The War Inside Guantanamo

Flashes of Long Kesh in this article from Gawker on the psychological war between prisoners and guards at the infamous Guantanamo Concentration Camp, as each tries to suborn the other to their cause.

“It’s 2013 and Guantanamo Bay is still open, insanely. Newly released Army documents obtained by Gawker shed light on life inside America’s most infamous prison, where classified documents are burned in coffee cans, American guards are converted to Islam by the suspected terrorists they watch over, and wily detainees wage their own counterintelligence campaigns.

Through a Freedom of Information Act request, Gawker has obtained a cache of documents detailing internal U.S. military espionage investigations conducted at Guantanamo Bay from 2005-2006. These were carried out by INSCOM, the Army’s Intelligence and Security Command. One of INSCOM’s duties is to protect American forces against espionage from its enemies, known in Army parlance as Subversion and Espionage Directed Against the US Army, or SAEDA.

In eight SAEDA investigations released to Gawker, INSCOM investigators looked into accusations that Gitmo guards were improperly providing classified information to prisoners, leaking secret information to reporters, surreptitiously passing messages from detainees to their families, and otherwise fraternizing with the detainees in ways that allegedly rendered the guards susceptible to espionage.

Taken together, the reports offer a fascinating look into the day-to-day operations of the prison at that time, revealing the remarkable extent to which guards interacted with prisoners on a human, peer level.”