the Shackle Report

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

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click here for previous scene — "Off the Chain — Going Gitmo III"

Off the Chain — Going Gitmo — Intro

This is the third 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 III: LIGHTS OUT

Scene:

In Part 2, “The Futility Approach”, the Interrogating Officer (IO) at Gitmo explains to a (Pfc) how using BISCUITs (Behavioral Science Consultation Teams) will help them torture detainees better. BISCUIT leader Dr. Duress (DD)arrives early, and along with IO and Pfc, is standing outside an interrogation cell looking through a two-way mirror at a detainee who is shackled to the floor.

IO:

Hello, Doc, thanks for comin’ down. How’s your room? Is your Direct TV working?

DD:

Oh, yes. I caught “Good Morning, America: Time to Die” before I came over.

IO:

That’s darn good TV. You ready to win this war, Doc?

DD:

Yes, indeed.

IO:

Okay. This guy is a tough one. We tried the Futility Approach, the Sissy Slap Glove, and Dance Instruction, and he just won’t talk. How do we crack him?

DD:

Give me a moment to reflect…do you have a light?

IO:

Sure, Doc. That’s a nice cigar. Cuban?

DD:

Of course. Thank you. It helps me think to have this stinking, turd-like thing in my mouth. Now, I’ve taken the liberty of contacting the detainee’s mother in Afghanistan. At first she wailed and ripped her clothes, but I promised her if she gave us information we’d ask the Afghan men in her village to stop gang-raping her to punish her for letting herself be raped. That got her. She said that the detainee didn’t like to be away from his mother, and that he was afraid of the dark.

IO:

Can we use that?

DD:

Absolutely. Because with a person who’s afraid of the dark, when we want to tap into their deep-seated, unconscious desire to cooperate with someone they loathe and want to kill, we turn the lights off.

IO:

Ah! You go, Doc. You Harvard guys are ok. Some of these grunts down here don’t like having educated people around, because it makes them feel stupid since they never went to college or read a book and they grew up in a corn patch. Isn’t that right, Private?

Pfc:

Well, sir, some of them might…but I worked in a library, and I read a lot…I only went to a community college, yeah, but…hey, excuse me, Doctor Duress, but, um, are you sure it’s okay for you to be giving us advice on how to torture…I mean interrogate…people what with you being a doctor and all? You know, like, the Hippocratic Oath and “do no harm” and all that?

DD:

Oh, yes, it’s fine. The AMA had a big conference about whether BISCUITS were ethical and the final decision was that since we’re not on American soil, partaaaay!

IO:

And it’s a time of war, right? Desperate measures?

DD:

Exactly. When the sovereignty of the United States is threatened, when the entire country could be overrun, and it’s citizens turned into slaves of a Muslim Caliphate ruled by sexually frustrated psychopaths, who we could very well find shitting on the Lincoln Memorial on CNN where the Europeans could see us being humiliated, why, no measures are too excessive.

IO:

You got a real firm grasp of the stakes, Doc.

DD:

Oh, yes. You see, at Harvard they didn’t just teach us how to define reality for the rest of the world from a classroom where we seldom have to engage with it. We also paddled each others asses, carried grapes around in our rectums for a week, and got drunk and gang-raped a girl who was passed out. These things create a special capacity for mutual cooperation, an easy acceptance of personal humiliation, and a unique identification with Islamic laws that allow gang-rape as punishment. Muslims do it sober, though, which is very deep…

IO:

Man. And I thought parachuting into Afghanistan in the dark with orders to shoot to kill everything that moves made you hard. So, what’s our next move?

DD:

I suggest we focus on his Afraid-of-the-Dark problem. If that doesn’t work, we’ll move on to the Missing-his-Mommy issue.

IO:

Great, doc. Let’s do her.

DD:

Ok. Let’s go have breaky with my BISCUITS, they should be here by now. Let’s turn the lights off in the interrogation cell.

IO:

Doc, you baaad….You heard the man, Private. Lights out. Make sure you write down in the log everything our detainee does and says…

Pfc:

Yessir…

_________________________________________________

coming next in the Gitmo series: Biscuits from Scratch

click here for previous scene — "Off the Chain — Going Gitmo II"

Off the Chain — Going Gitmo — Intro

ACLU Reveals Secret Interrogation Project

by Scot Crawford

(Off the Chain temporarily suspends its coverage of the Gitmo situation in order to bring you this special report.)

The ACLU today announced that it has been engaged in a project to obtain information from captured terrorists, unbeknownst to the Pentagon or the State Department.

The project, code named “Operation Be Nice”, was begun in secret in January of 2004, and, according to the president of the ACLU, Ms. Nagabe Lafarza-Smith, has proved an unmitigated success. “We wanted to be sure it would work before we told anyone. Now, we can say without reservation that our methods work. Mr. Rumsfeld? Take a memo!”

The story begins with the capture of a high-level Al Qaeda operative in Pakistan in 2004 by the ACLU’s top-secret, crack kidnapping team, the FLIPPERS, which is an acronym for; Foppish, Licentious, Independent, Pompous, Pious, Educated, Retrieval Squad.

“The FLIPPERS are less well-known than the SEALS, or the Delta Force, but, believe me, they are (more…)

This is the second in a series of special reports by Scot Crawford on the Rumsfeld interrogation protocols in action.

