Amériques

From a time when "America" meant "discoveries - new worlds on earth, in the sky, or in the minds of men."


Composer Edgar Varèse composed Amériques, a monumental though relatively brief symphonic work, between 1918 and 1921, revising it (according to the piece's Wikipedia page) in 1927.

Listen for the sirens! Think of "Rite of Spring" in Manhattan.

Direct YouTube link

Japanese WWII Torture Document Eerily Reminiscent of US Torture Program

The following is taken from a 63 year old book published in the early days of the Cold War. Titled Materials on the Trial of Former Serviceman of the Japanese Army Charged with Manufacturing and Employing Bacteriological Weapons (Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1950), the book contains trial summaries and testimony from the Khabarovsk war crimes trial in December 1949.

Derided as just another Stalinist show trial at the time, historians have since confirmed the evidence regarding the crimes prosecuted, including deadly biological experiments on prisoners by special units of the Japanese Imperial Army, the most famous of which was Unit 731.

The selection below is one of the exhibits contained in the book, collected in a section labeled “Documentary Evidence.” The book itself has been out of print for decades, and is generally unavailable, except via some few libraries and antiquarian bookstores. The selection included here is on the Japanese Army use of torture. The reader will notice that the Japanese Army demonstrated many of the same techniques and concerns the U.S. showed when it was implementing its own torture program under the CIA and the Department of Defense.

The Japanese torture program included, as described here, use of stress positions, physical attack, and a form of waterboarding. The interrogators were instructed to be aware of possible false information by prisoners in order to get “relief from suffering.” They appeared to also be concerned in the truthfulness of information obtained, and the possibility of deception.

Moreover, the Japanese were quite worried about others knowing about the torture. While they do not outright call for the murder of prisoners, one is left to guess at what “measures must be taken” so that prisoners did not talk of the torture “afterwards.”

The material from the Khabarovsk trial is consistent with that published in a report by the Supreme Commander of Allied Powers on “Japanese Methods of Prisoner of War Interrogation” (June 1, 1946). Techniques described there include: beatings of various sorts (derided, though, as “the most clumsy method”); threats of “murder, torture, starving, deprivation of sleep, solitary confinement, etc.”; psychological threats; water torture, which sometimes resulted in fatalities; attaching a prisoner's thumbs to a “motor car which proceeds to pull him around in a circle until he falls exhausted,” and other tortures. Some Japanese soldiers and officers were prosecuted for war crimes after the war for such inhumane and criminal conduct.

What Made the Khabarovsk Trial Special

What makes the selection from the Khabarovsk trial unique is the degree to which the document discusses the importance of hiding the torture, and how to deal with deception. Interestingly, there is no discussion of producing false confessions.

It is noteworthy, too, to understand that thousands of prisoners who were sent to Unit 731 had also been, or were interrogated and/or tortured, at the site where biological experiments on them were done. All the prisoners were killed after the experiments were completed. The results of the experiments were operationalized in biological warfare campaigns by the Japanese in China that killed, recent estimates claim, perhaps as many as half a million people.

In future stories, I will discuss at much greater length aspects of this material that has gone unreported for years. The reasons for such a lack of historical writing is not lack of interest, but the fact that what materials the Japanese did not destroy were kept classified by the Americans for decades as part of an amnesty deal made with the leaders of the Japanese biological warfare program. The deal included a transfer of data on the fatal human experiments to the U.S. Army and intelligence services. Both the Department of Defense and (most likely) the CIA were involved in the decision to give amnesty to the Unit 731 et al. criminals.

For more information on the deal made between the U.S. and the Japanese described here see Peter Williams and David Wallace, Unit 731: The Japanese Army Secret of Secrets, 1989, Hodder and Stoughton, London; Sheldon H. Harris, Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932-1945, and the American Cover-up, rev. ed. 2002, Routledge, New York; and Daniel Barenblatt, A Plague Upon Humanity: the Secret Genocide of Axis Japan’s Germ Warfare, 2004, Harper, New York.

The Khabarovsk selection reprinted below appears on pages 235-237 of Materials. I have tried my best to reproduce the material as it is in the book. What is italic or bold here is italic or bold in the book. Extra spacing between letters is as in the printed material. Case has been preserved. Paragraph breaks are by extra lines, while in the book they are by indent.

File No. 48. Pages 90, 112, 113, 124, 125, 126. “Operation Officer's Guide (Part I).” From the files of the Mutankiang J.M.M. 

Translated from the Japanese  

S t r i c t l y  C o n f i d e n t i a l 

Seal: “MUTANKIANG J. M. M.
Received June 14, 1945
Inc. No. 9”

Page 90 

MILITARY INVESTIGATION DIVISION
OF GENERAL HEADQUARTERS 

Copied by Unit
No. 471-MANSHU 

SECRET WAR SERVICE GUIDE 

Page 112  

I n c l o s u re 

Fundamental Rules for Interrogating War Prisoners 

Page 113 

G e n e r a l  R u l e s 

1. The present rules relate to cases of interrogation with the view to obtaining information, but do not relate to the interrogation of criminals. 

2. Persons who have surrendered, deserters, captured enemy spies, those who illegally cross the frontier, crews of aircraft compelled to make a forced landing or of vessels compelled to come to our shores, escaped war prisoners who had formerly served in our army, the inhabitants of districts we have newly occupied, and also civilian refugees from the sphere of enemy influence, except on special matters, are interrogated in conformity with the methods of investigating and interrogating war prisoners.

Page 124 

62. Sometimes, depending on circumstances, it is advantageous to resort to torture, but often this may lead to harmful consequences, and therefore, before resorting to it, it is necessary to carefully consider whether this should be done or not. Furthermore, torture must be applied in such a way as not to lead to bad consequences for us. 

Page 125 

63. Torture, the infliction of physical suffering, must be sustained and continued in such a way that there shall be no other way of relief from suffering except by giving truthful information. 

Torture is advantageous because of the speed with which it is possible with relative ease to compel persons of weak will to give truthful testimony, but there is the danger that, in order to relieve himself from suffering, or in order to please the interrogator, the person interrogated will, on the contrary, distort the truth. 

In the case of persons of strong will, torture may strengthen their will to resist and leave ill-feeling against the empire after the interrogation. 

64. In relation to persons of weak will, torture is usually applied in those cases when the person interrogated does not speak the truth in the face of evidence, but there is full reason to suppose that this person will speak frankly if torture is applied. 

