One of the most striking qualities of the abuses detailed is the interrogators' attentiveness to disrupting or making use of religious symbols and practices. One interrogator boasted of allegedly forcing detainees to listen to "satanic black metal" music for hours, then dressing as a Catholic priest and "baptizing" the detainee. Female interrogators are reported to have placed their dampened hands on detainees' faces while they were praying, rendering the men impure for prayer (Islamic prayer is preceded by ritual ablutions), which they would then stop.
The American focus on religious practice surely stems from the basic American premise in the Global War on Terror: that religious ideology is at its heart, and that we are entwined in a clash of civilizations. But just as surely, the United States is helping to manufacturethat clash by distilling conflict into religious terms. Pope Benedict's speech at Regensburg University last fall raised fury among Muslims everywhere, with its suggestion that Muslims are incapable of progressing beyond faith to more mature "reason."
What do we suppose the entire world will make, then, of this parody of salvation against the backdrop of a Guantanamo interrogation room: in which religious faith--Islamic and Catholic—is mocked, and reason, the human capacity to act on the basis of considered logic, is absent?
The Torture related documents released by the ACLU are available online to the public.
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