We'll Hold 'Em Down For You!

By Steve Hynd

Far from being the leading light among nations when it comes to human rights abuses, the new post-Bush motto of the US when dealing with other nations who abuse political prisoners might well be "We'll hold 'em down for you!"

U.S. military personnel at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, actively helped Chinese interrogators question members of China's Uighur minority, including physically restraining them so they could be photographed against their will, according to testimony presented Thursday to a congressional subcommittee.

...Among the Uighurs' claims:

_ U.S. military personnel treated them harshly in the days before Chinese officials visited the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in an effort to soften them up for interrogation.

_ That harsh treatment included keeping the detainees awake, subjecting them to frigid temperatures, and keeping them isolated from one another and other prisoners. All of those techniques were approved for use on detainees by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

_ U.S. soldiers followed Chinese officials' orders to restrain detainees they said weren't cooperating. One detainee testified that an American told him the harsh treatment he'd received after his interrogation had been at the direction of the Chinese.

"They attempted to take my picture; however, I did not agree to this," Ablikim Turahun wrote of his Chinese interrogators. "They called for American soldiers and ordered them to hold me, so that my picture could be taken. The soldiers grabbed me, pulling my beard, pressing on my throat, twisting my hands behind my back, and as a result my picture was taken by force."

Turahun said he was placed in isolation after the interrogations.

"The room was so very cold and dark," he wrote. "During the 20 days, it was very difficult to sleep, because I was not given any blankets or sheets by which to cover myself in this isolation room."

When he asked the guard commander why he'd been placed there, the commander replied that, it was "not his decision, but that of the Chinese delegation who had instructed that I should be put in isolation."

And, when you consider that the Uighurs were all found innocent but are still being held at Gitmo, the actions of the Obama administration should be seen as adding insult to injury:

During the hearing, subcommittee members angrily denounced the Pentagon's refusal to let them travel to Guantanamo to visit Uighurs still detained there, even after the Uighurs had agreed to meet with them.

"I reject any suggestion that the executive (branch) can define what constitutes the congressional oversight. It is not the prerogative of the executive to determine the role of the first branch of government," said Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., the subcommittee's chairman.

"Why do we have to keep secrets from the American people that our enemies obviously know about?" asked Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, the subcommittee's senior Republican.

The Imperial Presidency marches ever onwards.