65. It is necessary to bear in mind that the methods of torture must be such as can be easily applied, as will sustain suffering without rousing feelings of pity, and as will not leave either wounds or scars. However, in those cases when it is necessary to create apprehension of death, the harm caused the person interrogated can be ignored, but this must be done in such a way as not to make it impossible to continue the interrogation. 

The following examples of torture may be given: 

1. Compelling the person to sit up straight and motionless. 

2. Putting pencils between the fingers not far from their bases and tying the tops of the fingers with string and moving them. 

3. Putting the person interrogated on his back (it is advisable to raise the feet a little) and dripping water into the nose and mouth simultaneously. 

4. Putting the interrogated person on his side and stamping on his ankle. 

5. Compelling the interrogated person to stand under a shelf that is too low to enable him to stand straight. 

66. In a case when a wound is accidentally inflicted on the person interrogated, it is necessary, taking into account the general situation and the interests of our country, to take resolute measures, taking full responsibility for same. 

67. On receiving testimony as a result of applying torture, it must be ascertained whether this testimony is the result of a desire to avoid further suffering and to please the interrogator; in such cases, some corroboration of the truth of the testimony is necessary. 

Page 126 

68. After the application of torture, it is necessary to convince the person who had undergone torture that the torture applied to him was quite a natural measure, or to take such measures as will induce him out of a sense of pride, sense of honor, etc, not to speak of it afterwards. In the case of persons from whom this cannot be expected, measures must be taken as in the case of those upon whom accidental wounds have been inflicted. 

69. Nobody must know about the application of torture except the persons concerned with this. Under no circumstances must other prisoners know about it. It is very important to take measures to prevent shrieks from being heard.* 

Translated by Senior Interpreter, Master of Historical Sciences
Signed: (PODPALOVA) 

*The rest is omitted. – Trans.

Health Care Professionals Urge Obama to End Forced-Feeding of Guantanamo Hunger Strikers

The following is a press release from Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR), who gathered hundreds of signature and the support of other human rights associations to appeal to the President to stop the forced-feeding of hunger strikers at Guantanamo. The forced-feeding policy by the Department of Defense is blatantly against the policy of health organizations around the world, including the American Medical Association, the World Medical Association (see their Declaration of Tokyo), and the British Medical Association.

DoD is on a propaganda campaign to promote their policy (see here and here). But as this UK Guardian article notes, "Force-feeding policies have never succeeded."

Force-feeding is not a new concern. It fell rapidly out of fashion in 1917 after Irish republican Thomas Ashe unexpectedly died after being fed, and again in the 1970s following IRA hunger striker Michael Gaughan's controversial death. Then, as now, medical professionals and human rights activists raised concern about the dubious use of the stomach tube to suppress hunger strikers. The World Medical Organisation's 1975 condemnation of force-feeding as torturous and degrading seemed to signal an end to the practice. Indeed, one of the key reasons why Thatcher was left with few options but to allow IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands and his fellow prisoners to starve – in the face of politically damaging controversy – was because she knew that force-feeding was no longer ethically viable.

What follows is PsySR's press release:

On August 12th, over 400 health care professionals and human rights leaders sent an urgent appeal to President Obama to order Guantánamo detention camp officials to stop force-feeding hunger strikers, immediately release the detainees approved for release, and make closing Guantánamo his first priority. Now in its seventh month, the hunger strike included 106 detainees at its peak, with as many as 46 of them force-fed.

The letter states that force-feeding mentally competent adults is a violation of medical and nursing ethics, and emphasizes that the method of force feeding in Guantánamo is “exceptionally brutal.” In describing the procedure in which the detainee is forcefully extracted from the cell by several soldiers and strapped into a restraint chair for up to two hours, the letter also notes that “Men weakened by significant weight loss are particularly at risk for serious injury during this regimen.”

Sponsored by Psychologists for Social Responsibility and signed by ten additional organizations, including the Center for Constitutional Rights and Physicians for Human Rights, the letter focuses on the ethical and professional dilemmas of Guantánamo health personnel who force-feed the detainees:

“Health care professionals, including those in the military, must maintain their licenses in good standing, and to do so they must follow standards of good ethical practice. This is not what is happening during the hunger strike.”

Because information is classified at Guantánamo, doctors, nurses and psychologists cannot honor their ethical obligations to confer with independent experts in such dilemmas, and are “constrained from securing the support of their professional colleagues if they experience reprisals for registering a complaint or refusing to participate further.”

The signers urge President Obama to “act immediately before more prisoners die” and argue that as Commander-in-Chief he has the power to immediately stop the force-feeding, release the detainees approved for release, and make closing Guantánamo his top priority.

The full text of the letter with the list of all signers is available online at www.psysr.org/GTMO-Letter.

Will Bogdan's Claims of Insufficient Staffing Cause Al Qaeda to Attack Guantanamo?

Jason Leopold, who has been filing requests for government documents like there is no tomorrow, apparently caught Department of Defense censors with their pants down. The result is a rare look into the kind of political shenanigans DoD uses to justify its policies at Guantanamo.

Leopold had requested a copy of the declaration by JTF-GTMO Detention Group (JDG) chief Colonel John Bogdan filed in the litigation surrounding the controversial groin and genital searches of detainees at Guantanamo. He received a redacted version on August 3. But Leopold noticed that the redactions didn't match those of an earlier release of the document in July.

The practice of the groin and genital searches -- including before and after visits to attorneys, to make family telephone calls, etc. -- was overturned by Judge Royce Lamberth in a stinging ruling last month. But the government appealed that ruling and an appeals court reversed Lamberth's opinion pending a full government appeal. The appeals court relied heavily on declarations made by both Bogdan and his US Southern Command superior officer, Marine General John F. Kelly.

Last month I examined the issues behind Kelly's declaration. But Bogdan's declaration was unaccountably sealed. Three days after the appeals court ruling, Leopold filed suit for Bogdan's declaration.

As Leopold described it in an August 6 article at Al Jazeera (emphasis in original):

In response to the court filing, the government on Friday released a partially redacted version of Bogdan's declaration, and argued that the blacked-out passages in the document should remain secret - because they contained sensitive "operational-security information" about Guantanamo.

But it appears government lawyers were unaware that another version of Bogdan's declaration - one that contained a different set of redactions - was publicly released last month, in documents filed with the federal appeals court when the government asked Lamberth's decision to be put on hold.

