New Books on Guantanamo
Murder at Camp Delta: A Staff Sergeant's Pursuit of the Truth at Guantanamo Bay
by Joe Hickman
Joe was a guard at Guantanamo in 2005/06. He was later haunted by the "suicides" of three hunger-striking prisoners simulateously in 2006, and came to believe they were moved to "Camp No," likely a CIA site on the prison grounds, just before they were killed. He later worked "conscripting young men and women into the military while harboring doubts about the scruples of some in the armed services," according to an extensive article in Newsweek.
Joe Hickman appeared on Democracy Now! last week.
Guantanamo Diary
by Mohamedou Slahi
Says Der Spiegel: Mauritanian national Mohamedou Ould Slahi has been held at Guantanamo for 12 years now without trial and despite a dearth of evidence. A diary he kept of his torture is now being published around the world. Sufficient evidence has never turned up, proper charges haven't been filed and Slahi, now 44, has never been put on trial. He was granted habeas rights in 2010 by U.S. federal court, which said it could find no reason to detain him. But the Obama administration appealed immediately, and he is still locked up.
Mark Danner, reviewing the book in the New York Times, said, “...[a]sked recently about an innocent man who had been tortured to death in an American “black site” in Afghanistan, former Vice President Dick Cheney did not hesitate. “I’m more concerned,” he said, “with bad guys who got out and released than I am with a few that, in fact, were innocent.” In this new era in which all would be sacrificed to protect the country, torture and even murder of the innocent must be counted simply as “collateral damage.” Guantánamo Diary is the most profound account yet written of what it is like to be that collateral damage.
The Guardian features Mohamedou's attorneys, brother, and excerpts of the diary turned into an animated video.
Also see Der Spiegel: Guantanamo Prisoner Diary: 'We're Gonna Teach You About Great American Sex'
