TIME Magazine Decides to Get Back in the Business of Reporting
And yet another '20th Hijacker' gets the old what-for...
By Brad Friedman on 6/12/2005, 4:21pm PT  

Attention Parents of the Men and Women of America's Armed Forces!

You have nothing to worry about! Should your sons and daughters be captured and held captive by enemies forces, the example that has been set for their treatment by our government will serve as a model for the humane treatment they can expect to receive!

As Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) repeated over and over again on today's Fox "News" Sunday, the "honey-glazed chicken" they may receive on Sundays (UPDATE: David Edwards caught that too, here's video, RealPlayer or Windows) will more than make up for the rest of the humane treatment we have shown prisoners that America holds captive in Gitmo and elsewhere around the world. All of which is condoned by the U.S. Military, and, specifically, by Sec. of Defense, Donald Rumseld.

We are certain that this excerpt from this week's TIME magazine, as reported by RAW STORY will put you at ease...

On Dec. 2, Rumsfeld approved 16 of 19 stronger coercive methods. Now the interrogators could use stress strategies like standing for prolonged periods, isolation for as long as 30 days, removal of clothing, forced shaving of facial hair, playing on "individual phobias" (such as dogs) and "mild, non-injurious physical contact such as grabbing, poking in the chest with the finger and light pushing."
...
After the new measures are approved, the mood in al-Qahtani's interrogation booth changes dramatically. The interrogation sessions lengthen. The quizzing now starts at midnight, and when Detainee 063 dozes off, interrogators rouse him by dripping water on his head or playing Christina Aguilera music. According to the log, his handlers at one point perform a puppet show "satirizing the detainee's involvement with al-Qaeda." He is taken to a new interrogation booth, which is decorated with pictures of 9/11 victims, American flags and red lights. He has to stand for the playing of the U.S. national anthem. His head and beard are shaved. He is returned to his original interrogation booth. A picture of a 9/11 victim is taped to his trousers. Al-Qahtani repeats that he will "not talk until he is interrogated the proper way." At 7 a.m. on Dec. 4, after a 12-hour, all-night session, he is put to bed for a four-hour nap, TIME reports.
...
...on Dec. 7: a medical corpsman reports that al-Qahtani is becoming seriously dehydrated, the result of his refusal to take water regularly. He is given an IV drip, and a doctor is summoned. An unprecedented 24-hour time out is called, but even as al-Qahtani is put under a doctor's care, music is played to "prevent detainee from sleeping." Nine hours later, a medical corpsman checks al-Qahtani's pulse and finds it "unusually slow." An electrocardiogram is administered by a doctor, and after al-Qahtani is transferred to a hospital, a CT scan is performed. A second doctor is consulted. Al-Qahtani's heartbeat is regular but slow: 35 beats a minute. He is placed in isolation and hooked up to a heart monitor, TIME reports.

...Over the next month, the interrogators experiment with other tactics. They strip-search him and briefly make him stand nude. They tell him to bark like a dog and growl at pictures of terrorists. They hang pictures of scantily clad women around his neck. A female interrogator so annoys al-Qahtani that he tells his captors he wants to commit suicide and asks for a crayon to write a will.
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Five days later, Rumsfeld's harsher measures are revoked after military lawyers in Washington raised questions about their use and efficacy, TIME reports.

As an aside, according to TIME, the prisoner referred to above, Mohammed al Qahtani, is believed by U.S. officials to be the "so-called 20th hijacker".

That would apparently be in addition to Zacarias Moussaoui, who is also believed by math-and-truth-impaired U.S. officials to be the other "so-called 20th hijacker".

No word on whether the 25 or so "War on Terror" prisoners, whose deaths in U.S. prison camps have been ruled as homicides, were also the 20th hijacker or not.

(For more information on the many 20th hijackers, Google can help.)

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