A "Tortured" Gitmo Carol

Gather around the warm glow of your monitor and let us at New Security Action tell you a holiday tale about a certain "Scrooge" and his responsibility for America's tortured past. Say a hearty "Bah humbug" to Dick Cheney in this "Tortured" Christmas Carol.



Sign On Here

Inside a Prison Outside the Law

Mother Jones {MoJo} Drumbeat brings the link to the site for the book The Guantanamo Lawyers: Inside a Prison Outside the Law

Read exclusive excerpts from narratives by the attorneys who have represented Guantanamo Detainees, at above link

About The Guantanamo Lawyers

This new book contains over 100 personal narratives from attorneys who have represented detainees held at “Gitmo” as well as at other “black sites” such as Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

“One of the most inspiring features of the post-9/11 world has been the willingness of lawyers from all walks of life to volunteer to represent those condemned to indefinite detention at Guantánamo. This book provides an invaluable birds-eye view of what it’s like to fight for justice in a law-free zone, representing men who the government has labeled the worst of the worst.”—David Cole

“This is a fascinating and revealing behind-the-scenes account of the human stories inside Guantánamo, told candidly by some of America’s best, and most public-spirited, lawyers.”—Jane Mayer

Review: "The Guantanamo Lawyers: Inside a Prison Outside the Law"

"This collection of stirring narrative, government data and testimony, edited by two of the lawyers for those detained by the Bush administration as unlawful combatants at Guantnamo, puts America on notice about the issues of civil liberties and constitutional freedoms. Denbeaux and Hafetz have edited together accounts from 100 other detainee advocates into a chronological narrative of legal battles: to gain access to their clients, to establish the detainees' right to habeas corpus, to describe the occupants of 'Gitmo' (at its peak, 750 from 40 countries) and the torture and mistreatment of detainees. They describe their clients as underlings, working stiffs and not the high officials of any terrorist group. Plowing through legal red tape, bureaucratic mumbo jumbo and political maneuvering, Denbeaux and Hafetz fight for the men who are isolated without diversions or outside contact. The desperate words, quoted here, of Gitmo detainees on torture grab the heart and do not let go. This compelling book on the American penal colony and its residents is a cautionary tale of overzealous executive wartime power and the awful mess it sometimes leaves behind." Publishers Weekly

Justice as Paradox: Civilian Trials for 9/11 Suspects

Jonathan Hafetz has a blog post up at Balkinization. A Short excerpt is below.

Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement Friday that Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and four other individuals allegedly responsible for the 9/11 attacks would be brought to trial in federal court takes an important—if long overdue—step towards restoring the rule of law. No longer are these men “high value detainees,” a label invented out of whole cloth to sanction their previous disappearance into a secret CIA prison and torture. After resurfacing at Guantánamo in September 2006, they are now, finally, defendants in the U.S. criminal justice system, which has shown repeatedly that it is well-equipped to handle terrorism cases while protecting legitimate national security concerns. This was the result advocated by the ACLU’s John Adams Project, and it is a welcome one.

You can also listen to a radio interview Jonathan did at The Takeaway about civilian trials for terrorists.

Or listen here:

The Book: "The Guantanamo Lawyers: Inside a Prison Outside the Law"

The Site: The Guantanamo Lawyers: Inside a Prison Outside the Law

American Justice Returns

From VetVoice

American Justice for Terrorists who Target America

by: Richard Allen Smith OEF/OIF Veteran
Fri Nov 13, 2009 at 15:26:35 PM EST

STATEMENT ON TRANSFER OF KHALID SHAIKH MOHAMMED,
OTHER TERRORISTS TO U.S. TO FACE TRIAL

Washington, DC -- Veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are strongly supporting the announcement by Attorney General Eric Holder that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and four other terrorists are being transferred to the U.S. to face trial.

Jon Soltz, Iraq War Veteran and Chairman of VoteVets.org said in a statement:

"Finally, after years and years, those responsible for the worst terror attack on America will start to face American justice.

"Showing the world that we operate on a higher moral plane than fiefdoms, theocracies and dictatorships when it comes to justice will be a dagger in the heart of al Qaeda recruiting, as Guantanamo Bay has been one of the terror group's most effective recruiting posters. That helps our troops, and protects America.

