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Diffing Guantanamo Bay SOP Manuals
James Hardine writes "The Washington Post is reporting that Wikileaks has released another manual for Camp Delta, Guantanamo Bay together with the US military's rendition operations manual. This release follows from the Wikileaks release of the 2003 SOP Manual as discussed on Slashdot last month. Wikileaks compares the two manuals (2003, 2004) and reveals damning changes in official US detainee policy in exquisite detail. Who knew that diff could be such a powerful political weapon?"
In my last job, I'd pull word docs through antiword and then diff them; usually contracts for salespeople who got these fuckers from other parties and wanted to make sure none of the language had changed. Very quick and powerful indeed.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Here we say that these people are the worst of the worst then try to send them to their home countries who either don't take them back (they've already been labeled a pariah but the U.S.) or they grant them a full pardon if tired in civilian courts.
I don't agree with this sort of treatment, but what should we do with them now? It's a bit late to say don't let it happen in the first place. We have a large group of people pissed off at the United States and with good reason. If we let them go and their home countries won't take them back, where should we put them?
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
c. Utilize six MPs, including one MP with a shotgun, per detainee bus.
is now
c. Utilize six guards, including one guard with a shotgun, per detainee bus.
Every instance of MP was changed to "guard". I guess it sounds more friendly.
Help! I've fallen in a karma hole and I can't get up!
One thing that caught my eye is that "MP" was replaced with "Guards".
Could be nothing; they could be using other military personnel who aren't MPs as a form of staff augmentation ( i.e. Navy MAAs, USAF security police, et. al. ). Could be contractors, FBI agents ( kinda doubt it, but hey, why not? ).. just people without the MP MOS.
Not sure if it qualifies as "damning", but did seem interesting.
A Human Right
What horseshit, nice titles and such. Please post your damning evidence, why it is damning, and whom it is damning to. There is a new program where you can "bring a Gitmo guy to breakfast", should be popular with the US is bad , buys trying to blow us up good crowd.
If they're guarded by Military Police, then the likely logical argument that follows is that they're prisoners of war. If they're guarded by guards, then who can really say what they are?
We can't tolerate any suggestion that they might be prisoners. They're detainees. We barely acknowledge that they're human beings.
That's SOP in the Bush administrations' "War on Terra".
"exercise as punishment is prohibited."
... :)
Okay do 500 pushups and tell me that isn't punishment. Run 20 miles with no water and tell me that isn't punishment.
Actually excessive exercise is a pretty effective form of torture. There is a line between torture and punishment. Three days in solitary confinement is a punishment. Six years could be torture. Being given 20 push ups to do is punishment for a solder. two hundred
For the average Slashdot reader two push ups might be a violation of their human rights
I am actually pretty conservative but torture is wrong.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Which "limp-wristed" responses are you referring to? The ones where the Republican congress and conservative media shouted "Wag the Dog!" over and over to force him to stop attempting to kill Bin Laden?
After all, shooting rockets into Afghanistan to try blow up known terrorist training camps had nothing to do with Clinton trying to protect America - it was all about distracting people from his blow job.
..the "damning" changes.
Policy will now be reviewed every 30 days instead of 120 days.
New rules:
1. Comply with all rules and regulations. You are subject to disciplinary action if you disobey any rule or commit any act, disorder, or neglect that is prejudicial to good order and discipline.
2. You must immediately obey all orders of U.S. personnel. Deliberate disobedience, resistance, or conduct of a mutinous or riotous nature will be dealt with by force. Be respectful of others. Derogatory comments toward camp personnel will not be tolerated.
3. You may not have any articles that can be used as a weapon in your possession at any time. If a weapon is found in your possession, you will be severely punished. Gambling is strictly forbidden.
4. Being truthful and compliance will be rewarded. Failure to comply will result in loss of privileges.
5. All trash will be returned immediately to U.S. personnel when you are finished eating. All eating utensils must be returned after meals.
6. No detainee may conduct or participate in any form of military drill, organized physical fitness, hand-to-hand combat, or martial arts style training.
7. The camp commander will ensure adequate protection for all personnel. Any detainee who mistreats another detainee will be punished. Any detainee that fears his life is in danger, or fears physical injury at the hands of another person can report this to U.S. personnel at any time.
8. Medical emergencies should be brought to the guards' attention immediately. Your decision whether or not to be truthful and comply will directly affect your quality of life while in this camp.
(nothing in there seems particularly onerous. Aside from #2, it wouldn't make a bad set of rules for any school in the US.)
