The organization CAGE has launched a new website and gathered seven survivors together to tell their stories-- link below. (Sorry about the formatting problem but the links still work!)
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Tuesday, January 11, 2022
humans of Guantanamo
And what's with Biden?
I would think multi-tasking would be something Biden would be good at but he does seem to have some problems getting multiple high priority things done.
Ben Fox has been covering Guantanamo for the AP since the beginning. Read his reporting on Biden's inaction here.
no- not a happy anniversary
You can celebrate this anniversary by attending one of several events with Witness Against Torture -- most are virtual:
Stalwarts from Maine
to an island off the Washington State coast will stand in orange jump suits on
Tuesday January 11 commemorating this 20th year of the gulag.
- Find a vigil near you or check
out what's being posted/livestreamed. (Click here or see events listed below).
- You can still send us
information about YOUR local action, to witnesstorture@gmail.com
(subject line: Jan 11 Event in [your town])
and we'll post it.
- Send us photos during your
event (witnesstorture@gmailcom) and we'll post them. On J11, follow us on
social media for photos of local actions around the country.
- And wherever you are, please be
vaccinated and wear a mask.
The White House
in Washington DC
What: Close Guantanamo Rally to Mark 20 Years
Who: Local Witness Against Torture folks joined
by local activists from other groups
When: Tuesday January 11 noon to 1 pm ET
(gather at 11:30)
Where: If you live in the DC area, join us In
front of the White House on Pennsylvania Ave. Bring your orange jump suit
and hood; we'll have more. Please be vaccinated and wear a mask. We'll
livestream the rally for those of you from away, and then stay online for the 2
pm virtual vigil listed below.
Tiffin, Ohio
What: Close Guantanamo Rally: 20 years - Still No
Justice
Who: Tiffin Area Pax Christi
When: Friday, January 7 from 3 to 4 pm ET
Where: Seneca County Courthouse, 103 E. Market St.,
Tiffin, OH 44883
Los Angeles, CA (2 events)
1. What: Annual Close Guantanamo Now Rally. In-person
& streamed.
Who: Interfaith Communities United for Justice and
Peace (ICUJP), WAT and others
When: Tuesday January 11 at noon PT
Where: Downtown Los Angeles Federal Building, 300
N. Los Angeles St. 90012 (in front)
2. What: Online panel discussion featuring film maker
Philippe Diaz, Guantanamo Bar member Michael Rapkin, and Marcy Winograd of Code
Pink
When: Tuesday Jan 11 at 5 pm PT
Raleigh, North Carolina
What: Close Guantanamo Vigil to commemorate 20
years since the opening of Guantánamo prison
Who: North Carolina Stop Torture Now
When: Tuesday, January 11 from 1 to 2 pm ET
Where: The Federal Building at New Bern Avenue and
Person St in Raleigh. Please wear a mask. Orange jumpsuits and black
hoods are very welcome. Please come and bring family and friends.
Asheville, North Carolina
What: Join WAT and Veterans for Peace, Asheville
Chapter #099, as they vigil at Asheville Pack Square
When: Tuesday, January 11, 4:30 to 5:30 pm ET.
Orcas Island, Washington
What: Activists on Orcas Island, a stones-throw from
Canada, will meet ferry arrival traffic in orange jump suits.
When: Tuesday, January 11
Where: Eastsound, WA, on the roadside,
either at the ferry arrival or at the main street intersection.
20th Anniversary 2 pm Virtual Rally
What: Disrupt, Confront, and Close Guantánamo This
virtual rally is a call for all of us to disrupt and confront the status quo
that has kept Guantánamo open and to imagine and chart a path toward finally
ending and abolishing the prison and all that it represents.
Who: WAT, CCR and others
When: Tuesday, January 11, at 2 pm ET
National Religious Campaign Against Torture Webinar
What: Guantanamo 20 Years on: A Religious Perspective
Who: The Episcopal Church and National Religious
Campaign Against Torture
Speakers: Dr. Shaun Casey, Georgetown University; The Most Rev. Michael B.
Curry, Presiding Bishop and Primate, Episcopal Church; Matt Hawthorne, NRCAT
When: Tuesday, January 11, 3 pm ET
New York City
What: In-person rally Close Guantanamo Now! 20 Years Too Long!
Who: Organized by The World Can't Wait, co-sponsored by WAT
When: Tuesday January 11, from 4 to 6 pm ET
Where: New York Public Library steps, 5th Avenue @
41st Street
Augusta, Maine
What: Vigil and walk to mark the 20th year
since the opening of the Guantánamo Bay
Who: Pax Christi Maine, PeaceAction Maine,
Witness Against Torture
When: Date change: Saturday,
January 15 at noon ET
Where: We will vigil in front of the Augusta National
Guard Armory, at the intersection of Route 202 and Armory Street, and then
process to the Capitol.
Boston, Massachusetts
What: Rally at Park St Station. Will
distribute stash of Close Guantánamo t-shirts, signs, orange jumpsuits and
black hoods. Will be very cold so dress accordingly. Come prepared
to speak if you like.
