April 20, 2007:
Once again, Hollywood has gotten it
wrong while portraying the issues and
methods used at Guantanamo Bay. This time, the offending show was
"Criminal Minds" on CBS. In a sense, this mess had some good points,
but what the show got wrong is not only worth noting, it also reveals some bad
news on another front.
The good news is that the show accurately portrayed
the terrorists in custody at Guantanamo Bay. There have not only been threats
made to interrogators and officers by detainees, but guards have suffered over
400 attacks, many of which involved bodily fluids. The episode also showed the
need for the detainee facilities at Guantanamo Bay by having plot where the
Americans had force a terrorist to
provide information needed to thwart a biological warfare attack. That said, what
the show got wrong outweighed it. Many of the methods used, both by the
military interrogators and the FBI personnel are not permitted. This included
the denial of food and drink, denial of information on how to pray (including
the direction of Mecca), and physical assaults.
What makes getting it wrong in that episode so hard
to understand is the fact that it would have been very easy for the writers and
producers of the show to get things right. The U.S. Army has a manual for their
interrogators, which discusses a lot of these questions in detail. It explains
the purpose behind interrogations (usually to get information about future
offensive or defensive military operations). It should be noted that these
techniques also work when getting information for the purpose of preventing
terrorist attacks. The Department of Defense also had a website that covered
the issue, and it has been known to assist Hollywood with major motion
pictures.
What is also worth noting is that al Qaeda manuals
instruct members to falsely claim torture if they are captured. Other
entertainment portrayals, including an episode of "Law and Order: Criminal
Intent", do not even mention this. Nor have they mentioned the fact that
many of the other charges of abuse from human rights groups have been found to
have no basis in fact. They also neglect to mention the fact that at least a
dozen detainees that have been released have gone back to fighting with al
Qaeda.
While Guantanamo Bay has been the subject of
criticism, it has worked pretty well. In many cases, this intelligence acquired
has given the United States information on how al Qaeda is organized, where
some al Qaeda cells are, and on future operations. The inaccurate portrayals of
Guantanamo Bay by various TV shows also has an effect. It not only makes other
media misreporting of Guantanamo Bay believable, but it also leads to pressure
on politicians to prematurely end the use of the facilities there. - Harold C.
Hutchison ([email protected])