Curt Wechsler, The World Can't Wait: July 2015 Archives

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Long-term hunger striker Tariq Ba Odah, held at Guantanamo Bay for more than 13 years, has never been charged with a crime. Medical experts find the prisoner "gravely malnourished and in danger of catastrophic physical and neurological impairment and even death." President Obama must prevent what would be the first forced-feeding death at America's most notorious prison camp -- release Ba Odah today.

"Ba Odah's suffering is as unnecessary as it is unforgivable," writes Center for Constitutional Rights attorney Omar Farah.

The media in Maine continue to act as if the Navy's SERE [Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape] "torture school" in the mountains northeast of Rangeley doesn't exist... Having exposed the ways SERE training of our defenders led to the torture of our supposed "enemies," it's time we examined the root of the problem -- and one of those roots is firmly planted in our backyard.

-- Chris Busby, Bangor Daily News

APA + DOD = HumRRO

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A new publication recounts the American Psychological Association's collaboration with the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency. "It's long been known that health professionals played a key role in legitimizing and implementing the CIA's and Defense Department's interrogation programs" writes Rupert Stone.  

Wikipedia documents the history of systemic abuse by psychologists. A year after the establishment of Human Resource Research Organization by the U.S. military, CIA began funding numerous psychologists (and other scientists) in the development of psychological warfare methods under the supervision of APA treasurer Meredith Crawford. Donald Hebb, the APA president in 1960 who was awarded the APA Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award in 1961, defended the torture of research subjects, arguing that what was being studied was other nations' methods of brainwashing. Former APA president Martin Seligman spoke upon the invitation of the CIA on his animal experimentation where he shocked a dog unpredictably and repeatedly into total, helpless passivity. Former APA president Joseph Matarazzo designed a new CIA interrogation regimen and supervised the torture of Abu Zubaydah at a secret CIA detention site in Thailand. Former APA president Ronald F. Levant, upon visiting Guantanamo Bay, affirmed that psychologists were present during the torture of prisoners, arguing that their presence was to "add value and safeguards" to interrogations.

American Psychological Association Director of the Office of Ethics Stephen Behnke has been "removed from his position as a result of the report." Prosecution of torture architects and central perpetrators must follow.

I hear the war in Afghanistan is over. 

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This war was supposedly the reason I remained trapped, rotting in this endless horror at Guantanamo Bay. I write this letter today to ask, if this war has ended, why am I still here? Why has nothing changed?

Amid falling bombs and mass hysteria, I fled Afghanistan for safety when the US launched its military operations in 2001. I was abducted despite never fighting against the United States, was sold into US military custody, and then imprisoned, tortured, and abused at Guantanamo since 2002 without ever being charged with a single crime.

I protest this injustice by hunger striking, refusing food and sometimes water.One of Guantanamo's long-term hunger strikers, I am a frail man now, weighing only 96 pounds (44kg) at 5'5" (1.68m).

Recently, my latest strike surpassed its second year. My health is deteriorating rapidly, but my intention to continue my strike is steadfast. I do not want to kill myself. My religion prohibits suicide. But despite daily bouts of violent vomiting and sharp pain, I will not eat or drink to peacefully protest against the injustice of this place. My protest is the one form of control I have of my own life and I vow to continue it until I am free.

I remain on lockdown alone in my cell 22 hours a day. Despite my condition, prison authorities unleash an entire riot squad of six giant guards to forcibly extract me from my cell, restrain me onto a chair and brutally force-feed me daily. They push a thick tube down my nose until I bleed, after which I vomit.

This gruesome procedure may not be written about so much any more, but it remains my everyday reality. It is painful. And it is bewildering. How can I possibly resist anyone, let alone these men? Hunger striking is a form of peaceful and civil disobedience. It is not a crime. So why am I being punished? Why not humanely tube-feed me instead?

My time here has been ridden with unanswered questions. Two years ago, as I attempted to pray, a sudden raid was ordered and a guard deliberately shot me without warning or provocation. Once again, I was not resisting. So why did he shoot? My clothes, torn, were soaked in my own blood. I want the government to ask the guard who shot me to account for his actions.

I began to wonder if shooting without any provocation is legal in the US. But now I realise that US police officers get away with ruthlessly killing black people all the time.

I wonder now if the US follows any rule of law at all: the Geneva Conventions or even its own Constitution. Where is the freedom and justice for all that it so proudly boasts to the world?

For us at Guantanamo, this place is not fit for any living, breathing, human being. The US seems to want to smother us, to kill us slowly as we are left in a vacuum of uncertainty wondering if we will ever be free.

I have lived the past 13 years in this despair, at the cost of my dignity, paying the price for the US government's political theatre. Meanwhile, little has changed for the 122 men remaining at Guantanamo.

The world may turn a blind eye and find this number small. But for each of us here, the cost of our indefinite and unfair imprisonment is beyond immeasurable. Our families have lost fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons to this hell on earth. Many of us have unnecessarily lost over a decade of our already short time in this world, yearning to be free again.

Moath Hamza Ahmed al Alwi

#FreeSlahi

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"Worse than letting a guilty person go free is keeping an innocent person behind bars. Guantanamo is an extra-legal prison that operates outside that rule of law, and I feel strongly as a journalist and citizen that this demands exploration. The movie isn't a referendum on Guantanamo as much as a look at a man who wrote an incredibly moving, humorous, humane book, a stunning thing to come out of Guantanamo," says scriptwriter Michael Bronner

Movie Deal For 'Guantanamo Diary'

UC Berkeley Billboard

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Important Reading

Physicians for Human Rights
Broken Laws, Broken Lives

NLG White Paper
ON THE LAW OF TORTURE...

The President's Executioner

Detention and torture in Guantanamo



About this Archive

This page is a archive of recent entries in July 2015.

Curt Wechsler, The World Can't Wait: June 2015 is the previous archive.

Curt Wechsler, The World Can't Wait: August 2015 is the next archive.

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