Repeated blows, the forced inhalation of ammonia capsules and wrist restraints. No, this isn't yet another case of the CIA or other counter-terrorism task forces trying to coax information out of a stubborn combatant.
These are the practices used in a Florida boot camp for juveniles when an individual won't continue with prescribed activities. In this case, the 14-year-old refused to continue his exercise, so his guards and a nurse participated in his ritualistic abuse.
Why do we know about it? Because the boy later died.
During the course of this "by-the-book" procedure, Martin Lee Anderson reportedly went limp and stopped answering the guards' questions after complaining that he couldn't breathe.
However, all the camp employees involved have either reported or testified that nothing seemed to be wrong with Anderson before he was taken to the hospital. They contend the teenager died from a pre-existing blood condition.
Whatever caused the death blow to this unfortunate youth, it was a wake-up call to the state of Florida, which closed down all similar boot camps. And thank goodness.
Did anyone consider that this isn't the way to treat already damaged and violent offenders? That maybe institutionalized violence really shouldn't be going on in a country that President Bush insists "does not torture"?
If we're going to do unspeakable things to our youth or kill our elderly when a hurricane like Katrina hits, it's no wonder that people like Lebanese-descended Khalid el-Masri get no legal compensation after being dragged off a plane, tortured and detained in Afghanistan in a case of mistaken identity.
I mean, heck, if we can do this to our own citizens, why not random Germans that we think look like a terrorists?
Clean up your act, United States. Or your endless banter about "freedom" will mean just as little as "mission accomplished."