"Additionally, this will prove that Liz and Dick Cheney, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and their cohorts have been engaging in pure politics. Contrary to what they've said, transferring detainees to the US to face justice and punishment will be secure, safe, and strong, as it has been for nearly 200 other terrorists. Once that becomes evident, it will be clear that their only interest in opposing real justice was to take down President Obama -- American security be damned."

VoteVets.org is part of the Campaign to Close Guantanamo, found at Close Gitmo Now.

VoteVets.org is the leading progressive, pro-military organization of veterans, dedicated to the destruction of terror networks around the world, with force when necessary. It primarily focuses on education and advocacy on issues of importance to the troops and veterans, and holding politicians accountable for their actions on these issues.

This is a start, but the Country needs to look deep within and bring forth all the charges against our own who with their extremely failed policies created the next generations of criminal terrorist, know no borders, that is our legacy we are leaving to those who come after us, our children's children and theirs!!

Accountability?

Spanish Judge Resumes Torture Case Against Top Bush Administration Lawyers

The Spanish newspaper Público reported exclusively on Saturday that Judge Baltasar Garzón, who sits on the Criminal Court of Spain, is pressing ahead with a case against six senior Bush administration lawyers for implementing torture at Guantánamo.

Snip

former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; John Yoo, a former lawyer in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, who played a major role in the preparation of the OLC’s notorious “torture memos”; Douglas Feith, the former undersecretary of defense for policy; William J. Haynes II, the Defense Department’s former general counsel; Jay S. Bybee, Yoo’s superior in the OLC, who signed off on the August 2002 “torture memos”; and David Addington, former Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff.

Snip

On Saturday, however, Público reported that Judge Garzón had accepted a lawsuit presented by a number of Spanish organizations — the Asociación Pro Dignidad de los Presos y Presas de España (Organization for the Dignity of Spanish Prisoners), Asociación Libre de Abogados (Free Lawyers Association), the Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos de España (Association for Human Rights in Spain) and Izquierda Unida (a left-wing political party) — and three former Guantánamo prisoners (the British residents Jamil El-Banna and Omar Deghayes, and Sami El-Laithi, an Egyptian freed in 2005, who was paralyzed during an incident involving guards at Guantánamo). The newspaper reported that all these groups and individuals would take part in any trial.............Read Rest Here

Andy Worthington is the author of "The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 759 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison"

The Youngest Detainee at Guantanamo Bay

Mohammed Al Gharani was the youngest detainee at Guantanamo Bay.

Now, seven years later, he has returned to Chad, his country of origin, after being freed and is adjusting to life without the fear of being brutalised.

Al Gharani spoke to Al Jazeera's Mohammed Vall about his first days of freedom and the abuse he had endured at Guantanamo.



Done "In Our Names"!

TORTURE: The Truth Will Out

Report on The Rachel Maddow Show 6.10.09. Watch tomorrow, 6.12.09, for Much More to come as apparently stacks of information will be released!!

Still busssshed....6.08.09: Still More Proof

ABC News Exclusive: Ex-Gitmo Prisoner

Recently Released Gitmo Detainee Talks to ABC News

Held Seven Years, Former Aid Worker Tells ABC News He Was Tortured

This report is up at ABC News site and probably will be telecast tonight.

For 7½ years, Lakhdar Boumediene was known simply by a number: "10005."

These were the digits assigned to him when he arrived at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, swept up in a post-Sept. 11 dragnet and accused of plotting to blow up the U.S. and British Embassies in Sarajevo.

In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Boumediene said the interrogators at Gitmo never once asked him about this alleged plot, which he denied playing any part it......Rest found here

"I cried, just cried. Because I don't know my daughters," he said. "The younger, when I moved from Bosnia to Gitmo, she had 18 months, only 18 months. Now 9 years. Now she's big. Between 18 months, baby and 9 years, she walking, she's talking, she play, she's joking. It's a big difference."

And one doesn't need to wonder why some that have been released are reported to be, not back into, fighting American Troops in our occupations!!

Going Back To Terrorism??

You had to have been one that falls under the loosely define word 'Terrorist' to 'Go Back To!', and if they were why would they have been released after these years of being held, out of touch of any contact and thousands of miles from their homes and families!

Did 'returning' terrorists become extremists in Guantanamo?

One of the detainees whom a newly released Pentagon report says returned to the battlefield after he was released from the Guantanamo Bay prison camp told McClatchy that he was a local security leader in Afghanistan when he was arrested and became a radical Islamist only during his detention.