Redacted passages that the government says needs to remain secret are unredacted in the earlier version filed on the public record as part of the government's appeal. At the same time, some unredacted passages in the declaration submitted on Friday are redacted in the public version of Bogdan's declaration filed with the appeals court last month.

Leopold's Al Jazeera article examines some of the differing redactions, and in general I agree with Steven Aftergood's comments in the story regarding "the subjective nature of the redaction process." However, a close read of all the redactions turns up a couple of odd new attempts at censorship by DoD of some of Bogdan's statements, one of which in particular deserves a closer look.

Insufficient Staffing for Detainee "Movements"?

In a portion of his declaration explaining to the court why Guantanamo commanders cannot consider allowing attorneys to visit their clients at either Camps 5 or 6 -- they currently meet at Camp Echo, about which more below -- Bogdan made a remarkable claim (emphasis added): "As it currently stands, JTF-GTMO cannot support all daily movements with current staff levels, so movements must be prioritized."

The "movements" concern prisoner movements outside their cell to anywhere else in the prison -- to another cell, to see their attorney, to make a call to their family, to go to the hospital or clinic, etc. For an unspecified period Guantanamo authorities ran a "frequent flyer" program, transferring prisoners from cell to cell multiple times a week "to cause sleep deprivation and disorientation."

A SOUTHCOM report on the death of prisoner Adnan Latif last September revealed that the brain-damaged detainee from Yemen was “moved from camp to camp over 67 times" during his stay at Guantanamo. So the issue of movements is not one only related to camp operations, but to the abuse and maltreatment of prisoners there. Indeed, some of these "movements" are initiated by violent beatings by so-called Emergency Reaction Forces.

Bogdan's declaration regarding insufficient staffing levels at Guantanamo was part of the initial release of his sworn declaration last month, but it was censored in the August 3 release to Leopold. The statement was overlooked after the first release, but the retrospective redaction has brought attention to Bogdan's claim.

In the government's response to Leopold's suit, defending the censorship of portions of Bogdan's unclassified declaration, the government claims the redactions concern "procedures and rationales contained in the declaration [which] constitute sensitive information, the public disclosure of which will threaten the operational security and force protection of the Guantanamo facility."

Indeed, the government goes so far as to claim the recent jail breaks at Abu Ghraib and in Pakistan speak to the dangers of a similar Al Qaeda attack on Guantanamo. While over ten years ago Al Qaeda was allegedly able to pull off the suicide bombing of the USS Cole in the port of Aden, but it is very difficult to see how Al Qeada or anyone could attack or pull off a prison break at Guantanamo.

According to Bogdan, the security has been so tight at the camp that if a detainee had been able to meet with an attorney at Camp 6, such a meeting would be forced to end if the detainee had to go to the bathroom. (The government tried to retrospectively censor this fact, too.)

But that was not the case at Camp Echo, and it's ultimately at Camp Echo where meetings with detainees and their attorneys must take place, according to camp officials. The claims about poor staffing levels are very convenient in pushing all meetings to Camp Echo (a claim that did not pass muster with Judge Lamberth, who said in his ruling that accommodations could be made at Camps 5 and/or 6, and the supposed need for lots of searches ameliorated).

I'd guess the poor staffing argument was not something Guantanamo wished to be public, especially at the same time they are pushing as propaganda the very low probability chance of Al Qaeda somehow invading Guantanamo (as if Guantanamo were somehow located somewhere akin to urban Baghdad).

Camp Echo Set Up for... Eavesdropping

According to Bogdan's declaration:

Camp Echo is specifically set up and designated to facilitate meetings with detainees, including legal visits, in a secure and safe environment. The meeting rooms at Camp Echo are specifically designed for attorney meetings and can accommodate up to five people, including the detainee. For example, Camp Echo meeting rooms have restroom facilities for the detainee, which are not available in the rooms at Camp 6.

But Camp Echo was the focus of a big controversy last Spring, when it was discovered that "smoke detectors" in the attorney-client meeting rooms at Camp Echo were in fact "high-tech audio surveillance and monitoring equipment."

According to a subsequent report by the Center for Policy and Research (CPR) at Seton Hall University School of Law, "Following the public discovery of the listening devices, Army Colonel John Bogdan ordered the use of audio in Echo II to be disconnected, but not dismantled." The rooms in question were the same rooms earlier used by the FBI, CIA and other agencies in the interrogation of the so-called "high-value detainees."

In a meeting on the matter at the military commissions, Bogdan "confirmed that there was one infrared camera mounted on the wall opposite 'from where the detainee would be locked in when there was not a meeting,' and another encased point-tilt-zoom camera mounted in a corner." Moreover, at least one video surveillance camera was so sensitive it was "capable of zooming to read 'very tiny writing' on a document used during an attorney-client discussion."

Can attorneys or detainees trust that such monitoring of privileged meetings isn't still taking place? As CPR pointed out in their report, "written Standard Operating Procedures 'neither permit nor forbid' audio monitoring."

In his declaration, Bogdan said he started to implement the new groin/genital search policy in December 2012. In that same month, according to the CPR report, he authorized an intelligence directorate request for an upgrade of the video surveillance cameras at Camp Echo “from an analog to a digital capacity.” Bogdan's story of what he knew and when about the audio and video surveillance doesn't hold water, but for a detailed examination, check out the Seton Hall report.

In summary, it would appear that DoD is trying to hide its argument about supposed staffing difficulties at Guantanamo -- arguments it surely must make to Congress, by the way -- in order to buttress its claim that the only place detainees can meet with attorneys is at Camp Echo, where, conveniently enough, they have bugged all the meeting rooms. They are holding to their arguments despite the fact a federal judge found them seriously wanting.

DoD believes its ace in the hole is the claim of dangerous attacks from Al Qaeda. It's the same message they are playing in the mainstream press, used to justify more funding for anti-terror programs, the ongoing crackdown on whistleblowers like Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, and to hold off any release of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay.

Nothing about DoD's arguments make any sense. The SOUTHCOM report on the death of Adnan Latif, used to justify the groin and genital search policy, is riddled with holes. Moreover, as Jason Leopold, the most consistent reporter challenging DoD's spin on Guantanamo, has noted (see here and here), the entire regime at the Cuban-sited prison appears to be in a near shambles: SOPs not followed, personnel not trained, accountability totally absent.

