Guantanamo Is Not a Prison

[struggle4progress]

11 Ways to Report on Gitmo without Upsetting the Pentagon
by Karen J. Greenberg
March 09, 2007

...
2. Consistent with not being a prison, Guantanamo has no prisoners, only enemies, specifically, "unlawful enemy combatants." One of my colleagues was even chastised for using the word "detainee" ...

3. Guantanamo is not about guilt and innocence -- or, once an enemy combatant, always an enemy combatant. "Today, it is not about guilt or innocence. It's about unlawful enemy combatants," Rear Admiral Harry B. Harris, Jr.,the Commanding Officer of Guantanamo tells us. "And they are all unlawful enemy combatants." This, despite the existence of the official category "No Longer an Enemy Combatant" which does not come up in our discussions ...

7. Guantanamo contains no individuals -- inside the wire or out. The prisoners are referred to not by name, but by number. The guards and others, even outside the confines of the prison camp, remove the Velcroed names which are on their uniforms, leaving blank strips on their chests where their identity would normally be, or they replace their names with their ranks. Either way, they strive to remain anonymous. They tell us that they fear retaliation against themselves and their families from a presumably all-seeing, all-reaching jihadi network ...

11. Those who fail to reproduce the official narrative are not welcome back. "Tell it the wrong way and you won't be back," one of our escorts warns me over lunch ...

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=80&ItemID=12294

Gives the feel of an official tour ...

[Demeter]

1. Dear God It's Worse Than You Can Imagine!

Thanks for the Post! Kick and Recommend!

[Karenina]

2. It's a CONCENTRATION CAMP!