July 2024 Archives

"I've received a steady stream of mail that dates back to requests I filed in 2017," writes Jason Leopold. The agencies can't and won't explain why it's taken 7 years to turn over these documents. But that's the FOIA for you. If you use it, prepare to play the long game," https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-07-26/foia-docs-reveal-long-awaited-details-on-michael-flynn-mike-pompeo-guantanamo (think Guantanamo).

President George W. Bush declared his wish to shutter the prison he had opened. Both Obama and the current president promised to do the same. The tail end of Biden's administration may well be the last chance for Guantanamo closure; Trump had planned to enlarge the facility for more 'bad guys'; Kamala Harris has been mum on the issue. But Biden still has a chance to follow his word. In the face of Israeli torture of Palestinians in a manner resembling the notorious US prison, I think it's the least he can do.

Join World Can't Wait and Amnesty International to deliver that message Wednesday, August 7, 6PM at the traffic island (Harry Bridges Plaza) outside the SF Ferry Building.

November vigil outside the US Embassy in London managed to catch US Vice President Kamala Harris on her visit. Organizer Sara Birch says she is sure Harris would have heard attendees shouting and cars beeping for the closure of Guantanamo. Photo c/o UK Guantanamo Network

The U.S. held Saeed Bakhouch at Guantánamo Bay for 20 years without charge, then sent him to have his rights violated in Algeria.

The fact of the matter is that there are no good options for these men," said American lawyer Candace Gorman. "Very few of these men have landed on their feet. Most have been treated as pariahs, whether they are at home or in some random country, because of the U.S. propaganda."

Project 2025 is the blueprint to institutionalize dictatorship, says Jim Zirin. Key architects of the Heritage Foundation's plan to return Donald Trump to the White House are intent on dissembling pesident Biden's 2020 victory. 

John Yoo, a former Justice Department official and authorof the infamous torture memos during the Bush administration, has composed a justification for retaliation prosecutions. 

Andy Worthington suggests the US Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling should come as no surprise; 22 years of Guantanamo demonstrated the tyranny of successive administrations.

"Presumptive immunity" from prosecution may impede executive resolve to release victims of American injustice (where if no laws can prevent the president from doing whatever he wants, how was torture criminal in the first place?), BUT ENABLES PRESIDENT BIDEN TO AT LAST DO THE RIGHT THING, independent of political deliberation. With the very legitimacy of American jurisprudence in question, this may be the last best chance to end this deplorable episode of history. But it's going to take determined struggle of masses of people who hate what's transpired in their name; we can't depend on US courts. 

It's easy to forget about Guantánamo Bay, posits Lawrence Douglas.

"Back in the day of George W Bush's misbegotten 'war on terror,' John Yoo, at the time a lawyer in the office of legal counsel, wrote a notorious memo opining that the federal law criminalizing torture would be unconstitutional if applied to the president in times of war. This ominous claim led the senator Patrick Leahy to ask the then attorney teneral Alberto Gonzales, during a congressional hearing, whether the president could legally order genocide. At the time, Gonzales refused to answer, dismissing the question as hypothetical. Now the supreme court has offered a clear and shocking answer to the senator's question,"

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/05/supreme-court-presidential-immunity-threat-american-democracy