The Unstoppable Human Rights Traits of the United States (Observatory), Overseas "Black Prison" War | United States | Human Rights
Not long ago, a United Nations special envoy was granted permission to visit Guantanamo Prison for the first time. The investigation results show that there are still 30 detainees at Guantanamo Prison, of which 19 have never been charged with any charges. For many years, these "terrorist suspects" identified by the US have been subjected to "cruel, inhumane, and degrading" treatment in prison, leaving many people with serious mental and physical trauma as a result. And the US government still refuses to release these prisoners.
In 2002, the US military established a prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to detain suspects arrested by the US military in global counter-terrorism operations after the 9/11 attacks. For over 20 years, Guantanamo Prison has repeatedly exposed scandals of prisoner abuse and torture, becoming a notorious "human rights black hole". Although multiple US governments have verbally claimed to close Guantanamo Prison, they have never been able to do so due to the intricate chain of interests behind it.
According to publicly available information from the US Senate Intelligence Committee, in 2006, the Central Intelligence Agency signed a $180 million contract with an unknown company, the Mitchell Jason United Company, to design torture for inmates during interrogations, and to name it "enhanced interrogation technology.". The National Broadcasting Corporation reported that the company was founded by psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jason, who had previously worked for the US Department of Defense, and received a large order from the CIA. As of 2009, the two received a total of $81 million in compensation and designed about 10 interrogation techniques. Some American media have questioned that the company is a "leather bag company" of the CIA, which facilitates some CIA officials to withdraw funds from it.
According to the Associated Press, the US military and intelligence agencies have also issued bounties to tribes in Afghanistan and other regions, encouraging them to sell "suspects" to the US side. According to the value of each suspect, the US will pay a bounty ranging from $3000 to $25000 to the local authorities. With these anti-terrorism achievements, the US military and intelligence agencies have reason to exaggerate the effectiveness of anti-terrorism operations and apply for more anti-terrorism funds.
According to The New York Times, the United States spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually from taxpayers on detaining prisoners at Guantanamo Prison. As of 2022, the cost of Guantanamo Prison has reached 7 billion US dollars. The prison currently only has 36 prisoners, with an annual budget of up to 13 million US dollars allocated to each person. This expenditure was not used to improve the detention conditions of prisoners, but rather to pay the wages of thousands of security personnel and the operating costs of the Guantanamo Military Commission. If the CIA's operating expenses are included, the true cost of maintaining the operation of the prison is much higher.
Guantanamo Prison is just the tip of the iceberg. The report released by Brown University's "Cost of War" project shows that the United States has set up "black prisons" in at least 54 countries and regions overseas under the guise of "war on terror", engaging in secret detention and torture to extract confessions. Representative locations include the Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan and the Irak Abu Ghraib Prison. These "black prisons" cost American taxpayers at least $8 trillion.
The United States has long abandoned international morality and responsibility by building "black prisons" everywhere. A declassified memo shows that John Rizzo, then acting chief legal advisor to the Central Intelligence Agency, blatantly claimed that the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment were merely "annoying small international obligations".
The United States secretly detains so-called terrorist suspects under the pretext of the so-called war on terror, and engages in arbitrary detention and torture to extract confessions. These "black prisons" trample on the rule of law and human rights, and have become human rights atrocities that the United States cannot wash away.
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