Click here to read the introduction

Click here to read “Going Gitmo, Part I — The Sissy-Slap Gloves Are Off” "Off the Chain — Going Gitmo Part I"

GOING GITMO PART II: THE FUTILITY APPROACH

Scene:

Viewing room outside interrogation cell in which a detainee is bolted to the floor. He is being viewed through a two-way mirror.

IO: (interrogating officer)

Well, son, howdja do with the sissy-slap glove tactic? Did he tell you where he learned to use a box cutter?

Pfc:(interrogating enlisted man)

Um, no sir. He just started crying and shouting incoherently. I don’t think he understood what the sissy-slap glove meant. Like me. And um, then I put on Benny Goodman and tried the Dance Instruction Technique with him like you said, but he kept throwing himself against the door, so I had to shackle him down again.

IO:

Ah. The old “throw yourself against the door” ploy. These men are good. They’ve been trained not to say anything under the harshest duress. Al Qaeda has their own manual for resisting interrogation: How To Resist Talking to People Torturing You. (HTRTPTY) We in the game call it the “Hiterterpity. It’s right snappy to dance to as well.”

continued. . . (more…)

This is the first in a series of reports from the bowels of American foreign policy

by Scot Crawford

Click here to read the introduction

The following is a transcript of a videotape recorded at the Guantanamo Bay Prison Facility, commonly known as GITMO. The tape was obtained by The Shackle Report’s crack reporter, Shaqi the Shackle, who was on assignment in Cuba.

Well, actually, he was vacationing at the beautiful Club Med resort situated outside the fences at GITMO (for info, go to BayofPigsCruiselines.com) and he found the tape on the beach while he was strolling with his morning Mojito.

In order to cooperate with Donald Rumsfeld’s wishes that the video not be broadcast because it depicts Americans doing illegal and repellent things, which could lower self-esteem of the American citizenry, the Shackle Report has agreed to post only the audio portion in print form.

continued. . . (more…)

Travocity Rules

by Scot Crawford

People sometimes ask me; “Scot, why are you so fascinated by torture?”

“Beats me,” I say.

I don’t know why torture fascinates me. It always has, though. As a child, I loved to curl up on my bed of a rainy Sunday, and read accounts of Apache Indians staking white people to the desert sand with wet rawhide that would then dry and cut off their circulation so their hands and feet fell off. Then, the Indians would slit open the whites’ abdomens and pull their entrails out to roast in the sun, and even cut their eyelids off so their eyes boiled in their sockets like eggs.

Eventually, I matured and moved on to the Oz books.

The fascination with torture never left me, though. So, when I saw that my government was using my tax money to torture people at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, I was sucked right back in. I felt like a kid again.

But, my childish enthusiasm notwithstanding, I don’t think my government should torture people, no matter who they are or what they may know. And I don’t think this way on principle. I don’t like adhering to principles, since they so rarely seem to apply to this world, and I don’t object because torture is barbaric, immoral, or degrading to everyone involved. All of that is true, but I’m not squeamish about abusing murderous assholes if some good can come of it. It’s that torture is not ultimately effective.

Okay, if a nuclear bomb is going to destroy NYC in fourteen minutes and the dude you have in custody can tell you where it is, go ahead, cut his eyelids off and boil his eyes. Give it a shot. But I bet it still won’t work, because a man in that position is probably way too convinced of his mission to help you, which is, paradoxically, what you’re asking him to do when you torture him. You’re saying: “Help me. Bet this hurts. Help me.”

Anyway, Keifer “24” Sutherland isn’t in this show. Too bad, because things would work out better if he was on the case.

Also, it’s common knowledge among intelligence personel that when you use torture you get more enemies than useful information. The Israelis say the results aren’t worth the bad blood it creates, and I tend to believe them; I mean, if anyone would know. So I don’t think that my country is torturing people because it is good military and strategic policy. I think it’s because there are a lot of people in the military, bottom to top, who never moved on to the Oz books: They do it because they like it. And because Apaches did it to some white folks, back in the day.

TIME Magazine ran an article in its June 20th, 2005 issue featuring a log US military personnel kept on the interrogation of one of the detainees at Gitmo. The log was like a print version of the Abu Ghraib photos, except that it aroused no public outcry. It should have. The descriptions are appalling, and absurd beyond words. Interrogators used methods like “sissy-slap” gloves, and “Close Proximity of a Female” , (see if you don’t believe me). They also poured water on a the head of a prisoner who was on a food and water strike and called it the “Drink Water or Wear It Game”.

“Game”? The article in TIME reported other twisted, stupid shit as institutionally approved interrogation technique, making all Americans look like twisted, stupid shitheads. The actions of the interrogators are a unique mixture of travesty and atrocity. “Travocity”, I call it. Sadly, “Travocity” isn’t a website that offers quickie travel deals to Cuba.

And I kept running across that same travocity in a series of articles I saw in the NY Times and elsewhere, which reported that the U.S. military was now using people from the healing professions — psychologists and psychiatrists — to help them devise techniques to break the detainees, and that these doctors were called “Biscuits”, for Behavioral Science Consultation Teams, and that there was some controversy within the medical community over whether it violated the Hippocratic Oath to have people who had vowed to “do no harm,” helping with torture. I don’t think there’s a controversy there.

I’m writing these pieces to try to to deal with this increasingly travocitous world, my unwilling complicity in my government’s actions, and my desire to escape culpability, to get “off the Chain.”

. . . go to first episode "Off the Chain — Going Gitmo Part I"

more background via NEWSWEEK’S "Torture Debate"