A second, a Kuwaiti man charged with links to al Qaida, told McClatchy that he'd never been to Afghanistan when he was arrested in a hotel room in Peshawar, Pakistan. He later contradicted himself, however, was held for three and a half years and is now listed as a suspected terrorist............

For those released, as apparently there was not enough evidence that they were even fighters against an invader to their country, after years in Gitmo and elsewhere and the more than just 'waterboarding' torture used, What Would Make Some Think That Some of Them Wouldn't Become Combatants and Possible Criminal Terrorists, than add in the numbers of innocents who survived these years in Afghanistan and Iraq and the Numbers are out of site!!

It only takes a few to wage Criminal Terrorism against masses, they've already lived in the terror waged on them and their countries!!

And we'll be living the results of these years for the decades to come!!

The REALITY: Will We Get It Now!!

We already know that those that Ordered what went on don't and won't Get It, nor care, just as they've accused others for same!!

Ex-inmate recalls days of abuse at Abu Ghraib

"But, at the end, the American people are responsible for everything that happened," Abu Ahmed said, referring to the war that he believes turned his life upside down.

Abu Ahmed spent a total of 20 months in U.S. custody, between Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca, outside Basra in southern Iraq.

He then returned home, where he spent less than five months with his family before being arrested again, this time by the Iraqi army in yet another sweep through his neighborhood.

He says his treatment inside Iraqi facilities was even worse than what he faced at the hands of the U.S. military. His Iraqi captors, Abu Ahmed says, beat him with cables and pipes; he even had a cement block hung from his genitals.

Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi


RIP Abeer and your family, saying Sorry is not enough for what you were put through that ended your precious life, RIP!!

Iraqis unhappy about life for U.S. rape soldier

"What the American soldier did is a terrorist act and he deserves execution," said Ahmed Samir Jaber, 27, a mechanic, from underneath the bonnet of an old car he was fixing in Mahmudiya, a dusty trading town on the edge of the desert.

"The court has not delivered justice. If I killed an American girl, the American court would have executed me."..........

Will we as a Country Now Finally Get It, I Doubt It, but remember this word "Blowback!"!!!

We Are All To Blame

National Geographic Explorer: Inside Guantanamo

Inside Guantanamo - Watch This Sunday, April 5th



Visit Site for much more, National Geographic Explorer: Inside Guantanamo.

"Inside Guantanamo" Panel Discussion

cheney/bush Tried to Absolve themselves of their sins "In Our Names!!"

Gitmo detainee asked to drop torture claim

British court documents claim U.S. asked man not to speak of ordeal
U.S. authorities asked a Guantanamo Bay detainee to drop allegations of torture and agree not to speak publicly about his ordeal in exchange for his freedom, according to British court documents.

A ruling by two British High Court judges, issued in October but released only on Monday, said the U.S. offered former detainee Binyam Mohamed a plea bargain last year — six years after he was first detained as an enemy combatant.

Gitmo Slide Show with the report.

Coming Soon:

Declassified Bush-Era Torture Memos

Over objections from the U.S. intelligence community, the White House is moving to declassify—and publicly release—three internal memos that will lay out, for the first time, details of the "enhanced" interrogation techniques approved by the Bush administration for use against "high value" Qaeda detainees. The memos, written by Justice Department lawyers in May 2005, provide the legal rationale for waterboarding, head slapping and other rough tactics used by the CIA. One senior Obama official, who like others interviewed for this story requested anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity, said the memos were "ugly" and could embarrass the CIA. Other officials predicted they would fuel demands for a "truth commission" on torture.>>>>>>

Inside Guantanamo


Guantanamo Detainee: Freedom Feb '09:

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: Cheney is ‘Evil'

Colin Powell’s former chief of staff Cheney is ‘evil,’ his fearmongering is ‘assisting’ al Qaeda.

AMEN to that: They've been 'Aiding' al Qaeda since 9/11

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: Some Truths About Guantanamo Bay

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

‘torture is the tool of the lazy, the stupid, and the pseudo-tough. It’s also perhaps the greatest recruiting tool that the terrorists have,’"

[They] were not fighting this perpetual war for victory, they were fighting to keep a state of emergency always present as the surest guarantee of authoritarianism.-- George Orwell, 1984

"In Our Names", As Our Countries Policy!!

