Very sad parallels... (what's become of my country?)

A previous post noted that waterboarding is a torture ascribed to the Spanish Inquisition by all authorities.

Sad to say, this is not the only parallel with the Inquisition to be found in our Global War on Terror as exemplified by Gitmo.

Says ACLU staff attorney Ben Wizner, "The trial doesn't make a difference. They can hold you there forever until they decide to let you out." The one person to be released from Guantánamo through the judicial process, Australian David Hicks, pleaded guilty. As Wizner wrote in the Los Angeles Times in April 2007, "In an ordinary justice system, the accused must be acquitted to be released. In Guantánamo, the accused must plead guilty to be released."
[Rigged Trials at Gitmo, The Nation, 21 Feb 2008]

Consider this parallel:

"The whole procedure was directed to induce the accused to confess his errors, to profess repentance and to beg for mercy. He was adjured by the love of God and his Blessed Mother to discharge his conscience and save his soul by a full confession, as to himself and others, without uttering false testimony as to himself or to them. The so-called advocate who was furnished to defend him was instructed to urge him to this, and to explain that the Holy Office was not like the other tribunals whose business it was to punish the body, for here the only object was to cure the soul and to reunite to the Church those who, by their sins, had left the holy congregation of Christians, in violation of their baptismal promises; he should therefore cast aside all thought of that which concerns the body and think only of his soul, confessing his crimes so that the Holy Office could cure his infirmity, which was beyond the power of any other judge or confessor."
[A History of the Inquisition of Spain, Volume 2
Henry Charles Lea
Book 6: Practice, Chapter 6: Confession]

... and those who confessed?

penalties inflicted on the repentant were not punishment but penance and he was not a convict but a penitent
[ibid.]

... and those who did NOT confess, even after torture?

When torture was administered, without eliciting a confession, the logical conclusion, if torture proved anything, was that the accused was innocent. In legal phrase, he had purged the evidence and was entitled to acquittal. Such, indeed, was the law, but there was a natural repugnance to being baffled, or to admit that innocence had been so cruelly persecuted, and excuses were readily found to evade the law.
[History of the Inquisition of Spain, Volume 3
Henry Charles Lea
Book 6: Practice, Chapter 7: Torture]

Compare this with,

"I said to him that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process," Davis continued. "At which point, [Haynes's] eyes got wide and he said, 'Wait a minute, we can't have acquittals. If we've been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can't have acquittals. We've got to have convictions.'"
[Rigged Trials at Gitmo]

The parallels don't end here: Read on!

U.S. confident about trials of Sept. 11 suspects
...
The officials confirmed Tuesday that the Justice Department and the Pentagon, aware of probable legal challenges involving possible mistreatment of prisoners, began an extensive effort in late 2006 to rebuild the cases against the six men using what officials called "clean teams" of agents and military investigators.

By interviewing the prisoners again, and reassembling other evidence against them, the prosecutors could present evidence in court that would be harder for defense lawyers to challenge. But some legal experts said that approach might not defuse defense arguments that the initial investigations were tainted.

Ah, yes: "clean teams"!... and the Spanish Inquisition?

Yet, as though still more effectually to deprive the system of all excuse, the confession obtained at such cost was practically admitted to be in itself worthless. To legalize it, a ratification was required, after an interval of at least twenty-four hours, to be freely made, without threats and apart from the torture-chamber. This was essential in all jurisdictions, and the formula in the Inquisition was to bring the prisoner into the audience-chamber, where his confession was read to him as it had been written down. He was asked whether it was true or whether he had anything to add or to omit and, under his oath, he was expected to declare that it was properly recorded, that he had no change to make and that he ratified it, not through fear of torture, or from any other cause, but solely because it was the truth.
[ibid., Vol 3, Book 6: Practice, Chapter 7: Torture]

Confessions, including evidence against others, obtained under torture were legally worthless, and had to be ratified by the accused when he was not under threat of torture.

"The assertion that 'confessionem esse veram, non factam vi tormentorum' (the confession was true and free) sometimes follows a description of how, presently after torture ended, the subject freely confessed to his offenses.
[Wikipedia entry, Spanish Inquisition]

Yes, the Spanish Inquisition also required "clean teams"!

For what it's worth, the Spanish Inquisition also operated under regulations akin to DoJ opinions... BUT:

When we come to inquire as to the character of evidence requiring torture for its elucidation, we find how illusory were all the attempts of the legists to lay down absolute rules, and how it all ended in leaving the matter to the discretion of the tribunal.
[Lea, Vol 3, Book 6, Chapter 7]

And again, for what it's worth: there are more parallels... here's a brief synopsis:

The denunciations were anonymous, and the defendant had no way of knowing the identity of his accusers.
...
After a denunciation, the case was examined by the calificadores (qualifiers), who had to determine if there was heresy involved, followed by detention of the accused. In practice, however, many were detained in preventive custody, and many cases of lengthy incarcerations occurred, lasting up to two years, before the calificadores examined the case.

Note: detention for two years before examination is considered excessive!

...The entire process was undertaken with the utmost secrecy, as much for the public as for the accused, who were not informed about the accusations that were levied against them. Months, or even years could pass without the accused being informed about why they were locked up. The prisoners remained isolated...
[Wikipedia entry, Spanish Inquisition]

I note that simply substituting "plead guilty" for "confess", and "terrorism" for "heresy" in the Lea excerpts, reads as today's news. The quality of evidence from anonymous witnesses presented in secrecy differs not at all from the Inquisition to Gitmo.

What has my country become?

Stop the madness!