When: Tuesday, January 11 from 1 to 2 pm ET
And many more Close Guantanamo events in January
Guantanamo Clock
What: One-person vigils multiplied! Add your
photo to Andy Worthington’s Gitmo Clock to mark January
11, when Guantanamo will have been opened for 7,306 days.
When: Send your photo now!
CAGE: International Witness Campaign (IWC)
What: IWC has gathered partners around
the globe to commemorate 2 decades of the War on Terror and remember the
millions of people affected across the globe, with four demands and in-person and online events around
the world.
When: Through January 11, 2022
European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) Webinar
What: Rupture and Reckoning: 20 years of Guantánamo
Anthology and Digital Art Exhibition Launch
Panelists: Mohamedou Ould Slahi, former Guantánamo detainee; Katherine
Gallagher, CCR; Wolfgang Kaleck, ECCHR. ECCHR will be launching a digital
art exhibition and anthology, which includes contributions from current and
former detainees, lawyers, advocates, and artists.
When: Tuesday January 11, 11 am to 1 pm ET
Amnesty International Multiple Educational and Action Events
What: Outreach to members, especially youth: Call-in
to White House (Members will be sent link to leave message); Poster contest for
youth; Quiz for young people
When: Tuesday January 11, 2022
This is not a happy anniversary
Today marks 20 years of Guantanamo. Twenty years of holding men and boys without charge and without trial. Twenty years of lawlessness.
So let's look at a couple of the voices out there today-- starting with a current prisoner still being held all these many years.
and this from a lawyer that represented several of the men over the years.
well finally some good news
Guantanamo Panel Approves Transfer of First High-Value Detainee
On Monday, a Somali man who has been held at
Guantánamo Bay as a high-value prisoner was approved for transfer with security
assurances, making him the first detainee who was brought there from a CIA
black site to be recommended for release. Guled Hassan Duran, 47, who was
captured in Djibouti in 2004, spent about 900 days in CIA custody and has been
held in classified detention facilities at Guantánamo without charge since
September 2006. He became one of the 39 detainees still at Guantánamo with
approval for transfer once U.S. diplomats find countries to accept them with
security guarantees that satisfy the Secretary of Defense.
Thursday, January 6, 2022
and the great Nina Simone
And with this I end my musical interlude on this one year anniversary of the attempted coup.
Sunday, January 2, 2022
Saturday, January 1, 2022
New Years Eve of the plague year...
The Talking Dog is his usual optimistic self:
It’s the end of a year that began with the sitting President of the United States staging a murderous attempted coup in a half-assed means to hold power (for which he had a powerpoint and everything), as we transitioned to a new President. The new President’s agenda was immediately thwarted by his own party in a stupid attempt to impeach the last idiot. But then the new guy managed to pass his super-duper COVID relief package (only stripped of the $15 minimum wage) BECAUSE THE SENATE PARLIAMENTARIAN (as if that’s really even a thing). BTW, the stimulus check in that bill was $1,400 and not the $2,000 promised on the campaign trail. Let’s just say that stupid $600 is going to be a yuuuge issue in coming elections. But now it’s DEMOCRATS who seem to object to free money for the peasants.
------
Maybe some miracle will happen and our adolescent billionaire betters will get public spirited somehow. I thought I would leave you with a laugh as I send you my best wishes for the coming new year.
read the whole post here.
Thursday, December 30, 2021
Gitmo attorney discusses representing a man at Guantanano
Many years ago I wrote a piece for Huffington reflecting on my representation of men at Gitmo. Shepard takes this to a whole new level.
What I've Learned as a Lawyer Representing Prisoners at Guantanamo
Lieutenant Commander Shepard is a military officer and attorney in the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps. He currently serves as a managing defense counsel with the Military Commissions Defense Organization.
In August 1944, Pvt. First Class Louis Cooperberg, a U.S. Army medic, wrote to his sister Eleanor in Brooklyn of his experience treating wounded Nazi soldiers on the front line. “I give them the same care, the same treatment I give our own boys,” Private Cooperberg wrote. “Yet all the while, I know these same men have killed my cousins and aunts and uncles in Poland, have tortured and killed without compunction, and despise me because I am a Jew. But I treat them.”
Jews under Nazi occupation were still being hunted down and murdered, yet Private Cooperberg ministered to all those in his care as equals. This ethos reflects the very best of American values: recognizing the humanity in everyone, even our enemies, and treating those in our custody with dignity and respect.
It’s worth reflecting on this ethos now 20 years after 9/11, one of the darkest days in our country’s history. Like Private Cooperberg, many Americans shone brightly after that darkness, unifying against horrendous acts of evil by coming together in ways that affirmed what our country stands for and, just as importantly, what it stands against.
But after 9/11, many others turned away from our values. Around the globe, American agents arrested men on thin allegations of terrorist activity, and secreted them away to clandestine black sites for years of torture or — to use the legally approved euphemism — enhanced interrogation. Many of those arrested eventually made their way to the detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, which was established 20 years ago, in January 2002.
