April 11, 2008
U. of Southern California Student and Professor Recreate Guantánamo Camp, Shackles and All
A virtual-reality project by a student at the University of Southern California is featured in this week’s Vanity Fair. The student, Nonny de la Peña, strives to show the horrors of the Guantánamo Bay military prison using the virtual world Second Life. She has recreated the prison and treats digital visitors, or at least their avatars, as real prisoners—shackles and all.
Ms. de la Peña is on track to earn a master’s degree from the university’s Charles Annenberg Weingarten Program on Online Communities. She produced a 2004 documentary, Unconstitutional, about the erosion of civil liberties since 9/11. —Andrea L. Foster
Update: Ms. Peña reports that she had a partner in the project. The partner was Peggy Weil, a visiting assistant professor in the Interactive Media Division of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts.
Posted on Friday April 11, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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Oh, yes – prayer mats, proper diet, the freedom to practice their religion – horrific!
— TRB Apr 11, 09:31 AM #
Detention without trial, detention based upon no or lousy evidence, the absence of due process, abusive behaviour by guards….
Yeah, I’d say pretty horrific. And what’s more disturbing is how easy it is to find people who’ll defend those practises.
— Scott Apr 11, 09:54 AM #
Even more disturbing is the news out today that administration officials from VP Cheney down ok’edthe use of torture by US interogators and then worked on attempting to make it “legal”! It’s a sad time when this country, built on the principles of freedom and democracy and respect of the individual (remember innocent until proven guilty?) decides to wallow in the sewer instead of being true to our heritage. And this isn’t a few rogue agents – this comes from our supposed leaders. What’s interesting in all this too, is the remark made by John Ashcroft (well known as no defender of individual liberties), “History will not judge this kindly.”
And neither should we!
— Gary Apr 11, 11:24 AM #
This is sooooooo cute! Playing dolls with POW’s. Watch out Mattel!
— the first marci Apr 11, 11:56 AM #
Yeap sad. Our treatment of these people is horrid. We should thank those of their kind for the humane treatment of MR. Pearl and the liberation of his head from his shoulders.
And those peace loving people that knew hanging someone over a bridge after liberating their skulls from their necks was just being kind so they didn’t have to suffer the ills of war.
Yeap, we are so mean. Letting people live and get fat and get medical treatment in GTMO instead of liberating their shoulders of the unneeded weight of their skulls.
We should be ashamed of ourselves for not showing the same kind of kindness that these people showed their prisoners.
Yeap, they leave GTMO well fed, fat, healthy, and ready to fight another day… How dare us…
— Mike Long Apr 11, 04:42 PM #
How interesting. Has Ms. de la Peña ever been there?
I am not defending anything, but it seems to be that Ms. de la Peña would not be in a position to say anything about what goes on there and to claim so would need to be backed up by some reason facts, rather than just a fantasy world.
— K S Apr 11, 04:48 PM #
In the interest of fairness, maybe Ms. de la Peña ought to travel to the Middle East and volunteer to be a prisoner of our enemies. If she gets out with her head still intact, she might realize how much better she has it here…particularly the freedom to make her own country look bad.
— SV Apr 11, 05:00 PM #
The historical reality of genocide and racism for imperialism, religion and capitalism is something that few Euro-Americans will ever admit. Making a virtual reality seems consistent with that well-developed ability to dehumanize & objectify the other. We have a savage, immoral and narcissistic system.
— gxd Apr 11, 05:26 PM #
free societies need to put up with all the free stuff!
— Wayne Apr 11, 06:52 PM #
right, that’s why we are in an authoritarian state that propagandizes freedom as long as we’re stupid enough to not question, just obey and work/war like expendable ants.
— gxd Apr 11, 10:20 PM #
I have to say that I find it quite disturbing to see comments that amount to, “those (fill in the blank: terrorist/communist/poor/non-Christian) people are so much worse than we are, so we should be able to do anything to them.” The fact is, I am not responsible for what others do, but I am responsible, to some degree, for what my government does in my name and with my consent. The fact that terrorists do bad things does not justify my doing bad things to innocent people. And the fact is, we do not know that the people in Gitmo are the bad guys, because our government has created a Kafkaesque set of self-justifying processes and rationales in their regard. We do know that some of those who are incarcerated there and in other parts of the American gulag are innocent but are unlikely ever to have access to the basic requirements of justice. We know there are some persons currently in custody who have been completely vindicated, but are not released because it’s not in our government’s political interests to do so. In the interests of fairness, perhaps SV (#7) and TRB (#1) should spend an indeterminate amount of time in Guantanamo and see how humanely they are treated when out of sight of news cameras and away from the protections of the rule of (real) law.