The onerous search policy at Guantanamo appears to be mostly a clumsy bureaucratic maneuver to blame the detainees at Guantanamo for the mistakes and failures of command. Any military officer or soldier should be ashamed of such an action. The nation should be ashamed. Meanwhile, dozens of detainees at the facility remain on hunger strike, many of them still force-fed, despite the condemnations of national and world health organizations and human rights groups.

Only a full, transparent, and wide-ranging investigation into Guantanamo and other U.S. detention and interrogation sites -- including an investigation of actions at this point under the Obama Administration -- will provide the opportunity of knowing the truth behind all the spin and lies coming out of the Pentagon and CIA.

Cross-posted from The Dissenter/FDL

Thomas Gray's "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College"

Reposted via The Poetry Foundation:

Ye distant spires, ye antique tow'rs,
That crown the wat'ry glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
Her Henry's holy Shade;
And ye, that from the stately brow
Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below
Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowr's among
Wanders the hoary Thames along
His silver-winding way.

Ah, happy hills, ah, pleasing shade,
Ah, fields belov'd in vain,
Where once my careless childhood stray'd,
A stranger yet to pain!
I feel the gales, that from ye blow,
A momentary bliss bestow,
As waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And, redolent of joy and youth,
To breathe a second spring.

Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race
Disporting on thy margent green
The paths of pleasure trace,
Who foremost now delight to cleave
With pliant arm thy glassy wave?
The captive linnet which enthrall?
What idle progeny succeed
To chase the rolling circle's speed,
Or urge the flying ball?

While some on earnest business bent
Their murm'ring labours ply
'Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint
To sweeten liberty:
Some bold adventurers disdain
The limits of their little reign,
And unknown regions dare descry:
Still as they run they look behind,
They hear a voice in ev'ry wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.

Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast:
Theirs buxom health of rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever-new,
And lively cheer of vigour born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly th' approach of morn.

Alas, regardless of their doom,
The little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day:
Yet see how all around 'em wait
The ministers of human fate,
And black Misfortune's baleful train!
Ah, show them where in ambush stand
To seize their prey the murth'rous band!
Ah, tell them they are men!

These shall the fury Passions tear,
The vultures of the mind
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,
And Shame that skulks behind;
Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy with rankling tooth,
That inly gnaws the secret heart,
And Envy wan, and faded Care,
Grim-visag'd comfortless Despair,
And Sorrow's piercing dart.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,
And grinning Infamy.
The stings of Falsehood those shall try,
And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye,
That mocks the tear it forc'd to flow;
And keen Remorse with blood defil'd,
And moody Madness laughing wild
Amid severest woe.

Lo, in the vale of years beneath
A griesly troop are seen,
The painful family of Death,
More hideous than their Queen:
This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That ev'ry labouring sinew strains,
Those in the deeper vitals rage:
Lo, Poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the soul with icy hand,
And slow-consuming Age.

To each his suff'rings: all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan,
The tender for another's pain;
Th' unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

-- Thomas Gray, 1742

Andy Worthington on Obama's False Guantanamo Promises (Video)

Andy Worthington has posted a video at his website highlighting his comments at a recent rally to free Shaker Aamer. The July 18 rally, called by the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign, was held outside the UK Parliament building in London.

Besides talking about the just cause of discharging Shaker from Guantanamo, the last British prisoner held at the US military prison, who has been cleared by two administrations for release, yet still held indefinitely with dozens of others similarly cleared, Worthington concentrated on the recent promises Obama made to address the prisoners' situation.

Worthington wrote:

It is, of course, outrageous that Shaker is still held, as he was cleared for release under President Bush in 2007, and again under President Obama in January 2010, along with 85 of the other 166 men still held. Opportunistic opposition to the release of prisoners by lawmakers in Congress, and shameful inaction on the part of President Obama are responsible for keeping these 86 men in Guantánamo.

Moreover, there are still no signs that any of the men will be released, even though they have been on a hunger strike to highlight their plight since February, and two months ago President Obama, responding to unparalleled criticism internationally and domestically, promised to resume releasing prisoners.

I can scarcely express my disappointment with President Obama, who should not have promised to resume releasing prisoners if he had no intention of doing so, and who will be remembered for his cowardice and hypocrisy unless he is true to his word.

Andy's disappointment at the machinations over Shaker and the rest of the prisoners, and the ongoing obscenity that is Guantanamo is shared by many human rights workers and attorneys, but evidently not by the Obama administration, which has been been talking a good game (when pinned down) about closing Guantanamo and the need for humane treatment, but since taking over the reins of the prison from the Bush/Cheney administration in January 2009 has done next to nothing to act upon their empty rhetoric.

Here's Andy's video:

SOUTHCOM Commander Spins Latif Death Investigation to Justify Groin Searches

As reported by Kevin Gosztola in the 17 July Dissenter, a panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals stayed Judge Royce Lamberth's ruling overturning a search protocol at Guantanamo that included groin searches of detainees as much as four times in a single day.

Key to the panel's ruling was a written declaration by JTF-GTMO's parent command (SOUTHCOM) top officer, Marine General John F. Kelly. See detailed press coverage of the legal issues at The Public Record, the Miami Herald and the Washington Post, as well as a new report by the UK charity Reprieve, which details the controversy over the hunger strikes and the abusive practices of the Guantanamo military authorities. (Reprieve attorneys represent a number of Guantanamo detainees.)

Kelly's declaration presents a dishonest picture of the reasons underlying the changes in search protocols, and other policies, at Guantanamo in recent months. He does, however, note that the reason for the changes was the purported suicide of Adnan Latif last September, in addition to a more recent purported discovery of a stash of prisoner contraband. Kelly points out, an Army investigator found that Latif's death was due to an overdose of the antipsychotic medication paliperidone, also known as Invega.

The SOUTHCOM report was declassified and released thanks to a FOIA request from Jason Leopold, who also wrote a deep analysis of it for Al Jazeera. My own analysis of the report was posted at The Dissenter on June 29. An NCIS investigation into Latif's death has not been completed.

Kelly uses Latif's death to spin the conclusions from the SOUTHCOM report, conducted under Army regulation AR 15-6, to make it appear that Latif died because he was able to hide medications in his groin area. He ignores other conclusions and facts enumerated in the report. Let us look at what he says and what the report says.

What Contributed to Latif's Death?

