Gitmo operating manual leak

Wikileaks has turned up a copy of a 2003 standard operating procedure manual for the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.

Dakwar sees hints of Abu Ghraib in a section instructing guards to use dogs to intimidate prisoners. He also raises concerns over a section on the International Committee of the Red Cross, or ICRC, which indicates that some prisoners were hidden from Red Cross representatives.

The manual shows how the military coded each prisoner according to the level of access the Red Cross would have. The four levels are:

* No Access
* Visual Access -- ICRC can only look at a prisoner's physical condition.
* Restricted Access -- ICRC representatives can only ask short questions about the prisoner's health.
* Unrestricted Access

Link to Gitmo SOP document PDF, Link to Wired article

• [elpea]

  I just find it interesting that this post only has a fraction of the comments that the Harry Potter/copyright issue does. Sigh.

• [Dave X]

  It’s doubtful I’ll ever need to know any of this information, or even that I’ll understand half of what I’m reading– but it looks interesting nonetheless. A little peek at the day-to-day of a place like this isn’t something you come across all that often!

• [Peterus]

  Thanks for mirroring.

  re up
  These are valid points.
  What about a hypothetical situation in which you choose and:
  - interrogate 2k highest-tier (there were many more captuered, these are selected few) prisoners for 5 years without a trial… and using squished information make Iraq and Afghanistan fairly democratic (let’s say like Turkey) countries.
  - treat captured enemies how Geneva convention regulates (ofcurse they won’t do the same), let many go becouse proof was not strong enough and loose both countries to extreme militiant Islam. You’re saving big chunks of 200 lives of innocent people from current Gitmo and as a bonus hold less innocents in local prisons in Iraq and Afg. Also you get slightly better press (seriously… you’ll get good press again only after Asia starts stomping on European interests… or some other country claims world hegemony).

  After WW2 in conquered Germany many fanatic NSDAP fallowers fought with partisan tactics.
  They didn’t go half as far as Islamic fanatics do now.
  Allies were ruthless.
  Captured could get PoW status if they fought in the open, but sniping or plain clothes were frequently worth instant death penalty and execution. Civilians were commonly repressed for Wehrwolf partisants actions (French go as far as kill 10 civilians for one sniped officer and Russians… burned cities.). Good sniper nests were demolished “just in case”. etc.

  And world accepted this, as a special measure to deal with enemy that screws conventions and goes for terror.

• [Peterus]

  Can’t DL, prolly it’s overcroweded already.

  BTW
  I can’t really get this Gitmo hype.
  One side can hide behind civilans, wear civilians clothing, make no1 target of civilians and police and pretty much aim for CIVIL WAR as a mean to SHATTER THE COUNTRY to win. And… they still got sympathy around the world?!

  I’m Pole. If there’s a nation that knows something about uprising – we’re your men.
  After medieval ended Poland got into internal mess that eventually led us to loss of independace for … 123 years. There were numerous uprisings. After a brief “2nd Rzeczpospolita” we got jumped from both sides and after 4 weaks we were conquered – WW2 started. This didn’t stop us from partisan combat ofcourse and some units continued to fight around the world. After WW2 we were sold to Stalin and had rised again hopefully without too much bloodshead.

  And for terrorists… I’d recommend intensive interrogation with tortures and hanging on the trees.

  Difference between terrorist and partisant is obvious. You can identify latter after you’ve captured him. Combatats of Warsaw Uprising used stolen uniform… with white&red tags! There was no problem to identify if you get civilan or partisan. Ergo no additional risk to civilians.

  Terrorist on the other hand WANT max risk for civilians. The more of them dies the more dumb world community sympathisies with them. This also goes to IEDs or suicide bombers. Most of them could be done in other tactics with comperable damage to enemy and much lesser to civilans.

  And civil war… seriously people just how sick is this?

  What would you do with people like this?
  Or with worst of Afghan Talibs, that also did some civilian shielding on their own?
  I honestly believe they don’t get to be PoWs.

• [cycle23]

  #10 – I think you are confused. This isn’t dailykos. This is the website with unicorns and disney misc.