— Bob Apr 14, 06:34 AM #
Hmm you know that they are innocent? I wonder how that is? Probably that you so hate your own government that you are willing to believe and even propagate whatever false propaganda is out there. These poor abused prisoners (who are apparently eating better than they ever did before based on weight gain) were captured on the battlefield shooting at our troops or in an apartment colluding with major terrorists. In fcat many of those who have been released and been recaptured or killed while once again fighting against us. Drop the self loathing and get a grip on reality.
— Todd Apr 14, 10:40 AM #
Thank you Bob(#11) for injecting some rationality into this discussion. Todd(#12), you have obviously forgotten the basic tenet of our legal system, ‘innocent until proven guilty’. If I accuse you of murder with no evidence, should you be punished?
The days of ‘an eye for an eye’ should be long over in this country, and yet obviously, they are not. We have in fact, as a country, taken a several thousand year step backwards. Why? Because we not only punish the guilty, we punish those who may be innocent, if it is politically expedient to do so.
If we don’t like what terrorists do, why do we lower ourselves to their level? Hypocrisy at it’s finest.
— a different Dan Apr 14, 11:04 AM #
Todd—I did not say they were all innocent. I said that some were innocent, which is irrefutable fact. There is a prohibition in our Constitution against cruel and inhuman punishment for a reason that our Founders (who were, after all, terrorists—or the equivalent—in the eyes of the British) understood all too well. It is not self-loathing to love your country and want it to do right. Recall the famous statement by Senator Carl Schurz: “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”
— Bob Apr 14, 01:34 PM #
p.s. Thanks for the wise words, Dan!
— Bob Apr 14, 01:51 PM #
#10 gxd- we are expendable ants; sad but true. Just like working for a big corporation.
— Wayne Apr 14, 01:55 PM #
It’s amazing the number of commenters here who do not know the difference between a prisoner of war and a prisoner of the criminal justice system.
Please go look at the actual text of the Geneva conventions, folks. You will learn that detainees at Guantanamo are being treated better than the conventions allow for, and that the conventions do not apply to these detainees anyway.
America is treating them better than they deserve precisely because America is a better country than theirs was.
— Lloyd Daub Apr 15, 07:09 PM #
Lloyd (17)—One of the really troubling aspects of this situation is that the ground keeps shifting. The administration has invented all kinds of new definitions and categories as what appear to be legal fig leaves. The prisoners in Guantanamo are in limbo because the President asserts that (I guess) they aren’t actually members of a recognized armed force, and that we’re fighting a new kind of war. So, what is their legal status? Apparently they’re not prisoners of war, and they’re not alleged criminals—I get the impression that their status and rights exist at the whim of whoever has a propaganda use for them at the moment. Personally, I believe that America is a better country than this kind of legal pussyfooting suggests. The standard of comparison should not be what other countries do—the standard should be our own ideals!
— Bob Apr 16, 05:38 AM #
“get the impression that their status and rights exist at the whim of whoever has a propaganda use for them at the moment.”
Which has been the Left from the beginning. It is the anti-administration critics that have kept shifting the grounds and the arguments. That’s why so many are confused.
Under the Geneva Conventions, only signatories are allowed their protections. All others engaged in warfare are doing so illegally and can be treated as bandits, criminals and pirates. The traditional way militaries had of dealing with such was summary execution.
“Oh no,” the Left cries. “We must treat them as POWs under the Geneva Conventions.”
Well fine. That means that these enemies are detained in a secure facility, given food and drink and medical care and held without trial until the war is over— unless it becomes clear that they have committed war crimes or some other crimes. They can be tried for those. All these things are precisely what is going on in Gitmo.
“Oh no,” the Left cries. “They have to be treated differently. They can’t be held forever.”
Fine. My vote would be to go back to their summary execution as pirates.
— Lloyd Daub Apr 18, 12:11 PM #
“Enemy combatants”. That means that they were trying to kill us. They not only desire to kill us, but Islam DEMANDS it.
Yes, lets do release them. Maybe they changed their minds.
Liberal rubbish.
— Elaine Apr 18, 02:47 PM #