June 6, 2015, Happy D-Day
On this, the 71st anniversary of the invasion of Normandy, the Grey Lady treats us to this account of the newly declassified saga of torture absorbed by so-called "high value [Guantanamo] detainee" Majid Khan. Rather than paraphrase, I'll just give you the gory details from the report:
Soon after his capture, Mr. Khan said, interrogators waterboarded him twice, a contention that contradicts the Central Intelligence Agency’s claim that it had already named all detainees who were subjected to that practice. (The C.I.A. has denied that Mr. Khan was waterboarded.) As he was moved among a series of C.I.A.-operated “black sites” over the following months, Mr. Khan told his lawyers, the torture continued. He was beaten repeatedly. He was hung naked from a wooden beam for three days, shackled and starved. He was taken down once during that time to be submerged in an ice bath. Interrogators pushed his head under the water until he thought he would drown. He received what he called “violent enemas,” and was anally assaulted in a process the interrogators called “rectal feeding.”
Yes, this is what the brave men who risked (and all too often, gave) their lives fighting the Nazis on the beaches of Normandy were fighting for. Comments? I got nothing.