(stopped reading because I have better things to do)
I'd rate this -1, Overrated. It's a bunch of clarifications, seems to me as much for the detainees' benefit as anyone.
-Styopa
There's good reason to doubt. Maybe it's all a conspiracy to make us completely unsure of what's real.
Here are some reasons to doubt news stories:
http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/37/9592
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36694-2005Mar15.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21490838/
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article621189.ece
Major news outlets carried falsified stories in order to gauge citizen reaction. Of course, the catch-22 is that if you feel that the above stories might be fake, we're in the same boat--not knowing what to believe.
After all, shooting rockets into Afghanistan to try blow up known terrorist training camps had nothing to do with Clinton trying to protect America - it was all about distracting people from his blow job. As a non American, I think it's appalling that both the Republicans and the Democrats make these sorts of comments about foreign policy when they are out of office.
In the UK we have a tradition of bipartisanship over this sort of stuff - it's something which the opposition is briefed over and is normally exempt from political sniping, unlike domestic issues which are fair game. Like most UK stuff it's not official - the two halves of the establishment essentially have an agreement not to argue in public about things that seriously threaten them. It works pretty well in practice though - in WWII when the UK was in dire danger of invasion they agreed form a coalition government, suspend elections, lock up Nazi sympathizers, censor the press and have a planned economy. Once the war was won all this was reversed and elections were held, which Churchill lost. Arguably in the London bombings there was at least some hint of this - the shoot to kill policy by the police was bipartisan and when it killed the wrong person and was thus clearly untenable the decision to stop it was also bipartisan. But counter terrorism policy is still something which is handled by a sort of hypervisor composed of Labour and the Conservative front benches and the spooks rather than by the normal adversarial system where they each compete and criticise each other openly.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
On US Interrogation (sadly I cannot find the SF field manual): http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/18779prs20041207.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_interrogation_techniques http://www.americanthinker.com/2004/10/torture_as_an_interrogation_te.html http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1212197,00.html http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/16/washington/16cnd-formica.html http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/080305I.shtml http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=1227&id=893492006 On the US School of Americas: http://www.soaw.org/ On Secret US Prisons: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1237589,00.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/01/AR2005110101644.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4461470.stm http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/12/19/afghan12319.htm http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/12/19/afghan12319.htm http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/64/22567 Now why is this important? Since the US keeps these prisons in secret locations which are never disclosed, the international red cross is never permitted to inspect them. Therefore, any sort of interrogation and torture technique used is carte blanche.
- Arrest and abuse everyone, regardless of evidence.
- Turn the hearts and minds of the people utterly against you.
- Have vastly more people become terrorists in outrage at the complete disregard for due process that you're demonstrating.
- Now you have far more terrorists. Which makes catching them even easier.
See how much easier it is to fight criminals when you ensure there are far more of them to catch? It's like shooting fish in a barrel. One is hard to hit. Pack the barrel to the brim and you're bound to hit something.It was only under our foolish return to the rule of law and acting with honour again by the late 90's that we had largely stopped outraging the populace. We had far fewer people responding to our behavior and becoming terrorists and found that the population no longer supported the terrorists' actions and no longer offered them safe houses. Do you know how hard it is to catch a terrorist when there are hardly any left?! It was a complete disaster! 3. Please explain why you can mistreat people just because they aren't U.S. citizens. I believe the administration's preferred term is "undermenschen"
Wearing a distinct uniform is not a requirement under the Geneva convention!
But aside from that, under what authority is the US detaining these "illegal combatants"? What justification do they have for not telling them what they're accused of and for not giving them a fair trial? If it's so certain that they have broken the terms of the geneva convention then try them as war criminals. It's about basic human rights.
It's fun to watch actual interviews of him, where he discusses the purpose behind the colbert character. He says he does not let his kids watch the show because he doesn't want them to get the wrong idea.
In the US there used to be a tradition whereby ex-Presidents did not criticize current Presidents. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have thrown this out the window, repeatedly criticizing President Bush. /. makes that seem unlikely.
I'm not saying Bush is above criticism, but the era of 'working together' on foreign policy is over. Even Harry Reid is ignoring the evidence of the current surge in Iraq actually working and instead saying it's a failure because it doesn't meet his expectations, whatever those are in his capacity as a representative of Nevada.
Sadly, since they tried to tag Viet Nam as "Nixon's War" (despite Dick not getting involved until it had been going on for almost 6 years) foreign policy has been extremely volatile in the US.
I was hoping that when the Baby Boomers died we would have a return to common sense.
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