According to Kelly's declaration, the AR 15-6 report "found that Latif hoarded medications and ingested them shortly before he was found unresponsive. Several factors, to include the prohibition against searching a detainee's groin area contributed to the ability of Latif to hoard the medications. The report found that the prohibition against searching a detainee's groin area created 'extraordinary opportunities for detainees to conceal contraband should they choose.'"

Kelly cites a recommendation in the report to reconsider the search policy that prohibits guards "from conducting searches of the area from the waist to above the knee of the detainees."

The declassified report had actually redacted the information about the groin searches, including the recommendation cited, so I am grateful to Kelly for updating us. But he artfully elides much of the content of the report, with the effect that the issue of groin searches is given much more weight than it deserves. The recommendation on searches, for instance, never is mentioned in the reports Executive Summary.

Kelly also gives tremendous credence to the testimony of Col. John Bogdan, the commander of Guantanamo's Joint Detention Group, which runs the prison. This is problematic because the AR 15-6 report blasts Bogdan's regime.

Even more, the report suggests that there was more to Latif's death than has been heretofore suggested by any military source. In the end, the report's conclusions, its failure to seek testimony from other prisoners, and its failure to recommend any accountability measures, mar the work fatally. But as is often the case, the devil we seek is in the details, and those do not bear out Kelly's claims. (I would like to know also where Kelly got the time reference that says Latif ingested the drugs "shortly" before he died. That's not in the declassified section of the report.)

According to the SOUTHCOM report, written by an anonymous "objective senior officer in the rank of Colonel," a number of factors were implicated in Latif's death. Among the various factors listed in the report's Executive Summary none of them included failure to adequately search prisoners.

The Executive Summary lists the following issues (emphases added):

* Guards and medical personnel "repeatedly violate" Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

* Guards failed to follow "line of sight" and medication SOPs, "and failed to take remedial measures after ISN156 [Latif] appeared to be sleeping an unusual amount of time. Medical personnel also violated the medication SOP

* Latif's ability to hoard medications (if we accept that is in fact what happened) was due to "inconsistent JDG [Joint Detention Group] and JMG [Joint Medical Group] SOPs" with respect to medication administration; "confusion on the part of guards, corpsmen, leadership (camp, JDG, and JMG) regarding what the SOPs require; and failure to follow medication administration SOP requirements

* Flawed training and procedures for medical personnel.

* The JDG commander (Col. Bogdan), and the JMG senior leadership (presumably including its Commander, Captain Richard Stoltz and Senior Nurse Executive), seemed "largely removed from several aspects of what is going on at the tactical level at the Behavioral Health Unit/Detainee Hospital and the camps.

* Poor communication by leadership "to ensure that their respective detainee operations practices and policies are consistent and synchronized."

* Failure of JTF-GTMO leadership to implement previous recommendations after other detainee deaths.

Later in the report, the SOUTHCOM investigator cites the various failures noted above and directly states, "These failures contributed to the death of ISN156 in that they permitted ISN156 to hoard medications" (p. 66) Nothing similar is said about hiding or hoarding medications in one's private parts. Instead, the report notes various failure to follow SOPs as contributory to Latif's death, as when guards failed to act when Latif supposedly used food to obscure the camera lens used to observe him electronically.

Perhaps General Kelly would like to explain to the full D.C. panel of judges why a more rigorous and intrusive search policy is necessary after Latif's death when the hoarding of drugs is not attributed to search policy in the investigatory report (at least the part publicly released, and summarized without redaction in the Executive Summary). Instead the report attributes the death, at least in large part, to failure to follow SOPs, lax discipline, poor coordination, and an out-of-touch or negligent leadership.

Who Wrote the Email Predicting Latif's Death?

All of that would be damning enough -- indeed, Leopold's article described how the AR 15-6 investigation found that a "widespread breakdown of safeguards" and a "systemic breakdown" contributed to Latif's death. But the report describes other incidents that are not fully explained, and indicate we do not yet have the full story about Latif's death.

The narrative around the failure to maintain the line of sight surveillance of Latif -- an order that encompassed both direct (eyeball) and electronic line of sight observation -- is never adequately explained in the report, seemingly because the crucial sections are highly censored. Indeed, even investigators may have been stymied in finding the truth, as the report notes how a failure by the Watch Commander "to make the line of sight entries into [camp database] DIMS as required by SOP.... did make it difficult after the fact to re-create the immediate events leading up to the point that the guards found ISN156 unresponsive."

In addition, while we know that drugs were simply left in Latif's cell tray (or "splashbox") the day he died, supposedly he never took those drugs as he had already overdosed. But the report notes this kind of SOP violation (leaving drugs unsupervised for a detainee) may have occurred numerous times before. "Similar failures by medical staff over time, to follow the SOP may have contributed to ISN156's ability to hoard medications," the report states.

All of the above would be more than enough to throw grave doubt upon the conclusions of the report, but we also must consider the fact an internal email warning that if Latif was moved he would commit suicide was sent to Col. Bogdan on September 7, 2012 -- the day Bogdan ordered Latif's move from the detainee hospital to a isolation punishment cell in Guantanamo's Camp V. (A medical officer okayed the move at Bogdan's request, even though, as it turned out, Latif suffered from pneumonia and never should have been moved, no matter what his psychiatric condition.)

The report states on September 7, "around 1400, a [one word redaction] analyst from the [four or five word redaction -- possibly Behavioral Science Consultation Team?] arrived with a Force Protection Report indicating [one word redaction] was saying that ISN156 was suicidal and was going to kill himself. [One or two word redaction] recalled asking the analyst whether he knew what method ISN156 intended to use to kill himself. The analyst indicated that he did not know and followed up the exchange with an email."

A footnote notes it was this very warning that prompted the order to place Latif on both direct and electronic line-of-sight surveillance.

The report continues (p. 20): "the JTF-GTMO Cultural Advisor ([three or four words redacted]) also received the same Force Protection Report, in a high priority email at 1430 on 7 September 2012. [One or two words redacted] forwarded the email to COL Bogdan, [two or three words redacted] (the Deputy JDG Commander), and others in a high priority email, adding that 'pushing 156 to the corner never works to our advantage.' COL Bogdan indicated he was not aware of the email until sometime the following day, Saturday."

Elsewhere in the report, returning again to the 7 September "high-priority" email, the report continues: "Although COL Bodgan did not receive the email until the following day, he stated that it would not have affected his decision to transfer ISN156 to Camp V, because ISN156 was known to make 'melodramatic' statements. In this instance, COL Bogdan acted reasonably as he had to address the frequent misconduct by ISN156. On balance, the suicidal ideation did not stand out compared to any of the other instances" (p. 64).