Ex-Guantanamo Guard Details Prison Abuse

Brandon Neely was a military police officer at Guantanamo when the camp opened. He's now out of the Army, and unlike other former guards, he has been speaking about what he saw there.

NPR Player to Listen

The Guantánamo Testimonials Project

According to Rachel Maddow, on her MSNBC show of 2.18.09, after the testimony of former Guantanamo Bay prison guard, Specialist Brandon Neely, Three More Former Guards have contacted the UC Davis Guantanamo Testimonial Project to offer their testimony as to their serving at the Guantanamo Prison Camp.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

If you want to share your story with the UC Davis Project, e-mail them at: UC Davis Guantanamo Testimonial Project

Visit the UC Davis Project Site for more information and many links to previous testimonials they have listed.

Guantanamo - Human Rights - Torture - War Crimes

Gitmo Guard Brandon Neely Speaks

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Let Me Get This Straight.......

With Guantanamo closing, where will the detainees go?

If not Guantanamo, then where? Anything but a welcoming party is forming at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. When President Barack Obama signed an order Thursday forcing the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention center within a year, he put in sharp relief the possibility that some of the world's most potentially dangerous terror suspects could be hauled to the military's maximum security facility in Kansas.

The gopers who 'Rubber Stamped' these Illegal Policies and over and over...........,defended same, Are Now whining and screaming about Not In My Backyard????

Gitmo: Ex-Detainee and Guard Answer Questions About

BBC: Wednesday, 21 January 2009

Chris Arendt, a former guard at the prison camp and Moazzam Begg an ex-detainee spoke to the BBC.



Three of the main points were:

1. It will be seen by many as "too little too late".

2. (Question: Do you think Guantanamo has radicalized them?) These people are just tired, they want to go home to their families and to children who they have in some cases never seen...

3. They had to pay the ultimate price because of a war that appears to have no aims or objectives.

Chris Arendt, Former guard on Guantanamo 'torture' Jan 9th '09

Guantánamo Reports: Research Of

Those spreading or falling for the cheney/bush administration spin on the Released Guantanamo Prisoners going directly back into the Guerilla/Insurgent conflict and or Criminal Terrorism might want to educate themselves on the studies exposing that the government numbers just don't Tell The Truth, not surprising!!

On the Rachel Maddow show last night, 1-16-09. she had a discussion with Professor Mark P. Denbeaux, Director of Seton Hall Law Center for Policy and Research, who supervises a group of talented Seton Hall students in preparing a series of Reports concerning the United States Navy Station at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Latest Press Release January 15, 2009
Seton Hall Law: Department of Defense Wrong Again on GTMO “Recidivism”

The Seton Hall Center for Policy and Research has issued a report which rebuts and debunks the most recent claim by the Department of Defense (DOD) that “61, in all, former Guantánamo detainees are confirmed or suspected of returning to the fight.”

Professor Denbeaux of the Center for Policy & Research has said that the Center has determined that “DOD has issued 'recidivism' numbers 43 times, and each time they have been wrong—this last time the most egregiously so.”

Denbeaux stated: “Once again, they’ve failed to identify names, numbers, dates, times, places, or acts upon which their report relies. Every time they have been required to identify the parties, the DOD has been forced to retract their false IDs and their numbers. They have included people who have never even set foot in Guantánamo—much less were they released from there. They have counted people as 'returning to the fight' for their having written an Op-ed piece in the New York Times and for their having appeared in a documentary exhibited at the Cannes Film Festival. The DOD has revised and retracted their internally conflicting definitions, criteria, and their numbers so often that they have ceased to have any meaning—except as an effort to sway public opinion by painting a false portrait of the supposed dangers of these men.

"Forty-three times they have given numbers—which conflict with each other—all of which are seriously undercut by the DOD statement that 'they do not track' former detainees. Rather than making up numbers “willy-nilly” about post release conduct, America might be better served if our government actually kept track of them.”

The MSNBC Rachel Maddow Video on Torture and than the discussion with Professor Denbeaux:



Following is a part of the 19 page PDF report from their studies of the administrations up and down confusing figures, with nothing to back them up, that was just released. I find it Very Interesting that the administration's DoD has issued 'recidivism' reports 43 times, sounds much like rovian 'revisionist history' keeping that 43 number in their herded bases tiny minds, very poor propaganda tactic, very poor.

