3 ms·
One of the most disturbing stories that I don't hear mentioned is of Sean Baker, who was working undercover for the USAF as part of an attempt to gauge the abus
by 75j 10y ago
One of the most disturbing stories that I don't hear mentioned is of Sean Baker, who was working undercover for the USAF as part of an attempt to gauge the abuses at Guantanamo. Baker was beaten by the guards so badly that he got a serious brain injury.
"In January 2003, Baker was ordered by an officer at Guantanamo to play the role of a prisoner in a training drill. [...] The soldiers in the reaction force were operating under the impression that he was a genuine detainee that had assaulted a sergeant. [...] Although Baker shouted out the safeword ("red") he had been given to stop the exercise and stated that he was a U.S. soldier, the soldier continued beating Baker's head against the floor and choking him. Only after he ripped his prison jumpsuit in the struggle, revealing that he was wearing a battle dress uniform and government-issue boots underneath, did the beating stop."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Baker_(soldier) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Baker_(soldier)
- johnchristopher 10y agoHow were the soldiers of the reaction force supposed to know the safe word? The article doesn't mention anything about working under cover to gauge guantanomo abuses. It says it was a drill exercise for handling uncooperative prisoners.
- 75j 10y agoOi... wrong about that it looks like. I could swear I read something a long time ago about this that said it was at least part of an internal investigation, but maybe not. He was a veteran of the USAF and a military policemen at the time, and one of the higher officers asked him to do the drill apparently.
- proksoup 10y agoSeems pretty cruel to me. Would be nice if we had some sort of standards or guidelines or laws against this sort of treatment of prisoners. Would one need a safe word at all if we did?