But SOUTHCOM's own report suggests otherwise. Indeed, just how many "high-priority emails" were sent to COL Bogdan or his predecessors warning of a detainee's suicide? It's also worth noting that other news reports describe Latif saying camp authorities were pushing him "towards death every moment." Latif also complained to his attorney David Remes that guards were leaving contraband in his cell by which he could hurt himself. To my knowledge, no investigation into this charge has ever taken place.

SOUTHCOM must release the relevant emails and indicate exactly who sent and received them.

Conclusion

There are other aspects to the Kelly declaration that do not fit what SOUTHCOM'S own investigators found. For instance, Kelly says that he discussed changing the search protocols with Bogdan after he arrived at Guantanamo in November 2012. But the AR 15-6 report stated, "The OIC (Officer-in-Charge) of teh BHU/DH and Camp Iguana indicated that COL Bogdan called the Camp OICs into his office on 24 September 2012 to discuss a modified search program and an implementation process."

We don't know if Bogdan addressed that in his own declaration to the court on the search issue, and Kelly's own declaration ends with a plea to the court not to release Bogdan's statement. Jason Leopold has filed a suit for the release of Bogdan's declaration.

For many years now the military, including its authorities posted to Guantanamo, have shown themselves unable or unwilling to be truthful about events. It seems likely that the SOUTHCOM report went as far as they are generally willing to go to issue criticisms, yet even then it remains what Latif's attorney called it, "a whitewash." It is worth reminding ourselves that no officer in charge has ever been held accountable for promulgating a policy of torture or abuse of prisoners.

We don't know what really happened to Adnan Latif. Congress seems totally uninterested in pursuing it. Mainstream reporters cover mostly the government's spin. Progressive bloggers have abandoned the subject nearly entirely. Human rights attorneys battle on, but fatigue and demoralization lie ahead if the American people continue to ignore the pressing issues of abuse and non-accountability. In an age when domestic drones are operating in U.S. skies, and hunger strikes and onerous conditions of imprisonment spread within U.S. borders, the fight over Guantanamo isn't about only Adnan Latif, or the 166 detainees remaining at the prison, half of whom languish though cleared for release, it's about the fight for human dignity and the rule of law.

Originally posted at The Dissenter/FDL

Book Review - Against Their Will: The Secret History of Medical Experimentation on Children in Cold War America

It's been 15 years since author Allen Hornblum's landmark book on unethical human experimentation in U.S. prisons, Acres of Skin, was published. His new book, written with co-authors Judith L. Newman and Gregory J. Dober, is a worthy follow-up to the earlier book. Against Their Will: The Secret History of Medical Experimentation on Children in Cold War America should become a standard work in the fields of medical ethics and history of science. It has received favorable reviews by the Associated Press, the Boston Globe, the Spectator," and other publications.

Against Their Will is an extraordinary work, a plea for humanist ethics in science and medicine as against political and economic expediency. It takes us into even darker places than Hornblum's earlier book as it examines the long history of unethical experiments done on children in America. Hornblum and his co-authors trace the hideous practice of using children, even infants and pregnant women, as guinea pigs, back to the ideology of the eugenicists in the early 20th century.

Ostensibly practicing science in the heroic mold -- science was to cure all of mankind's ills -- doctors and scientists turned to the youth warehoused in orphanages, children's homes and hospitals as apt subjects for medical and other experiments. The children, who could not make any informed consent, were often labelled "feeble-minded," or were children with Downs Syndrome or cerebral palsy, or were just too poor and illiterate to make any fuss. Their parents often were not notified of the experiments, or they were overtly or subtly coerced to give consent.

The result was a series of experiments in hospitals and children's homes -- like Vineland, Willowbrook, or Wrentham -- seeking cures or treatments for pellagra, ringworm, hepatitis, diphtheria, and any number of ills. But the experiments wreaked untold and possibly still unreported havoc on the young children involved. One child subject the authors interviewed years later in adulthood insisted that some victims at Fernald State School in Massachusetts were "buried out there in paupers' graves... They killed them" (p. 146). Some of the experiments involved treatments for birth control, including use of forced sterilization and castration.

The children used as experimental subjects were often deliberately infected with diseases, and then given experimental treatments (many quite dangerous), or even no treatment at all, the better to observe the natural course of the disease for science's sake. Dr. Albert Kligman, a key figure in Hornblum's Acres of Skin, reappears in this new book, deliberately introducing ringworm fungus into experimentally induced wounds on retarded children, and withholding treatment to observe the course of the disease.

Between the early negative eugenics inspired experiments and the later use of children as experimental subjects, the monstrous example of Nazi science and bizarre and deadly medical experiments cast a shadow across the subsequent decades. Hornblum et al. describe the rise and rapid fall of the Nuremberg protocols, which were generally ignored by U.S. doctors and scientists. These professionals eviscerated the ethical commands around informed consent. One doctor, associated with the Army Epidemiological Board, is quoted as criticizing "the Nuremberg specter", which drives out "rational approaches" to using children as human subjects in medical research (p. 66).

But as the title of the book suggests, it was Cold War exigencies that gave medical and scientific researchers seeming carte blanche to conduct experiments on children (and prisoners, and elderly patients, and even prostitutes' clients), and all in the name of national security and protection from communism. Hornblum and his co-authors do an excellent job in explaining this complex history, and showing how the Department of Defense, the Atomic Energy Committee and the CIA funded experiments, including use of electric shock and LSD.

The book describes the work of noted child researcher Lauretta Bender, known for her famous Bender Gestalt Test, taught to generations of psychologists, who used both electric shock and LSD on children deemed schizophrenic or behaviorally disordered. Many of these experiments were reported in medical or psychological journals, discussed at public conferences. (Hank Albarelli and I explored some of this history as well in a 2010 article at Truthout.) In the Cold War environment that prevailed, few saw any problem with using children this way. Few objected they represented a vulnerable population.

The authors repeatedly show that these kinds of experiments were not isolated instances of medical or scientific malfeasance, but were part of science's mainstream culture. A radiation experiment on children conducted at the Wrentham State School for "feebleminded" and "defective boys" in Massachusetts, where children were injected with radioactive iodine, "was coordinated by researchers from Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Boston University School of Medicine, and it was supported by the Radiological Health Division of the US Public Health Service" (p. 145). Behind the Cold War and eugenicist rationalizations, the authors demonstrate that careerist ambitions and stubborn narcissistic self-aggrandization were contributory causes to the sorry history they describe.

