Pain can be fun -- if you're a sick bastard who works for the government

As part of its Guantanamo Testimonials Project, the Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas interviews guards, prisoners, investigators, interrogators, physicians and others about the conditions that prevailed at the U.S. detention center at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Among those interviewed was Specialist Brandon Neely, a military policeman stationed at Camp X-Ray. There's plenty to be horrified about in the United States government's treatment of prisoners held as terrorism suspects, but the following struck me in particular because of its casual, purposeless nature:

I talked about the detainee who came to Camp X-Ray wounded from a .50 caliber. His bicep had attached to his forearm due to the fact his arm was in the sling for so long. I escorted this detainee to medical a couple times for physical therapy as he could not bend his arm down at all. On one occasion, when I escorted him there the medic began to massage the area that was attached and he keep rubbing harder and harder to the point the detainee started to cry and squirm all over the bed. The medic stopped massaging and started to stretch the detainee's arm down a little at a time. You could tell this was very painful and uncomfortable for him. The medic said "You really want to watch him scream." Then he stretched the arm all the way down until it was straight out on the bed. The detainee started screaming loud and crying. The medic finally put his arm back up and did it again. And then he said he was finished with the physical therapy. The whole time the medic just laughed at what he was doing. We then escorted the detainee back to his cage.

Note that pain was inflicted on a disabled prisoner in the course of physical therapy for an injury. The pain served no punishment purpose and there was no intention to elicit information or compliance. The prisoner was abused by a medic for ... fun.

Neely admits to participating in one incident abuse, so he exposes himself to liability with his testimony. He also talks of acts of kindness by some of the guards who pitied the prisoners and were ashamed of conditions at the detention center.

President Barack Obama has promised to close Guantanamo -- in a year. Well, that's a start. So is his promise to "review" detention and interrogation policies, provided that the review results in reforms. We don't need more of the same, which is what we're getting with the new administration's protection of "state secrets."

But official policies are one thing. What do we do about a culture of casual cruelty toward detainees for entertainment prurposes?