Congratulations, America. You have made bin Laden a happy man

January 2002: Is the cruelty of war turning us into ruthless people, asks Robert Fisk

US army military police escort a detainee to his cell in Camp X-Ray at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba (Getty)

Shackled, hooded, sedated. Taken to a remote corner of the world where they may be executed, where the laws of human rights are suspended. Sounds to me like the Middle East. Shackled, hooded, threatened with death by “courts” that would give no leeway to defence or innocence. In fact, it sounds like Beirut in the 1980s.

I’ve written this story before. Last time, I remember writing about the threats to my kidnapped journalist friend Terry Anderson of the Associated Press, tied up, hooded, always threatened by his “Islamist” captors in Lebanon. That was between 1986 and 1991 and Terry – let us remember this distinction – was no man of violence. He was a journalist, a comrade, a friend. But he was most cruelly treated, allowed no contacts with his family, held in cold confinement, threatened with death every bit as absolute as the American military courts that know they hold the fate of al-Qaeda’s men in their hands.