posted on Oct, 6 2005 @ 01:45 PM
I think UncleJoe is right . One symbolic victory of sorts is achieved, though---the main purpose of Camp X-Ray was not to gather information, it was
to frighten and intimidate.
Most military folks will tell you that torture and dehumanization are a terrible way to gather information, and that any information obtained through
torture is extremely unreliable. The powers that be at the Pentagon know this, just as they know that most of the people in custody at Gitmo are
totally innocent. If you're bing tortured, you'll get to a point where you will say anything to make the pain stop. If you don't even know the
answers to the questions you are being grilled on, you will definitely say anything.
While the Pentagon denies outright torture at Gitmo, the dehumanizing conditions that we are able to see from the outside are meant to imply that
whatever is happening inside is much worse indeed. The torture that was taking place at Gitmo was for one reason and one reason alone---to intimidate,
not to gather information. The stories released inmates will tell back home, compounded with the images seen on television, send out the beilligerent
message "this is what happens when you mess with the USA. So don't."
The question that follows from that is---what's the point of sending that message? The typical Pentagon or neocon type of answer might be along the
lines of "it projects our strength and will intimidate others from taking up arms against us, thus saving American soldiers' lives down the line."
The truth , in my opinion, is much more sinister---the "brains" in the upper echelon of the military know that these tactics of fear and
intimidation will anger our "enemies" all the more, just like they know that for every mother or father they kill in Iraq or Afghanistan, you get a
family full of kids who will hate this country forever. I think this is what they want! The military industrial complex needs a constant and
ever-growing supply of enemies in order to justify insanely bloated defense budgets, and the safest way to make sure you have enemies, as well as to
know who they are and where they are coming from, is to create them yourself, through your own actions---that way, we never run out of enemies, and we
know (generally speaking) who they are.
So----rounding back to the original point---if there are now laws in place to prevent some of the most egregious abuses we had seen coming out of
Guantanamo, maybe the military will just give up on the whole thing, since the main objective that was served there---intimidation and fear-mongering,
not intelligence-gathering---will now be more difficult to get away with. Chances are, though, that it will continue, since it's probably one of
those laws passed for the purpose of easing public qualms and nothing more, and there may be no intention of enforcing it at all. In other words,
it's pure window dressing.
---Ryan