American leaders have all too often excused our moral departures at these black sites, and in the prison at Guantánamo, as an end justifying the means. But even if one was to set aside the immorality or illegality of the means, the ends have proven both ineffective and counterproductive, pushing this country ever further down a path of forever war and incalculable loss.
And, as underscored at a recent hearing in Guantánamo, we cannot ignore the immorality. At that hearing a Pakistani man named Majid Khan, who went to high school in suburban Maryland, described the brutal beatings, forced sodomy, and other inhumane treatment he said he suffered at the hands of American interrogators: Tubes covered in hot sauce before being inserted into his nasal cavities. Repeated simulated drownings. Garden hoses forcibly inserted into his rectum.
- Did you know you can share 10 gift articles a month, even with nonsubscribers?
After hearing Mr. Khan, a jury of senior military officers condemned their government’s behavior. The handling of detainees, they wrote in a letter to the court, was a “stain on the moral fiber of America” and “should be a source of shame for the U.S. government.” They acknowledged Mr. Khan’s misdeeds — he served as a low-level operative for Al Qaeda — but found that our treatment of him was akin to the “torture performed by the most abusive regimes in modern history.”
Compare this horror with the grace of Private Cooperberg, who healed those who believed, he wrote, that he had “no right to breathe the same air as the rest of the world.” It would have been understandable had he made excuses to avoid treating wounded Nazis. Instead he saved their lives.
As a Jewish American military attorney assigned to defend some of the men we have kept in Guantánamo, I feel a strong kinship with Private Cooperberg. After all, many of the individuals I represent are alleged to have been part of Al Qaeda, an organization dedicated to attacking both America and Jews.
To be clear, my clients have not expressed antisemitism or hatred toward me. My primary client isn’t alleged to have attacked America — he’s alleged to have been tangentially involved with an attack in Indonesia — yet he was brutally tortured and has been in prison for nearly two decades. Regardless, my colleagues and I assist these men not because we support the crimes they are alleged to have committed, but because we believe that our country should hold itself to the highest standard of basic decency and human rights.
As an attorney and military officer, I am duty bound to defend my clients, a mission which our country and Constitution demand. Likewise, as a Jew, I was taught the core value of seeing humanity in all people — even enemies. And as an American, I was taught that everyone has certain unalienable rights, and that the protections of fair trials, due process and a prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment apply regardless of the alleged crimes.
Those who seek to abrogate these rights, who take shortcuts, who bow to near-term political or ideological expediency, forget the basic tenets of what this country truly stands for, what once made us a beacon of light for those struggling around the world.
Private Cooperberg’s letter closed with a warning that the true enemy is “any people who proclaim themselves better than all other peoples, and then set out to prove it by murder and trickery and by the stupidity of those who never bothered to reason for themselves.”
As Americans, we are constantly presented with the choice of what our moral role in the world should be. We can pick a path of turpitude and compromise, choosing amoral, shortsighted means of attacking those who seek to harm us. But such choices come with consequences — they severely erode our relationships abroad, and weaken our moral core at home.
Alternatively we can choose to illuminate the many darknesses of the world with the power of our example, and reclaim the grace and humanity we find in the best efforts of the Americans who have come before us.
If we’re going to choose the latter path, we must acknowledge our mistakes, and show we can learn from them. What’s happened at Guantánamo is an example of one such error. Twenty years on it is time for us to choose how — or if — we can begin to repair the damage.
The choice is ours. But I think I know what Private Cooperberg would have us do.
Lt. Commander Aaron J. Shepard, Judge Advocate General’s Corps, United States Navy (@GTMOCatch22) is a military officer and attorney. He currently serves as a managing defense counsel with the Military Commissions Defense Organization. The views expressed do not reflect those of the Defense Department, the U.S. government or any of its agencies.[--this last part is of course unfortunate]
Monday, December 27, 2021
The Talking Dog looks back at our year.....
No one says it better than the dog...
...... What
does this mean? Well, it ties in nicely with the overall theme of this blog, to
wit, trying to fill some of the space left open by the mainstream media on some
of the bigger issues of the day, one of which is the national security state
and its war on terror, especially “Guantanamo Bay.” Obviously, one of the
biggest sources of mainstream media information ever to come out about GTMO was the Wikileaks treasure trove of GTMO data. Among
the curators of this data was our good friend Andy, (who testified at Assange’s
hearing in London). Andy has been at the forefront of
journalists throughout the world on matters GTMO, despite being an independent,
not permanently attached to any major news organization. Although I am nowhere
even near Andy’s league in terms of my own journalism, I have still compiled
over 70 interviews on the subject (referenced here).
While there are “mainstream journos” on the beat (Carol Rosenberg, now at
the N.Y. Times being the first that comes to mind),
for the most part, I have to say that not just GTMO, but treatment of our
military’s prisoners everywhere (CIA black sites, Bagram/Kandahar, GTMO, etc.),
or the drone wars, or frankly, just how wide the bloody war on terror actually
is, has received a strangely limited amount of coverage from the main stream
media, which as I note, has created some openings for “independents.”
Read the rest here.
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