In the U.S., there is a tendency to be blind to solitary confinement, and deprivation tortures. There is some odd sense that depriving a prisoner of light and dark distinctions, or of sleep, or locking them in a cell that is cut off from all other prisoners with no access to sunlight isn’t by itself inhumane. Or that all prisoners start at square one when it comes to abuse. So we get these very strange situations where neither the prosecution nor the defense sees something that requires immediate attention as the prisoner degenerates. All prisoners held for 6 years without charge aren’t equal.

Even Geneva makes this distinction, for civilians, for instance, it bans torture and inhumane treatment outright, but only stipulates that the legitimacy of the detention be revisited every six months (it bans “close confinement” of more than 30 days, too).

(that’s a genuine question, your response leads me to believe there is some reason? These acts are not all about lawsuits some of them are about criminal prosecutions, so I don’t understand about the remedies part, please inform)

One of them is also the man I described in the discussion with Hina Shamsi that Christy Hardin Smith moderated the other day, Sabar Lahmar, who is, for all intents and purposes, wasting away and dying at Guantanamo. The results of the solitary confinement and other deprivations on him are that he has lost the use of his legs to neuropathy, and is pretty much incommunicate with the outside world (he lies on his mattress and stares). I had written about him here, and Human Rights Watch wrote about him here, and Emily Bazelon of Slate wrote about him here a long time ago. I think he has a good case for the Torture Victims Protection Act, the War Crimes Act and the Torture Act. I don’t see any reason why just getting him released would be adequate, given that he was innocent from the beginning.

This sort of criminal conspiracy requiers the active cooperation of a large number of people at all levels of the military and the government. Each and every one of them should be found, tried, convicted and jailed for these outrages against humanity.

Will Obama have the balls? I dont know. I voted for him this morning, I hope that I will not be regretting that choice.

Gov had been using as “evidence” for quite some period of time information from an FBI interview with a US prisoner, Enaam Arnaout. The lawyers – our DOJ lawyers, floated that info to the court as credible evidence.

Indeed, as the lawyers for the detainees disovered, Mr. Arnaout had even petitioned in his proceedings for leniency in sentencing bc of all the cooperation he provided to Gov. Oddly, about the time that the lawyers for the detainees were making that discovery and a few days before they were supposed to be allowed to interview Mr. Arnaout, gov went in and hastily withdrew that FBI interview info.

See, it turns out that back when Mr. Arnaout had petitioned for leniency in sentencing, gov had objected to leniency, telling the court in Mr. Arnaout’s proceedings that Arnaout’s “cooperation” had all been a pack of lies.
Got that?

What gov had argued to a court in one proceeding were lies, gov was putting under seal and speaking about ominously and mysteriously as “evidence” of terrorism in another proceeding. Once some real lawyers showed up who were going to expose the fraud on the court, the “evidence” was withdrawn.

No harm, no foul, move along.

Some of this you wouldn’t make up. That one reminds me of the bipolar chef held for years in isolation. Years In Isolation. Bc “some guy” (who got paid $$$$) told “someone” that the bipolar chef ran, yes RAN, an al-Qaeda training camp during xyz. Once a real lawyer actually got involved, it was pretty damn easy to prove that the bipolar chef had been working and making souffles in Mayfair when he was supposed to be in Afghanistan.