At Guantánamo Bay, Torture Apologists Take Refuge in Empty Code Words and Euphemisms

The accused were escorted into the courtroom by guards wearing gloves made of blue latex. The men were placed in seats one behind the other in five rows next to their lawyers. The sixth row was empty, but a chain was still attached for shackling a defendant to the floor.
Welcome to Guantánamo Bay, where an unused shackle is a small reminder of the abnormal fusing into the normal, nearly two decades after the first prisoners of the “war on terror” began arriving here. The defendants now are not chained, and they appear for court in clothing of their choice, often camouflage jackets or traditional garments worn in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, or Yemen; there are no more government-issued jumpsuits.
At the U.S. naval base that hosts the extraordinary military commissions for the prosecution of post-9/11 detainees, a view of the Sierra Maestra in the distance is one of the few reminders that you are in Cuba. There’s also a souvenir shop with trinkets that show sites in Havana you can’t drive or fly to from here. This is not that Cuba.
The U.S. military has attempted for years to devise a system for trying the men accused of organizing or aiding the terror attacks against America, but without giving them the benefit of a trial in federal court. This case has dragged on for almost eight years without a trial formally getting underway. There have been 40 pretrial hearings and extended arguments over what evidence can be introduced — and, for instance, whether the word “torture” can be used in relation to the interrogations that took place at the CIA’s notorious “black sites.”
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