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As a practicing criminal defense trial attorney, I’ve seen a lot of grim pictures in my day — photos of crimes, of bodies cut open for autopsies, of gaping wounds. I’ve visited taped-off police scenes just after the crime was committed and sidestepped blood from stabbings and shootings. But last week I saw something I’d never seen before that both moved me and made me sick — line drawings of a person being tortured, penciled by the torture-victim himself. While the drawings were basic and the technique primitive, they speak volumes about the horrendous acts our government permitted against people perceived to be its enemies. They also show how far our country went, post-9/11, to justify unjustifiable acts in the name of patriotism and the quest to stop terrorism.
The drawings were done by Abu Zubaydah, an alleged terrorist captured in 2002, who is still being held by the U.S. in a detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
When his drawings were declassified (a surprise in and of itself), Mark Denbeaux, a professor at Seton Hall University School of Law, contacted Zubayah’s lawyers and, with his students, wrote a 95-page report titled, “How America Tortures.”
The report (which includes the drawings and notes from the prisoner) is a grim look at the codification of torture, officially making legal “enhanced interrogation techniques.” From the moment the “high value detainee” is captured, he is made to feel the sting of his apprehension. In Zubayah’s case, when he was moved by plane to his eventual place of detainment (the “rendition”), he was shackled like cargo to the plane floor. Earmuffs, blindfolds, and a hood were placed over his head for sensory deprivation. He wore a diaper because he was not permitted to use a bathroom.
Once interned at a “black site,” he was waterboarded, sleep-deprived, beaten, exposed to loud noise, kept naked and cold, then caged in a box so cramped, even getting into a fetal position was difficult.
According to the report, Zubaydah had already been interrogated by the FBI, who were satisfied that he told them all he knew, when he was picked up by CIA agents and brought first to a black site in Thailand for further questioning. The CIA had no handbook for enhanced interrogation at the time so contracted two psychologists experienced in training special military-op forces to withstand enemy torture.
Although Zubaydah was waterboarded several times a day, up to 86 times in all, kept from sleeping for weeks, and made to stand on a badly injured leg for hours with his hands cuffed to an overhead bar, he gave no new information. According to the report, “Other personnel at Detention Site Green were ‘profoundly affected’ by what they saw in the interrogation sessions, sometimes ‘to the point of tears and choking up.’”
The report leads to many questions: Who are the people assigned to inflicting such harm on a fellow human being? What do their consciences say? Do they extract such pain for “love of country,” or are they prompted by something darker like sadism or blind revenge?
One of the main goals of terrorism is to destabilize the democratic underpinnings of the system under attack. Terrorists want to cause chaos and fear. By upending systemic safeguards for those charged with crimes (that means all crimes, including terrorism), ignoring the presumption of innocence, and willfully causing others harm, we hand terrorists a victory. We’ve upended our system of law.
The drawings are not only revelatory about what Zubaydah underwent but also provide a window into how our system willingly turned its back on process and order.
Torture doesn’t work. It might elicit information, but by its nature, that information is suspect. Meanwhile, our humanity and values have been compromised for questionable, if any, gain.
While the drawings are hard to look at, it’s our obligation to do so and make sure that every prisoner, no matter the charge, never undergoes such treatment again.
Toni Messina has tried over 100 cases and has been practicing criminal law and immigration since 1990. You can follow her on Twitter: @tonitamess.