The CIA Vault: GITMO
How the CIA's torture at Guantanamo Bay became a giant meme.
Guantanamo Bay detention camp is an infamous American military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. Almost 800 people have been detained there since the prison first opened in 2002. Human rights are more of a suggestion in this tropical paradise, and torture is a pastime. Come on, live a little! Welcome to Guantanamo Bay, baby!
Strawberry Fields
The REAL MAGIC of GITMO is in its indefinite detention policy. Who needs a trial when you can just lock someone up and throw away the key? It's a great way to keep the party going if you think about it. Since I forgot to include it in my Abu Ghraib article, here’s the definition of “ghost detainees” from Major General Taguba’s famous Abu Ghraib report.
33. (S/NF) The various detention facilities operated by the 800th MP Brigade have routinely held persons brought to them by Other Government Agencies (OGAs) [CIA] without accounting for them, knowing their identities, or even the reason for their detention. The Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center (JIDC) at Abu Ghraib called these detainees “ghost detainees.” On at least one occasion, the 320th MP 27 Battalion at Abu Ghraib held a handful of “ghost detainees” (6-8) for OGAs that they moved around within the facility to hide them from a visiting International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) survey team. This maneuver was deceptive, contrary to Army Doctrine, and in violation of international law. (ANNEX 53)
MG Antonio M. Taguba (June 4, 2004). "Taguba Report" (PDF). Department of Defense.
Wow. I don’t know about you, but that was a wild read. Hey, remember how I’ve talked about CIA black sites? Well, it turns out there was a black site at GITMO named Strawberry Fields, supposedly named after the Beatles song “Strawberry Fields Forever”. Sounds delicious!
Let me take you down
'Cause I'm going to strawberry fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry fields forever
“Strawberry Fields Forever”, 1967
Penny Lane
Hey, guess what? Turns out that there was a SECOND black site at GITMO named Penny Lane, after ANOTHER Beatles song from the same album. Man, the CIA really loves their pop culture references! However, this place was a little different. Penny Lane was used for holding captives who were considered double agent training material. The idea was to train them up and let them loose to infiltrate terrorist organizations like al Qaeda, the Taliban, etc, and spy on them on behalf of the CIA. To sweeten the deal, the captives were given better living conditions.
The CIA promised the prisoners freedom, safety for their families and millions of dollars from the agency’s secret accounts.
It was a risky gamble. Officials knew there was a chance that some prisoners might quickly spurn their deal and kill Americans.
For the CIA, that was an acceptable risk in a dangerous business. For the American public, which was never told, the program was one of the many secret trade-offs the government made on its behalf. At the same time the government used the risk of terrorism to justify imprisoning people indefinitely, it was releasing dangerous people from prison to work for the CIA.
Penny Lane: Gitmo's other secret CIA facility. AP. Nov. 2013.
Surfs Up, Dudes!
Something that's sure to get the party started is waterboarding. Imagine someone strapping you down and pouring water on your face to make you feel like you’re drowning. It’s been described as "torture" by a bunch of dumb nerds.
Bottoms Up!
Let's not forget the force-feeding of hunger-striking detainees. Nothing screams "American values" like shoving a feeding tube up someone’s anus or down their throat. Who cares if it’s not medically necessary and carries major health risks? The CIA really knows how to party!
BONUS: IT’S JUST A PRANK, BRO!
Back in 2003, US Army soldier Sean Baker was ordered to pose as a prisoner during training exercises at the GITMO prison camp. Unfortunately for him, the riot squad thought he was the real deal. Despite repeatedly yelling out the designated safeword (“red”), he was beaten so badly that he suffered a traumatic brain injury AND seizures. Oopsie!
Sean’s injuries were so bad that he eventually received a medical discharge in 2004. He went on to tell his story to a reporter in Kentucky. He also tried to sue members of then President Bush’s cabinet like then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for $15 million in damages AND reinstatement into the US Army, but a 1950 Supreme Court decision prevented him from doing so.