The revelations surrounding such celebrated cases of medical experimentation -- especially the Tuskegee experiments on African-American men and the Radiation experiments by the AEC and others -- led to the rise of more stringent ethical safeguards and the rise of institutional review boards, and some of the worst practices fell into disuse. Yet the authors document use of medical or psychological experiments on children even into the 1990s. They warn, as well, that much of the experiments on children have been placed off-shore, to other countries with less oversight, far away from the prying eyes of U.S. media.

This is a hard book to read. Not because it is difficult to read. On the contrary, it is quite well written. It is hard because the subject matter is so harrowing. The character of Albert Kligman loomed over most of Acres of Skin, and to a certain extent, helped unify that book. While Kligman briefly is mentioned in Against Their Will, the new book has no such unifying figure. Instead, there is a long list of doctors and scientists whose practices are made understandable by linking them to the larger themes around eugenics and the aims of the Cold War.

There is a happy myth propagated by educators and the media. It begins with the horrors of Nazi medicine -- of Mengele and the Nazi concentration camp doctors, of euthanasia and inhumane experiments -- and ends with justice at Nuremberg, and the formation of humane ethical protocols recognized by all humanity. The truth, however, is sadly quite different. The Tuskegee experiments turn out not to have been an abherration.

Whether it was the U.S. amnesty to the Nazi-like doctors of Japan's Unit 731, or the kinds of experiments Allen Hornblum has described in U.S. prisons, orphanages and state hospitals, or the recent revelations of post-World War II U.S. Public Health syphilis experiments on illiterate women in Guatemala, or even revelations about the "battle lab in the war on terror" that was experiments on interrogation and torture at Guantanamo, the reality of what was revealed at Nuremburg challenges our myth of being a "civilized" or humane world.

I imagine this book took a lot out of its authors. I imagine it will powerfully affect its readers as well. It should. When such reaction to terrible crimes and callous disregard for human welfare, especially for those most powerless among us, disappears, then we should be very, very afraid.

[Full Disclosure: I spoke briefly with Allen Hornblum during the period he was researching Against Their Will, and am listed in the Bibliography as someone interviewed for the book. Truly, my contribution was miniscule, speaking with Mr. Hornblum for a few hours one evening, and exchanging some emails. Still, I wish to state for the record that no one associated with this book made any input into this review, nor did I receive anything for writing it. I did, however, receive a free review copy of the book from the publisher, but without any formal agreement I would write any review of it.

This review has been expanded from an earlier review posted at Amazon.com.]

Crossposted from MyFDL

New DoD Report Details Nightmare Leading to Gitmo Detainee's Death

In response to a September 2013 FOIA request by Jason Leopold filed with the Department of Defense, U.S. Southern Command released an official Army Regulation 15-6 investigation into the "facts and circumstances" surrounding the September 8, 2012 death of Guantanamo detainee Adnan Farhan Abd Latif.

The tenor of the report is captured in the fact that after the report's first page, Latif is almost never referred to by name but only as a number: ISN156. Additionally, the stressors of indefinite detention, "forceful cell extractions" (beatings), isolation, and other forms of abuse and torture are practically never mentioned, while camp medical authorities are quick to label the young traumatic brain injury victim someone who is personality disordered and antisocial.

Last December, U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) stated that Latif died from a suicidal overdose of a prescription drug, complicated by acute pneumonia. The current report details what drugs were found in Latif's body, and provides the military's version of the events surrounding the Yemeni detainee's death.

The report states that 24 tabs of the antipsychotic drug Invega, or paliperidone, a drug similar to risperidone, were found in the dead man's stomach at the time of his death. Latif was given two tabs each day of the powerful antipsychotic (one tab of 6mg, one tab of 3mg), supposedly for agitation related to manic states of bipolar disorder.

Other drugs were found in his system as well, including another antipsychotic drug, Seroquel. Both drugs are known to cause a cardiac condition that can lead to dangerous heart arrhythmias, and even cardiac arrest, especially when combined as they were. There is no mention in the report of the possible effects of mixing and changing these drugs. Other drugs found in Latif's body included the powerfully sedating antidepressant Remeron, the antidepressant Celexa (which he was supposedly being weaned from), the tranquilizer Ativan, and various painkillers, including Percocet and codeine.

The report confirms that there was an attempt to switch Latif to monthly injections of Invega, "administering the medication against ISN156's will," as the report puts it. The plan was submitted to a "Healthcare Ethics Committee" at the Naval Medical Center in Portsmouth, Virginia. The committee approved the plan in late August 2012, but it appears the changeover to injections had not taken place before Latif died.

Contradictory SOPs, Lax Enforcement

The report confirms statements reported in a Truthout article by Jason Leopold last January that "long-standing standard operating procedures" (SOPs) at Guantanamo were not being followed or enforced.

But the report goes farther than that and states that differences between how SOPs are formulated between Guantanamo's medical and detention/guard commands cause confusion among camp personnel. The report cites failure to adequately train personnel, failure to hold anyone accountable for not following standard procedures, and failure to do anything about this even when similar problems were specified in earlier reports as needing remediation.

The lax protocols on drug administration were particularly dangerous, as drugs would at times be left out on trays and it was not observed if Latif had taken the drugs or not. The report hints Latif was not alone as the recipient of such lax methods. Still, portions of the report that describe how Latif could have hidden drugs despite searches, were heavily censored. The same censorship affected portions of the report that described what happened with the so-called line-of-sight surveillance of Latif the day he died.

The report describes a health care and guard-detention regime at the Cuban-based US military base that is unprofessional, sloppy, confused, and subservient to military command. But even worse is the Joint Task Force - Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) command, who failed to implement what SOUTHCOM investigators described as "many of the required changes identified in previous detainee death investigations."

The failure was fatal to Adnan Latif, a traumatic brain injury victim falsely labelled a terrorist, and only years later cleared for a release that never came. Instead, it seems, his conditions of confinement and despair over ever being released led him to make numerous suicide attempts and suicidal statements, and carried him into the far reaches of psychosis.

Poor medical practice surely played a role as well, as the report noted that an outstanding request for Latif's records for his head injury from Jordanian authorities remained unmet at the time of his death.

