Are the detainees still being held merely human husks?

spiegel interviews frederick forsyth, a master of the hi-tech spy thriller...

Forsyth: Guantanamo is the bete noire of all left-wing and human rights journalists. They forget Bagram, which is as big as Berlin. It's huge, a vast ex-Soviet base which, when it was taken over in the winter of 2001, was just an echoing, shattered former Russian barracks and administration offices and huge hangars. It's not like that now, it's a city, and one part of it is detention. And in there nobody doesn't sing.

SPIEGEL: You really believe that the allies torture prisoners? Do you have proof?

Forsyth: We are not talking about the old days, pulling fingernails and flogging -- they don't use that any longer. It's a chemical cosh. It's either deep hypnosis -- it's beyond ("truth drugs") scopolamine or sodium amytol -- they take the mind now, and what emerges is just a tapioca pudding. I haven't seen a good article on what certain chemicals can do today to the human mind, basically in breaking down resistance. If a man like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed didn't last more than a week ... Nobody has lasted there. We got this high-powered guy, he's got a head full of secrets, we got his computer, his mobile. We can strip them down, but what's in his head we need without too much delay. They all go to Bagram.

is THAT why the detainees are being held so long without charges or trial...? because there's nothing left of their minds...? were they taken in, whatever was in their heads extracted immediately, leaving only a human shell...?

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