"I was assaulted by these individuals," says Baker. "Pure and simple."
Locke gave Baker a code word – red - to shout out in case of trouble. From under the bunk, Baker heard the extraction team coming down the causeway. In sworn statements, however, four members of the team said they thought they were going after a real detainee.
"My face was down. And of course, they’re pushing it down against the steel floor, you know, my right temple, pushing it down against the floor," recalls Baker. "And someone’s holding me by the throat, using a pressure point on me and holding my throat. And I used the word, ‘red.’ At that point I, you know, I became afraid."
Apparently, no one heard the code word ‘red’ because Baker says he continued to be manhandled, especially by an MP named Scott Sinclair who was holding onto his head.
"And when I said the word ‘Red,’ he forced my head down against the steel floor and was sort of just grinding it into the floor. The individual then, when I picked up my head and said, ‘Red,’ slammed my head down against the floor," says Baker. "I was so afraid, I groaned out, ‘I’m a U.S. soldier.' And when I said that, he slammed my head again, one more time against the floor. And I groaned out one more time, I said, ‘I’m a U.S. soldier.’ And I heard them say, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa,' you know, like he wanted to, he was telling the other guy to stop."
Bloodied and disoriented, Baker somehow made it back to his unit, and his first thought was to get hold of the videotape. "I said, 'Go get the tape,'" recalls Baker. "'They've got a tape. Go get the tape.' My squad leader went to get the tape."
Every extraction drill at Guantanamo was routinely videotaped, and the tape of this drill would show what happened. But Baker says his squad leader came back and said, "There is no tape."
"That was the only time that I heard that a tape had gone missing," says Riley, Baker's platoon sergeant.
"Of all the tapes, this was probably the most important one that we should have kept," adds England.
Baker started having a seizure that morning and was whisked to the Naval Hospital at Guantanamo. "[He looked like] he'd had the crap beat out of him. He had a concussion. I mean, it was textbook," says Riley. "[His face] was blank. You know, a dead stare, like he was seeing you, but really looking through you."
Baker was airlifted to the Portsmouth Naval Medical Center in Virginia, where doctors determined he had suffered an injury to the right side of his brain. He was released after four days, and Baker says he requested to go back to Cuba.
"I wanted to go back and perform my duties," says Baker. "I wanted to be back with my unit."
Baker got back to Guantanamo, and hoped no one would notice he was having seizures, but they got to the point where he says he couldn't hide them: "I was shaking and convulsing around people."
Some days, he says, he was having 10 to 12 seizures per day.
What does he think would have happened if he had been a real detainee? "I think they would have busted him up," says Baker. "I've seen detainees come outta there with blood on 'em. …If there wasn't someone to say, 'I'm a U.S. soldier,' if you were speaking Arabic or Pashto or Urdu or some other language in the camp, we may never know what would have happened to that individual."
Baker was finally taken off Guantanamo and sent to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he was put in a psychiatric ward. His diagnosis: traumatic brain injury. After 47 days, he was ordered to report to a medical hold unit at Fort Dix, N.J. But the seizures continued.
"He was shaking all over his whole body. It just looked like he was -- you ever seen 'The Exorcist?' That’s what it looked like. It was pretty freaky," says Spc. Sean Bateman, who saw Baker. "He had plenty [of seizures]. I can't count them all is pretty much what I'm saying. He had some so often, it was pretty much expected."
Testimony of Sean Baker. The Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas (CSHRA). UC Davis. 3 Nov. 2004.
Bon Voyage
Both Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane have long since been shut down, but the party doesn’t have to end. Despite past moves to close the camp, former President Trump kept GITMO open indefinitely. As of February 2023, 32 detainees can still be found at GITMO. Speaking of which, some idiot got caught working with Al-Quaeda, got shoved in GITMO for 16 years, and was tortured by the CIA. He was finally released this year and transferred to Belize. Will GITMO ever be fully closed? Maybe, but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.
Thanks for reading.