Guantanamo Diary

Written By: - Date published: 11:10 pm, January 21st, 2015 - 4 comments
Categories: us politics - Tags: ,

The Guardian has some amazing extracts from a diary that Guantánamo detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi kept and gave to his lawyers. It’s the first book by a serving Guantanamo inmate.

It was written in 2005 and took 6 years to be released by the US Government: still, much less time than it’s taking to release Slahi.

A US judge ordered his release in 2010 with a habeas corpus writ, but the US government have bound that decision up in legal tape, producing neither charges nor his release.

His work is censored (and printed with blanks in place), but still, it details an horrific tale of going to answer some questions at the local police station in Mauritania, and never returning – for well over a decade.

Instead he’s endured beatings, torture, sexual humiliation… often done with great care to leave no wounds, or obvious damage.  Forced to drink salt water, endure long hours in extreme cold, and lengthy times without human contact, chained tightly to the floor, this is the inhumanity and injustice that the country that champions “freedom” dispenses.

His repeated false confessions to try to stop the pain only show the pointlessness of torture for producing useful information in America’s “War on Terror”.

Along with the evidence of over 1,100 innocents killed by drones, this must surely cause questions for the world’s most powerful country, of how their actions can be so far from their rhetoric and supposed beliefs.

I recommend reading some of the many diary articles – they’re chilling.

4 comments on “Guantanamo Diary ”

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  1. Colonial Rawshark 1
    21 January 2015 at 11:27 pm

    Thanks for posting about this Ben.

    Although these atrocious stories from Gitmo are eye opening to many exposed only to the highly sanitised western media, they have been very well known on the ‘Arab street’ for years.

    This is how an empire is run, if you happen to be on the wrong side of the empire.

    So when those in the Middle East and third world countries hear the USA and its allies try and lecture about “human rights” they simply shake their heads in disbelief.

  2. Draco T Bastard 2
    22 January 2015 at 12:12 am

    Along with the evidence of over 1,100 innocents killed by drones, this must surely cause questions for the world’s most powerful country, of how their actions can be so far from their rhetoric and supposed beliefs.

    Capitalism is a system of oppression, not freedom.

  3. John Shears 3
    22 January 2015 at 7:51 am

    Guantanamo Bay detention camp is part of the US Marine Corp history and has been since 1903 in spite of Cuba wanting it back. The US rents it in perpetuity although Cuba never banks the payments.

    Camps such as this where conditions are not acceptable and are not open to international scrutiny are not new as far as America is concerned. Have a look at
    http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77239.Andersonville . a review about the 1955 Pulitzer Prize winning novel set in the so called civil war.

    Read it and get a better understanding of the attitudes that still linger in the land of the free.

  4. saveNZ 4
    23 January 2015 at 9:47 pm

    Thanks.
    Harrowing reading.