Last week the U.S. government submitted to the District Court in Washington, D.C., the most recent standard operating procedures (SOPs) for force-feeding in the Guantánamo Bay detention facility. What remains of the documents, after redactions, is a shameful exercise in doublespeak that attempts to disguise what is really happening in the prison.

The SOPs were submitted in a case brought by Abu Wa’el Dhiab, an inmate represented by Reprieve, the international human rights organization that I head. Dhiab is a 43-year-old Syrian and father of four who has been held without trial or charge in Guantánamo for 12 years. The U.S. government told Dhiab four years ago that he was cleared for release, and yet to this day he remains behind bars. In a last resort to get back to his wife and children, he, along with many others, embarked on a hunger strike. His case concerns the manner in which that entirely legitimate hunger strike has been brutally opposed by the prison authorities.

The SOPs continually offer feigned concern for the prisoners. The “sole focus” of the doctors inserting the nasal tubes “is the health and welfare of their patients”; the force-feeding is carried out according to procedures performed “in nursing homes worldwide”; assessments are to be made during the feeding to check “the emotional well-being of the detainee.” One typical instruction says that after restraining and force-feeding a prisoner, “a debriefing session is important.” The instruction goes on to say — in a sickening parody of customer service — that medical staffers should note “any questions and feedback provided by the detainee.”

Read more closely, though, and the cracks soon begin to open. The public learns what is involved when a man is dragged from his cell, strapped to a chair with five belts and held down as a tube — perhaps dangerously lubricated with olive oil — is forced through his nose, down his throat and esophagus and into his stomach so that he can be pumped full of liquid.

Euphemisms are used throughout, but in trying to hide the truth, they become only more bizarre and frightening. Guards are told to begin the restraint process with “verbal redirection and reassurance” before moving to “limit setting,” “reality orientation” and “verbal behavior contacts.” If all that fails, though, the final step is far clearer: “show of force.”