Ungrateful and grumpy

I’ve now read Time magazine’s extracts from the interrogation log. Some of it’s intriguing and unexplained: “SGT A runs ‘love of brothers in Cuba’ approach.” But mostly it’s just creepy.

0320: The detainee refused to answer whether he wanted water. SGT R explained with emphasis that not answering disrespects SGT A and embarrasses him.

With emphasis? And what’s with the passive-aggressive crap? He’s brought in with a hood over his head, bolted to the floor, and told that he’s embarrassing them? It gets stupider:

13 December 2002
1115: Interrogators began telling detainee how ungrateful and grumpy he was. In order to escalate the detainee’s emotions, a mask was made from an MRE box with a smily face on it and placed on the detainee’s head for a few moments. A latex glove was inflated and labeled the "sissy slap" glove. The glove was touched to the detainee’s face periodically after explaining the terminology to him. The mask was placed back on the detainee’s head. While wearing the mask, the team began dance instruction with the detainee. The detainee became agitated and began shouting.

It’s like being interrogated by evil 6-year olds.

Let me quote the Pentagon rejoinder again: “Kahtani’s interrogation during this period was guided by a very detailed plan and conducted by trained professionals”. Somewhere there’s a military manual which takes seven pages describing how to make a smiley-face mask out of an MRE box.

And did Halliburton provide this contraption?