This is the fourth in a series of special reports by Scot Crawford on the Rumsfeld interrogation protocols in action.
Click here to read the introduction
GOING GITMO PART IV: BISCUITS FROM SCRATCH
In the Going Gitmo series, the Shackle Report is exploiting the “travocities” going on at Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility. “Travocity” is a combination of travesty and atrocity, the key features of US detainee policies as reported most recently by Jane Mayer in The New Yorker February 27, 2006, and by Gitmo lawyer, Thomas Wilner in The Los Angeles Times.
BACKSTORY:
In Part III of this series, “Lights Out”, we met Doctor Duress (DD), the leader of the BISCUITs (Behavioral Science Consultation Team) who was sent to Gitmo to assist in interrogating detainees. After learning that a recalcitrant prisoner is afraid of the dark, Duress had the penetrating idea of turning out the lights in the prisoner’s cell. Impressed with DD’s ingenuity, the IO (Interrogating Officer) has taken the doctor’s suggestion and gone off to breakfast with him, leaving a Pfc to guard the detainee.
Scene:
The full BISCUIT team has now arrived and they are about to continue the interrogation. They are standing outside the cell where the detainee is being held.
IO:
Ok, Private, did the Afraid of the Dark treatment work?
Pfc:
No, sir. He’s just been standing there in the dark not saying anything.
IO:
Damnit to hell! See Doc, see what we’re dealing with?
DD:
I do indeed. Have you tried making him stand up for hours at a time?
Pfc:
Well, yes, sir. We had him stand for four hours at a time before, but that didn’t make him talk, either.
DD:
Well, four hours isn’t much. Many people who aren’t vicious terrorists stand up for eight to ten hours in the normal course of their lives. Like Donald Rumsfeld, for example.
Pfc:
He’s not shackled to the ceiling, though. Yet.
IO:
Cut the attitude, private. Let’s get down to business. Private, meet the rest of the Biscuit team. We have Dr. Justin Volpe…
Volpe:
Ehhhhhhhhhhhhy, ‘ow we doin’ ‘ere, boy?
Pfc:
Fine, thank you, sir. Um, are you the Justin Volpe, the NYPD cop who got sent to prison for sodomizing your prisoner with a broomstick?
Volpe:
Dat’s me! I took courses inna joint, an’ I got my degree in Interrogation Psychology. Itsa brand-new branch uh duh science. Itsa beeyooteeful ‘ting! It’s weird, but I found my true callin’ in jail. I wadn’t cut out ta be a cop, anyways. Dat wuz da whole trouble.
IO:
And here is the other member of the team, Dr. Lynndie England.
England:
Hi.
Pfc:
Hello. You’re a doctor?
England:
Like, I am now. They put me on trial, but then I started crying, and my lawyer pointed out that, like, lots of government officials get promoted for screwing up, so they made me a doctor. Plus, I have lots of experience humiliating people.
Pfc:
Everyone in America, for instance.
DD:
Ok, team, are we ready to do no harm, like the Hippocratic Oath says?
Volpe:
Oh, baby!
DD:
Now, it seems nothing works with this detainee. Not the Sissy Slap Glove treatment, not the Afraid of the Dark treatment, not the Dance Instruction Technique, not even pissing on the Koran. So, what I would like to try next is the Missing his Mommy treatment. It would be easier if we could just torture him, but the United States doesn’t torture people.
Pfc:
It’s torturing me.
England:
How do you know he misses his mommy? I want to know, because, like, I’m a brand new mother myself, and I would want my kid to miss me.
Pfc:
You would have to be nice to him for a while first.
England:
Oh, boy. That could be like, a problem.
DD:
We know he misses his mother because she told me he always gets depressed and violent when he’s away from her. It’s called “separation anxiety”, and it’s often accompanied by abandonment issues. There are those who speculate that the entire terrorism problem boils down to those two things.
Pfc:
Well, sir, and also, last week he curled up in a ball on the floor naked, sucked his thumb, and said “I miss my mommy” over and over.
