A Look Inside Gitmo

Horror.

He began the long journey to Guantanamo Bay soon after.

But first there was an inspection and interrogation in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

He says he was stripped, shaved and covered in a mysterious liquid applied by sponge, photographed, and then had a piece of plastic forced into his rectum "for no apparent reason". As it was inserted, a US soldier taunted him, saying the device was "extra ribbed" for his pleasure.

Mr Hicks says his introduction to Guantanamo was one of silent, disoriented dread. Injected with drugs, hooded, tightly bound and wearing goggles and ear muffs and the infamous orange overalls, he was thrown into one of the small, open-air cages of Camp X-Ray.

For weeks, he says, he and other prisoners were forbidden to talk and permitted to lie in only two positions - prone and looking up, or sitting looking straight down. No other movement was permitted other than at meal times, and any deviations from the edict, or muttered conversations, were met with savage beatings by the guards.

In their cages, he says, prisoners had one bucket of water and another to be used as a toilet. They also were given a toothbrush and, if requested, a copy of the Koran.

Guards interrupted them every hour, supposedly to check if they still had their toothbrushes, but in effect to deprive them of sleep.

If prisoners covered their faces to block out the sun or floodlights as they tried to sleep, he says, they were woken by screaming guards kicking their cages.

At this time, Mr Hicks said, he had his first experience of Guantanamo Bay's notorious "Initial Reaction Force", or IRF, squads of half a dozen men in body armour who rushed recalcitrant prisoners and beat them.

In the account, Mr Hicks tells of a one-legged prisoner in a nearby cell who was set upon by guards and dogs. Mr Hicks was ordered to face the other way, but listened to the screams. When he was allowed to turn around, there was blood all over the cell.

In 2003 a military police officer, Sean Baker, who was impersonating a prisoner during a training drill, was so badly beaten that he was taken to hospital with brain injuries, and later suffered seizures.

His attackers were unaware he was an imposter and did not hear him utter the "safe word".

This is going on all over the place, and you are paying for it. America: Land of Torture.
Tell me again, trolls, how this is 'winning' the war on terror.