An Open Letter to President Biden About Guantánamo
President Bush opened it. President Obama promised to close it, but failed to do so. President Trump promised to keep it open. Now, it is your turn to decide.We write to you as former prisoners of the United States held without charge or trial at the military detention facility at Guantánamo Bay who have written books about our experiences.
First, we welcome your presidential orders to reverse many unjust and problematic decisions made by your predecessor. We appreciate your repeal of the “Muslim ban,” which will now allow nationals from the Muslim-majority countries previously targeted into the United States, therefore bringing relief to families torn apart by this order.
Despite some positive developments, including the repeal of the Muslim ban, there is another deeply flawed and unjust process that has continued through five US presidential administrations spanning two decades: Guantánamo Bay prison. Guantánamo Bay has existed for over nineteen years and was built to house an exclusively Muslim male population.
We understand that your faith is important to you and helps to guide your vision of social justice. During our incarceration, we often reflected on the story of the Prophet Joseph (Yusuf) in the Quran and his years of wrongful imprisonment. It’s the same story in the Bible and one that reminds us that justice is not only divine, but timeless. That is why we are writing to you.
Psychologists Should Now Lead the Call to Close Guantánamo
Both the history and the ethics of our profession point the way forward.
Last week, Mansoor Adayfi, Moazzam Begg, Lakhdar Boumediane, Sami Al-Hajj, Ahmed Errachidi, Mohammed Ould Slahi, and Moussa Zemmouri published an open letter in the New York Review of Books. Noting that many Guantánamo detainees had been abducted from their homes, sold to the United States for bounties, and subjected to physical and psychological torture, these seven former prisoners—all held without charge or trial before their eventual release—called upon President Biden to close the detention facility. Their letter, which merits reading in its entirety, includes this plea:
Considering the violence that has happened at Guantánamo, we are sure that after more than nineteen years, you agree that imprisoning people indefinitely without trial while subjecting them to torture, cruelty, and degrading treatment, with no meaningful access to families or proper legal systems, is the height of injustice. That is why imprisonment at Guantánamo must end.
America's Torture Colony: 19 Years of Guantanamo... It Must Be Closed Now!
Sunday, January 17, 2021• 4:00 PM • Eastern Standard Time (US & Canada) (GMT-05:00)
Watch live on YouTube and FaceBook
Andy Worthington, British journalist and co-founder of Close Guantanamo, will be giving a virtual talk from London on the history and continuing horror of the Guantanamo detention camp. He will be joined by Shelby Sullivan-Bennis, lawyer for several Guantanamo prisoners and victims of U.S. drone strikes outside of war zones.
WE’RE ON THE “GIVE PEACE A CHANCE” RADIO SHOW!
Listen in as We Are Not Your Soldiers spends an hour with a Peace Studies class at Nassau Community College in NY. Professor Susan Cushman introduces her class, followed by Stephanie Rugoff who coordinates We Are Not Your Soldiers. Miles Megaciph, a U.S. Marines veteran and hip hop artist, then starts off with his song “Promise” and continues for the rest of the program in dialogue with the class about his time in the military. This was originally aired on the “Give Peace a Chance” show on WBAI, 99.5 FM in NYC.
"Give Peace A Chance"
Debra Sweet | December 24, 2020
Tune in to WBAI this Saturday Dec. 26 at 6:00 EST (on the radio at 99.5 in NYC or tune in on the WBAI website from wherever you're located) to "Give Peace A Chance" to hear the special program on We Are Not Your Soldiers including audio from a visit last week to a community college Peace Studies class in NY.
Listen Now: Give Peace A Chance
Trump Pardons Nisour Square Killers
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Credit:Ali Yussef/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images.
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The CIA’s Afghan Death Squads
To understand what the U.S. does to exert its power around the world, you have to look beyond the public words and actions, to the covert actions that are often even more decisive and revealing of U.S values than overt wars, and certainly more true than diplomacy carried out as subterfuge. Mike Pompeo, then director of the CIA said in 2017 that it “must be aggressive, vicious, unforgiving, relentless.” That wasn't exactly news to anyone who's followed it since 1947, through its role in dozens of coups overthrowing elected governments not favored by the U.S. The largest targeted drone killing program of the two decade "war of terror" is probably the CIA's, launched by Bush, expanded by Obama and then more so by Trump.
Racism and Genocide in the United States
Paul Robeson presents "We Charge Genocide" to the UN Secretariat, Dec. 17, 1951.
There have been several attempts in the past 75 years by people in the U.S. to get some help from the UN to do something about the genocide of Black and indigenous people in the U.S. by police. Just a couple of years ago, for example, Michael Brown's parents led a march to the UN headquarters in Manhattan. Paul Robeson, William L. Patterson, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis and many others presented evidence of genocide to the UN in NYC and Paris in 1951.
Send Anti-War Veterans to Students
When World Can’t Wait was founded in 2005, we spent four years raising the demand that the Bush regime be driven from power via mass non-violent protest and prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity. We knew that those crimes would happen again and worsen if accepted and normalized, as they were under the Obama administration.
Join Me in Marking 50 Years
December 3, 1970: I was 19. I knew enough about the US war in southeast Asia to know it was wrong. I had protested since 1968, and especially after it became known in April 1970 that Nixon had secretly bombed Cambodia, I was outraged along with the world. But here, 7 months later, I was in The White House, about to receive the "Young American Medal for Service" from Richard Nixon.
Trump Rally: Blinded by The Light
On Saturday September 26, 2020, I attended the Trump Rally in Portland, Oregon.The rally was held in Delta Park, which is located off of Interstate 5, about two miles from the bridge that crosses over to Vancouver, Washington. A far-right group, the Proud Boys, which is a national organization of about 20,000 members, was the organizer of the gathering. The Oregonian newspaper mentioned in an article that day that possibly 10,000 people might be in attendance. The attendance was later estimated at about 500 plus people. I think many people did not show up because the mayor of Portland, Ted Wheeler, and Governor Kate Brown had put the word out that they would not tolerate any violence from that group because there was a counter protest being held at Peninsula Park, about three miles away.
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