• [cbarreto]

  Peterus,

  During WWII Dresden was bombed without any reasonable reason… just for the joy of Major Bombing Harris… Major got retired, nobody got sued but that didn’t legitimate the bombing of civilians…

  Perhaps living for a long under Stalinist governments may twist the sense of what is fair and what is wrong. Torturing is wrong. No sensible information can be retrieved under torture. Was it the contrary, France would still be in Cambodia and Argelia and US would not had been forced to leave Vietnam.

  Torture, arbitrary imprisonment and other similar acts only reinforce the terrorists. These actions only create “martyrs” (real or fake ones).

  Democracy relies on principles.

  One principle is that everyone is innocent unless proof in contrary, that everyone have the right to be judged by a proper court, that everyone have the right for a defendant (lawyer), so on and so forth. That’s not the case in Guantanamo and other “secret” prisons (or concentration fields???).

  Other principle is that nobody will be submitted to cruel or inhuman treatment. That’s also not the case in these prisons.

• [Elysianartist]

  The link is not working for me…..anyone else have a WORKING link? Thanks. Oh and Peterus, you.are.an.ass.

• [loginx]

  Peterus, let me explain the hype for you.

  In a typical democracy, a government is elected by its people to represent the people’s core beliefs, ideals and values to the rest of the world, not simply manage the economy and the interior affairs of the nation.

  The USA as a country, during its golden years, has worked very hard to make it clear to the world that the american people’s values and beliefs were in protecting human rights, fighting against injustice and also protecting personal freedom.

  The american people still believe in these values, or so they say, but what their government is doing is actually showing a very clearly different image, one that americans only respect human rights when it is convenient to them, respecting foreign governments when there is economical or political interests to them, etc…

  Gitmo is evidence laid right in front of the american people that their government is representing not the people, but only the personal interest of members of government, who, I think, are only interested in personal gain, and the fact that the american people constantly refuses to acknowledge evidence that their government is corrupt and undermining the US as a nation infuriates me.

• [sirdook]

  Peterus,

  You assume that the people at Gitmo are all (or even mostly) terrorists or that they were taken from the battlefield. In fact many were handed over to the Americans by third parties who were paid bounties; you can imagine why such bounty hunters might not be the most reliable sources as to who was and wasn’t fighting against the Americans.

  In America we used to think it was just in the ‘bad’ countries that someone could be picked up poor evidence and held indefinitely without trial. Gitmo is striking, blatant evidence that our country is willing to engage in those same violations of the most basic of civil liberties – the right of habeus corpus.

• [Geno Z Heinlein]

  Let’s say we know with absolute metaphysical certainty that the prisoners at Guantanamo are irredeemably evil, absolute, gold-plated bastards.

  We’re still supposed to treat those prisoners well, not because the prisoners are the good guys, but because WE are. Idealism carries a cost, but we’re supposed to pay that cost, make those sacrifices, because we are the good guys. We believe in higher ideals, and listen to the “better angels of our nature”. We do the right thing, even when it hurts.

  Don’t we?

• [risser]

  Look, here’s the problem in a nutshell.

  Just because one person does something wrong doesn’t mean it’s okay for everyone to do that same thing.

  For example, if one coward hides behind civilians and commits terrorist acts and beheads captives on video tape, that doesn’t make it okay for everyone (ie: America) to do the same thing.

  Just because they do it, and seem to get away with it, doesn’t make it okay. It’s still wrong.

  And, as the supposed “good guys”, the guys who stand for truth, justice and the American way, we need to be fighting the good fight. And by running prisons where we abuse prisoners, sanction torture and disregard the rights of potentially innocent civilians, we are reducing ourselves to the level of the bad guy.

  Which is wrong. Or, at the very least ineffective, when your whole reason for engaging in the conflict in the first place was the taking of a moral stand against a corrupt dictator and then abusive terrorists.

  It makes it very hard to gain the trust of the world that your intentions are noble when you are behaving ignobly.

• [CataractBob]

  Heres a mirror. http://duggmirror.com/politics/Leaked_Guantanmo_Bay_Operations_Manual/

• [Elysianartist]

  Thanks for the mirror….maybe some other time I will share some up close and personal stories of what is being done in OUR NAME down at Gitmo.