Latif's bizarre and obscene behaviors under the stress of incarceration were known to be too difficult for guards to long witness. "Another guard noted it was 'horrible' to be on line of sight duty for ISN156" because of behaviors so awful or strange they were redacted in the report.

The stress induced on Latif must have been incredible. Beyond the interrogations and the torture, this new report details that he was "moved from camp to camp over 67 times." In other words, his living quarters were changed on average over two times a month for ten-and-one-half years! SOUTHCOM felt it had to address this, and stated (without any supplied proof) "the moves themselves did not contribute to the detainee's death." But they were less sure about the final move, the third move for Latif in the two weeks before his death.

Bogdan Orders the Move

When Latif was told to return to Alpha Block in Camp V, an unnamed detainee told them it would result in Latif committing suicide, due apparently to bad experiences Latif associated with a previous incarceration there.

Instead of raising concerns, the report states Col. John V. Bogdan, the Commander of JTF-GTMO's Joint Detention Group, requested Latif be moved from the Behavior Health Unit at the Detainee Hospital to Camp V for "discipline" three or four days before the Senior Medical Officer and an unnamed official (though most likely either Latif's psychiatrist, psychologist, or primary care doctor) had planned a return of the beleaguered prisoner to a communal section of Camp V.

As the report describes it, on the morning of September 7, the day before he died, Latif refused his medications. He reportedly was quite unhappy because his portable urinal had been taken from him, because in throwing it, he had supposedly splashed a guard with urine. Furthermore, there allegedly had been a long history of such behavioral infractions.

So on the morning of September 7, Latif wrote a note to the Watch Commander that "[redacted]" (from the sense of the report his psychiatrist or another female medical official) was "'rushing him towards death' and that she was the 'cause of the problems in the detainee hospital.'" Latif asked the note be sent to Col. Bogdan.

The report does not say what the Watch Commander did with the note, but that same morning, Col. Bogdan contacted an unnamed medical official (again, I surmise the psychiatrist, but it could have been a different person) and asked "whether there was a  medical or psychiatric reason that would prevent ISN156 from serving his discipline time" right away. Seeming to bow to the pressure from a senior officer, the unnamed medical officer responded that Latif's behavioral infractions were "'very volitional behavior' and there was "no psychiatric reason" to prevent ISN156 from serving his discipline time."

Nevertheless, the report also cites a "Force Protection Report" an "analyst" brought to officials the afternoon of September 7 "saying ISN156 was suicidal and was going to kill himself." Apparently, JTF-GTMO's Cultural Advisor got the same report and sent it to Bogdan "and others" in "a high-priority email." Bogdan supposedly never saw it, but indicated to investigators that even if he had it wouldn't have made any difference to him.

Meanwhile, both medical and guard personnel were so worried about Latif's transfer to a solitary cell in Camp V's Alpha Block they took special precautions to move him in such a way "so as not to alert other detainees of ISN153's pending transfer."

The SOUTHCOM investigators stand by Bogdan's decision. "In this instance, COL Bogdan acted reasonably as he had to address the frequent misconduct by ISN156. On balance, the suicidal ideation did not stand out compared to any of the other instances."

Missing Data, "Emergency Medication"

The report notes Latif was put in his cell under line-of-sight surveillance, including by closed circuit camera. According to the report, Latif smeared food to cover the camera lens, but nothing was done about this. Two other detainees in Camp V were reportedly able to see right into Latif's cell, but there is no indication that they were interviewed by Army investigators, leading Latif's attorney to call the new Army investigation "a whitewash." (A separate investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service is still said to be underway.)

According to the AR 15-6 report, confusion over how to implement the line-of-sight protocol, due to lack of training and a generally lax attitude about following SOPs with detainees, and especially with Latif, "contributed to the death of ISN156." Unremarked by mainstream press accounts thus far, the report also notes a disturbing failure to enter crucial data into the Detainee Information Management System (DIMS) the day of Latif's death, even though there is a specific SOP that governs the entry of such data during line-of-sight observation.

No guard stated they saw Latif take medications. They also thought it was strange, in retrospect, that Latif would be sleeping for 12 hours or more.

But elsewhere in the report, investigators describe an August 2012 incident when a period of reported agitation by Latif led to a forceful takedown with "emergency medication." This consisted of three shots, one each of the tranquilizer Ativan, the antipsychotic haldol, and the sedating antihistamine Benadryl, which is applied to counter the negative side effects of the haldol.

Last year a DoD Inspector General report on the drugging of detainees, also released to this author via FOIA, detailed the use of "chemical restraints" upon detainees, and it is likely that such "chemical restraints" and the "emergency medication" used on Latif are one and the same thing.

In any case, the new report describes how Latif "slept from 12 to 14 hours" after the "emergency" sequence of injections. So it is possible guards had good reason not to find it so strange that a detainee might be asleep for 12 hours or more after such chemical "discipline."

The report also details how the final "downward spiral" for Latif began after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the reversal of his habeas appeal for release in June 2012. Latif was "furious" and "saying 'crazy stuff'" after a phone call with his attorney David Remes, who broke the terrible news to him. Yet this insight by the military investigators is saved for a footnote, while medical authorities describe the depressed prisoner as "manipulative" and "wilful," a behavioral management problem for the guards.

What About the Pneumonia?

In December 2012, an official SOUTHCOM statement concluded, "Mr. Latif died of a self-induced overdose of prescription medication. The medical examiner also concluded that acute pneumonia was a contributing factor in his death."

But in the new SOUTHCOM report, while the cause of death is specified as "paliperidone [Invega] toxicity resulting from an overdose," the autopsy is now described as saying the Armed Forces Medical Examiner "is uncertain to what extent the acute pneumonia contributed" to Latif's death. Accordingly, the report never asks or comments on how Latif was shifted from the Detainee Hospital to solitary confinement in a disciplinary cell in Guantanamo's Camp 5 without anyone noticing he had "acute pneumonia."

The medical regime at Guantanamo appears to reproduce the worst kinds of practices of U.S. managed care. So while the report states the Camp V Officer-in-Charge told investigators she fields "five to seven Code Yellows per week" -- that is, "a potentially life-threatening medical condition requiring an immediate response" -- the Detainee Hospital does not staff doctors on weekends. Latif died on a Saturday.

In a final strange aside to the Army's report, it's revealed that "coincidentally" Latif's mother died on the same day as her son. The report does not state her cause of death.

Originally posted at The Dissenter/FDL