The Gitmo prisoners are from a number of sources. Some (perhaps most)
are battlefield captives, others were grabbed in counter terrorist
sweeps. At least a few were turned over to the U.S. military by other
"gov't agencies."


Vito wrote:
Yes. But most people captured on the battlefield or in sweeps or where ever
were either killed or imprisoned locally or freed - each after some sort of
hearing to determine their fate. Only a small percent were sent to Gitmo -
again after some kind of hearing to determine that fate.


I wonder where you heard this. It's never even been hinted at in any
material I've seen or heard.


Consider this, why would we keep prisoners ourselves, if the military
suspects they have info on terrorist operations and/or organization,
when we can hand them over to one of our 3rd world "allies" secret
police who will simply torture it out of them pronto? OTOH since the
Bush Administration endorses the U.S. military torturing prisoners, why
do we need to keep them at all?


Because our "allies" are notoriously inefficient at extracting *reliable*
info out of prisoners.

True, but we do it anyway.


... Our experts use
psychological "torture" (if one can call it that) to get much better
results.


Uh huh.

Would you call letting a large maddened dog chomp at the face of a
prisoner "torture"? How about holding his head underwater repeatedly?
Putting a black hood on him and connecting various body parts to
electric wires? All these, and more, are documented to have been done by
U.S. troops.

That's not to mention the softer, *possibly* legally acceptable methods
of sleep deprivation, humiliation, religious persecution, etc etc.




I suspect a lot of these guys are being held because somebody, somewhere
deep in the belly of some spook ops dept, thinks they will be able to be
'turned' and used as a U.S. counter agent in the future.


That is entirely possible and consistent with the kind of "torture" used.


No it isn't. And I think that any 'cooperation' produced under such
duress is likely to be extremely unreliable.

But this probably doesn't occur to people who brag about blowing up an
entire block of downtown Baghdad, and killing everybody there, in a
failed attempt to assassinate Saddam Hussein. Or people who are in favor
of blowing up houses & cars with drone-launched missiles because
suspected terrorist leaders are suspected to be in there.

However, the guy at the top of this chain of command is a scrupulously
moral chap, he has never once gotten a blow job in his office.

Regards
Doug King