More torture stories....

And then there is Saudi detainee Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi. My government sodomized him as part of his torture. As his attorney has described- they used the largest objects they could find to insert into his rectum as part of his torture.  We have heard for years now about the fact that he has come to court hearings with a pillow to sit on became of the ongoing pain. Now, after all of these years, my government is finally going to allow surgery for this man.
You can read about the debilitating effects of this torture over the many years and the utter lack of regard by my country for this torture...  here, here and here .

The fact that we have allowed this to happen and then continued the torture all these years is unconscienable.

The after effects of torture... depression and much more.

I am sorry that I am on a string of stories about those that we have tortured. In a way it seems only fitting as I head back to our little Gulag in the sunny south. Let me just say that I report all of these accounts that I discover because I think it is important to have these in one place and it is with sorrow that I lay all of this out on these pages.

First this---

More to come.

The Heartbreaking Saga of Abu Zubaydah is Even More Heartbreaking....

I have talked about Abu Zubaydah many times on this blog. He is the man that my government wrongly thought was a member of al-qaeda so we used all of the torture techniques on him... and then a few more just because we could. But it turned out he was a nobody but since we did all of those horrible things to him we do not want to release him.
As part of the dog and pony show the government conducted a "periodic review" to see if he could be cleared for release.

Read more about it here.

U.S. Torture left long lasting damage

The New York Times has an article up today about the long lasting damage to the men who were tortured by my government.

Beatings, sleep deprivation, menacing and other brutal tactics have led to persistent mental health problems among detainees held in secret C.I.A. prisons and at Guantánamo.

Read the article hear.

Hurricane Matthew

With Hurricane Matthew eyeing Gitmo many of us are wondering if mother nature will do what Obama has been unable to do.....close Gitmo.

More here.

Radar here.

More Forms of Torture Exposed- UPDATED

The Guardian reports that the techniques used by the CIA in torturing detainees also included a "modified" electric chair. These revelations came out in interviews of two Tunisian men who were released in 2015.
Read more here.

And still more here.

Andy Worthington Takes a Look back at Gitmo as the Obama Years End

I remember how excited one of my clients was when I went to visit him in the weeks after Obama was inaugerated. Obama announced that one of the first items on his to-do list was to close Guantanamo and he promised to close the place in one year. As the year went by it was clear to many of us that Gitmo was not going to be closed by January 2010. Obama was not heeding the advice of those who had practical ideas as to how to close the place- he was listening to the military. And the military has never wanted to close Guantanamo.
Obama's promise was more than 7 1/2 years ago and although more of the men have been released the place is from from closed and one of my clients still remains with no prospect of going anywhere- you see he is "too dangerous to release" but there is nothing to charge him with. He has sat in prison for 15 years and he has never been charged with a god damn thing. And he never will be charged- he has done nothing wrong.

Andy Worthington looks back over the years and looks forward to what is to come in this blog post.