Latest Report (01/15/09)
RELEASED GUANTÁNAMO DETAINEES AND THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE:
Propaganda by the Numbers?


PROPAGANDA AS TERRORISM: RECIDIVISM BY THE NUMBERS
Time and time again, the Department of Defense, the Executive Branch, and other
government officials have claimed publicly that Guantánamo Bay detainees who have been
released have “returned to the battlefield” where they have then been re-captured or killed. On
January 13, 2009, during a press conference the Department of Defense provided its 43rd attempt
to report on the number of detainees released from Guantanamo who returned to the battlefield.
This latest report alleges that 61 detainees have returned to the battlefield. This report seeks to
examine the last numbers.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. The 43rd attempt to enumerate the number of detainees who have returned to the
battlefield is false by the Department of Defense’s own data and prior reports.
2. In each of its forty-three attempts to provide the numbers of the recidivist detainees,
the Department of Defense has given different sets of numbers that are contradictory
and internally inconsistent with the Department’s own data.
3. The Department of Defense does not keep track of released detainees nor does it
follow their post release conduct.
4. The Department of Defense’s previous statements about the post release conduct of
former Guantanamo detainees were produced in writing in July 2007 and May 2008.
5. The January 13, 2009 press statement identifies no names, dates, places nor any
conduct by released detainees. The raw numbers that are cited are unsupported,
inconsistent with all other statements and appear to be presented to support the
internal Department of Defense purposes.

POINT I: The Department of Defense’s First 42 Reports of Released Guantanamo
Detainees: Recidivism

1. Among the previous numbers of recidivist detainees, the Department of Defense has
alleged variously: one, several, some, a couple, a few, 5, 7, 10, 12, 15, 12-24, 25, 29,
and 30. (See Appendix 1).

2. Eighty-two percent (82%) of the publicly made claims catalogued in Appendix 1 of
this report contain qualifying language, including terms such as: “at least”;1
“somewhere on the order of”;2 “approximately”;3 “around”;4 “just short of”;5 “we
believe”;6 “estimated”;7 “roughly”;8 “more than”;9 “a couple”;10 “a few”;11 “some”;12
“several”;13 and “about.”14

3. One would suppose that the number of “recidivists” would increase over time.
However, while the timeline does reveal a trend in a general upward direction over
time, there are notable deviations. For instance, in the months leading up to the midterm
election—from May 2006 until September 2006—the numbers proffered range
from “a couple”15 to “twenty-five (25)”16 During this same period, however, the
Department of Defense number remains constant at twelve (12). (See Appendix 1).

As is the case there are other links to previous reports and statements at the site. These are but a few:

# Profile of Released Guantánamo Detaines: The Government's Story Then and Now

Cover Statement by Professor Mark Denbeaux (08/04/08)

# Justice Scalia, the Department of Defense, and The Perpetuation of an Urban Legend: The Truth about Recidivism of Released Guantánamo Detainees (06/16/08)

# Captured on Tape: Interrogation and Videotaping of Detainees in Guantánamo (02/07/08)

# The Meaning of "Battlefield": An Analysis of the Government’s Representations of ‘Battlefield Capture’ and ‘Recidivism’ of the Guantánamo Detainees (12/10/07)

Professor Denbeaux's Testimony before the Judiciary Committee on C-SPAN

# The Empty Battlefield and the Thirteenth Criterion (11/08/07)

# The 14 Myths of Guantánamo: Senate Armed Services Committee Statement of Mark P. Denbeaux.
Professor Mark P. Denbeaux testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on 4/26/07

More can be found at the Center for Policy & Research - Guantánamo Reports at Seton Hall University School of Law

As to those held captive in Guantanamo, and any other country under the cheney/bush administrations request and demands, I certainly wouldn't blame them if they reverted to a combative retaliatory existence.

After being scooped up, taken to different countries or gitmo, held and tortured for now years, unable to contact family thousands of miles away, given no trials or even the government evidence of why they are being held or the charges, than after years released. I know what I would do, especially if I wasn't a Guerilla Fighter to begin with, I'd Instantly Become One, my first reaction.

But hopefully I'd contain my Rage and Channel it into letting the World Know how I was Treated and help any others still held, as well as helping the innocent survivors of the occupied countries!!