There’s been some pretty egregious stuff floating around about the detention facility at Gitmo, but a recent blog post at the American Prospect takes the cake. According to the Prospect, the Guantanamo stockade apparently has the same effect on inmates as the Overlook Hotel from The Shining.
The prisoners were, by and large, sane when they arrived, with only 8 percent showing signs of serious mental illness, according to a report about Guantanamo that was written by Admiral Patrick Walsh, vice chief of Naval Operations. This level was significantly lower than the 45 to 50 percent rate of mental illness among individuals in U.S. prisons. However, many of the prisoners seem to be going insane because of their incarceration, wrote Leonard S. Rubenstein in The Lancet, citing reports from lawyers who have visited the prisoners. There are psychiatrists and physicians on the island, but they have not necessarily helped the prisoners heal from their physical wounds and psychological crises.
A military prison which provides top-rate psychiatric and medical care, clean clothes, fresh water, religiously sensitive halal meals, and we’re expected to believe that it’s so horrendous battle-hardened terrorists from one of the most inhospitable regions on earth are going insane from the living conditions? According to the Prospect, yup.
Obama said he will close down Guantanamo by January 2010, but in the meantime the prisoners are still there, with some trying to starve themselves to death as a protest against the conditions at the prison and others going quietly mad.
I was barely able to steady the trembling hand covering my mouth when I read this post. I need a hug.
