I knew it all along… but how do you explain knowing about something like that when they all treat you like a child? Like you are too small and too insignificant to understand the grandeur of their manly, adult plan. But I knew. They were telling themselves lies. It was all broken and we are going to Hell for what we did and they were all innocent anyway. You have called me a faggot and a liar and a pussy and a traitor and it is all because I finally told the truth. We were wrong.
Now we finally have to admit that. The facts have been released. We are free of the pending conclusions and now we can deal earnestly with our guilt. This is our mistake.
You know, when you pass an officer in Camp Delta and you happen to be one of the poor saps “working the blocks” it is your obligation to salute and to ejaculate “HONOR BOUND, SIR” (while secretly gritting your teeth against saying something like “FUCK YOUR STUPID FACE YOU ASSHOLE SWINE! STOP WALKING AROUND LIKE AN IDIOT AND DO SOME FUCKING WORK!”) to which they will respond by saying “DEFEND THE FREEDOM, HOO AH”. And you both walk away from each other feeling like assholes. It is a unique and flavorful bond with many unsaid implications.
So were we really “DEFENDING THE FREEDOM” sirs? Or did we just have a get out of jail free card to act like violent racists? Did you ever really believe what we were saying and doing or were you just playing your part in the whole thing?
Anyways, these questions are inconsequential. As of today we know that we are guilty of terrible sins.
We spit on them. Called them sand niggers and towel heads and camel jockies until we got tired and just resigned to sluggishly calling them “them.” We punched them when they surrendered and we pepper sprayed them as they lay on the floor. We even peed in their holy book. But it wasn’t all just we… was it?
I sent them to interrogations. Sometimes I got lazy and I left them in there longer than I should have because I didn’t want to inconvenience the tired soldiers who hated me. Sometimes I forgot about them and they missed meals and prayer hours while shackled to the floor. One time I guided an innocent man’s head into a pole and heard an awful sound and then the laughing from my fat escort partner. I refused requests because I didn’t want to get things. I fell asleep on the stairs and almost let one die.
And we… I… did it all for a lie.
I always knew it was a lie… even during the punches and the pepper spray and the awful sounds… and I still did it. We all still did it.
But now we can see it together thanks to the internet.
I wish I would have been the one to send those files but I never saw those files of course. I only knew the Internment Security Numbers… I was so pleased to find that I still knew them as I poured over the long list of numbers. I used to have a book with a baseball card for every number that I would give to the escort teams as they left to pick up the “package” and deliver “it” to “gold building.”
The cards for the frequent fliers would become worn and cut up and smeared in little nasty things that soldiers would try to write on the laminated sides… fake mustaches abounded, drawn ridiculously on top of real mustaches.
That was the real secret that you were so scared we would tell. That it was a lie. You didn’t want us to let them know. You tried to make us think that if Al Qaeda got a hold of this information the whole base would come under attack but we all knew damn well that no Taliban was coming to Guantanamo Bay, and if they were to try they would find there a bay swarming with bored sailors with guns and then a concertina wire cage surrounded by land mines and defended by Marines and Army infantry. Bullshit. We knew that would never happen. You didn’t want us to let the people know that it was a lie.
Well, you fucking failed. I’m sorry it wasn’t me. I’m sorry my voice was not enough to bring out the truth, but now it is out there anyway and I hope all of you miserable fuckers (and I mean mostly you Command Sergeant Major Mendez) put guns in your mouths and blow your brains out to speed your voyage to Hell. One last waltz Camp Commandant.
The policy was always broken. It is broken all the way through, not just in Camp Delta. It is broken in all of the camps. It was broken when Hitler tried it and it is still broken.
Jesus Christ, the things we have done and said and hoped for.
The night that we left from home we were in formation as our families gathered around us and our Platoon Sergeant yelled “Lets go down there and KILL those MOTHER FUCKERS so we can be back here next month!” And we all cheered. I cheered but I didn’t really mean it.
Those “mother fuckers” were innocent men. I am glad that we didn’t kill them.
The Paper Trail 