Friday, August 5, 2011

Testify, Jeremy!



The only problem with news segments like this is that there is little or no concept of specificity, continuity and universality.

By which I mean: What Jeremy is talking about in this clip -- and he's been going around quite a bit lately on the topic -- is that abuse of captives, including "water torture," is still going on at Guantanamo.

Yes. Yes, it is. It never stopped. What he is talking about is the behavior of the IRF, "Internal (or Initial) Reaction Force," a so-called SWAT Team or riot squad, which is typical of almost every prison and jail in the country. They are trained thugs, brutal, cruel, and sometimes deadly. Their purpose, their function is to break prisoners by physically abusing them, beating them, breaking bones, using chemicals, water, or whatever is at hand. They kill prisoners every now and then. And they always, well almost, get away with it.

They are not unique to Guantanamo. Ask anyone who has been inside a prison or jail, military or civilian.

The IRF or its counterpart is SOP throughout the American prison/industrial complex, and the reports (and videos) of their abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo and elsewhere have been circulating for many years.

Some time ago, Britain's Channel 4 presented a mockumentary called "Guantanamo Guidebook" in which four seven volunteer "prisoners" were put through the routine torture that was at that time documented to occur at Guantanamo based on legal briefs and the testimony of freed prisoners.


TORTURE: GUANTANAMO GUIDEBOOK 1 OF 3 by Top-Notch112

If anything, "Guantanamo Guidebook" was a highly sanitized version of what goes on there -- and what had been going on at Guantanamo since the first captives arrived there.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg of institutionalized abuse of prisoners throughout the US prison system.

It is everywhere. Physical abuse of prisoners is Doctrine. As is the official denial of it.

The sad fact is that too many Americans like it this way. They like official violence and abuse.

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