drug on detainees.