DD:
Hmmm. That could be a clue, but not necessarily. People are complex. He could have been trying to give false information.
IO:
Right, doc. They’re trained for that. One of ‘em had us on a wild goose chase for days when he told us he had to use the toilet.
Volpe:
“I miss my mommy.” Jeez, what a fuckin’ dothead mook.
DD:
I believe these people are “towelheads”, doctor. You see, a “dothead” would refer to a woman of Hindu faith, where the dots, known as a “bindi”, symbolize female energy…
Volpe:
No shit, doc? I t’aught it was so you knew where to shoot ‘em. Badabing!
DD:
Ahem. Well, nevertheless, my academic instinct is telling me that we must exploit his abandonment issues regarding his mother via this infantile sucking activity the private mentioned.
Volpe:
Ehhy, I know! When I wuz in jail, we useta play dis game wit boyz dat din’t wanna cooperate. We called it “suck on my joint or I’ll beat your fuckin’ head in”.
DD:
Brilliant. I should go to jail. Apparently, you don’t learn everything at Harvard.
England:
I’ll do it! I haven’t sucked on a joint since I got pregnant in Iraq. I can’t figure out how that happened…
DD:
Well, Lynndie, it works like this…
Pfc:
I’m dying…
IO:
Quiet private. Remember the medal I promised you. Let the masters work this through. You’re getting all of this in the log, aren’t you? And remind me to send Rummy a memo about these non-torture methods. They should go in the new How Not To Torture People manual. We have to give something to the press to get those liberal pansies off our backs.
DD:
The question is, my oh so esteemed colleagues, how do we tie the Sucking on the Joint technique, to the Missing his Mommy treatment?
England:
Maybe we should save the Missing his Mommy thing until after he has his lunch. That way he’ll be, like, really vulnerable because usually mothers feed their kids and everything…that’s like, the way I do it…
Pfc:
That’s a start, doctor. Well, the problem with that is, he’s on hunger strike. We’ve been shackling him to a chair and feeding him with a tube. I’m not sure you can really call that lunch.
IO:
But he gets to choose the color of the tube, and the tube is halal, so you know, it’s not like we’re being insensitive.
DD:
Oh, excellent. Did he show any appreciation for that?
Pfc:
Not really, sir. Can’t see why not.
DD:
These people are very strange. Are they even human? We’re charting new territory. I’m getting so excited. We should set up a control group to make sure we get this right, and then I can publish.
England:
I’ve got it! I’ll, like, dress up in a burqua and go in the cell with him and pretend to be his mother, okay? And I’ll be all nice to him and everything, and then, like, just when he’s starting to think I’m really his mother, I’ll strip naked in front of him, and one of you can run in and start fucking me up the ass! But wear a condom ’cause, like, I don’t wanna get pregnant again. Then, somebody can point at his dick when he gets hard, and somebody else can take pictures, and we can send them to his real mother!
Volpe:
Eehy, I’ll fuck you up da ass wit my broomstick! Dey give it back to me wit my diploma.
IO:
People, I think we can safely say that this long war just got a little bit shorter.
England:
Hey, does anyone want a signed copy of my book: “Every Picture Tells a Story: One Woman’s Life in the Army”?
Pfc:
I’m going insane.
DD:
Maybe we’ll try that tomorrow, private. But, thank you for the suggestion.
(Thudding noises in the background.)
IO:
What the hell is that?
(a soldier rushes into the room.)
Soldier:
Sir, they’re shelling the compound!
IO:
What?! Who?
Soldier:
The Cubans!
IO:
Finally! Return fire, soldier! People, I think we can say this war just got a little bit longer…hoo-rah!
NOTE: This is the last episode in this series about Gitmo. The author has become alarmed about the mild, vulgar streak this issue has aroused in him. He’s decided to turn his attention to less provocative issues, like abortion.
—Scot Crawford
_________________________________________________
click here for previous scene — "Off the Chain — Going Gitmo III"
Off the Chain — Going Gitmo — Intro
