WikiLeaks and the 22 Children of Guantánamo by Andy Worthington

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
11 June, 2011

Image by 4WardEver UK via Flickr

In May 2008, in a submission to the 48th Session of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (PDF), the Pentagon claimed that it had only held eight juveniles — those under the age of 18 when their alleged crimes took place — during the life of the Guantánamo Bay prison. This, however, was a lie, as its own documents providing the names and dates of birth of prisoners, released in May 2006 (PDF), showed that the true total was much higher.

The Unjustifiable Defense of Torture and Gitmo by Andy Worthington

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
5 May, 2011

With the reported assassination of Osama bin Laden, one of the most alarming responses has been a kind of casual and widespread acceptance that the death of  America’s number one bogeyman would not have been achieved without the use of torture, and without the existence of Guantánamo.

This is wrong on both fronts, as Jane Mayer of the New Yorker explained in response to an early manifestation of the story, put out by torture apologists Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol:

WikiLeaks Reveals Secret Guantánamo Files, Exposes Detention Policy as a Construct of Lies

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
25 April, 2011

Image by Truthout.org via Flickr

Well, the cat is now out of the bag, and Guantánamo will, hopefully, be closer to closure — and the lies that powerful Americans tell about it will, hopefully, be closer to silence — as a result. For the last few weeks, I’ve been working as a media partner with WikiLeaks, along with the Washington Post, McClatchy Newspapers, El Pais, the Daily Telegraph, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, Aftonbladet, La Repubblica and L’Espresso, navigating thousands of previously unseen documents about Guantánamo that were made available to the whistleblowing website last year, allegedly by Pfc Bradley Manning, who has been imprisoned for nearly a year by the US government, awaiting a trial.

Torture and Terrorism: In the Middle East It’s 2011, In America It’s Still 2001

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
3 April, 2011

The gulf between what’s happening on the ground in the Middle East and the way it is perceived by the US intelligence services — as well as the gulf between how critics perceive America’s counterterrorism policies in the Middle East, and how those policies are perceived by US intelligence — were recently exposed in an article in the Wall Street Journal by Julian E. Barnes and Adam Entous, entitled, “Upheaval in Mideast Sets Back Terror War.”

Lifting the Veil: Barack Obama and the failure of capitalist democracy (must-see)

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Warning

This video may contain images depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.

Image via Wikipedia

http://tv.globalresearch.ca

Source: Metanoia Films

“Lifting the Veil is the long overdue film that powerfully, definitively, and finally exposes the deadly 21st century hypocrisy of U.S. internal and external policies, even as it imbues the viewer with a sense of urgency and an actualized hope to bring about real systemic change while there is yet time for humanity and this planet. See this film!”
-Larry Pinkney

Empire Means Never Having to Mean it’s Sorry by Cindy Sheehan

by Cindy Sheehan
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox
March 10, 2011

Image by Passetti via Flickr

“The US is deeply sorry…these deaths shouldn’t have happened.” — General David Petraeus after nine Afghan children gathering wood were slaughtered by the US.

On 3 March, occupying forces in Afghanistan killed nine children gathering wood in Kunar Province. This time, instead of despicably accusing Afghan parents of killing their own children to laughably cast the US in a bad light (we don’t need any help), according to the L.A. Times, Petraeus “swiftly” apologized.

Revolution in Egypt – and the Hypocrisy of the US and the West

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
2 February, 2011

For the United States and other Western countries, the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt (which threaten to spread to other countries, including Yemen and Algeria) are something of a nightmare. Just as the authorities in these countries are struggling — and failing — to cope with popular uprisings, so too the United States and other Western countries are rudderless when faced with an undefined enemy — and make no mistake about it, the people of foreign countries are the enemy when their revolts against dictatorship threaten Western interests.

Obama’s Collapse: The Return of the Military Commissions

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
25 January, 2011

For T. S. Eliot, April was the cruelest month, but for the prisoners at Guantánamo it is January — from the dashed hopes of January 2009, when President Obama swept into office issuing an executive order in which he promised to close the prison within a year, to January 2010, when, having failed to do so, he added insult to injury by issuing a moratorium preventing the release of 29 Yemenis cleared for release by his own Guantánamo Review Task Force, after his opponents seized on the revelation that a failed plane bomber on Christmas Day 2009 had apparently been recruited in Yemen.

Countering Pentagon Propaganda About Prisoners Released from Guantánamo

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
18 January, 2011

Image by codepinkhq via Flickr

For several years now, one organization in the US government has persistently undermined attempts to have a grown-up debate about the perceived dangerousness of prisoners at Guantánamo, and the need to bear security concerns in mind whilst also trying to empty the prison and to bring to an end this particularly malign icon of the Bush administration’s ill-conceived response to the 9/11 attacks.

Cindy Sheehan: George Carlin, Roe versus Wade and Gitmo

by Cindy Sheehan
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox
January 16, 2011

(SOAPBOX #83)

This Sunday (January 16th), Cindy presents admirably scurrulous election satire by no less than George Carlin, and then “celebrates” two anniversaries, one famous and most healthy for our nation – but oh so hated today by the “religious right” (which is really neither) – Roe versus Wade – and the other, a truly sickening anniversary, that of the opening of Guantanamo Bay Prison, on Jan 11th, 2002. 

Close Gitmo, End Torture Demonstration at U.S. Justice Department + Obama to Sanction Indefinite Gitmo Detention

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Image by futureatlas.com via Flickr

liamh2 on January 11, 2011

On Tuesday afternoon, Jan. 11, 2011, scores of Human Rights activists demonstrated outside the U.S. Justice Department, in Washington, D.C. They were staging “a day of action,” directed at closing Gitmo and ending torture. There were no arrests. Featured in this video are: Author Andy Worthington; activists Ruth Hooke and Ray McGovern; and, Peace Poet, Luke Nephew.

As Activists Plan Protest for 9th Anniv. of Guantánamo, Former Gitmo Commander Subpoenaed in Spain over Prisoner Torture + Ending Bush’s big lie on Guantánamo

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
7 January, 2011

This morning, as part of my current US tour to raise awareness of Guantánamo, in the week that the 173 men still held in the “War on Terror” prison begin their tenth year of detention, I was delighted to be invited to speak to Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez on Democracy Now! Amy and Juan had also invited Katie Gallagher of the Center of Constitutional Rights, and our segment of the show, which lasts about 12 minutes, is available below:

Andy Worthington Discusses Guantánamo and WikiLeaks with Rob Kall of Op-Ed News

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
7 January, 2011

To coincide with my induction as a trusted author on Op-Ed News, I spoke to Rob Kall, Op-Ed News’ executive editor and publisher on Tuesday, for a 75-minute podcast, which will also be broadcast, in some form or other, on Rob’s Bottom Up Radio Show on WNJC 1360 AM, which runs from 9-10 pm EST on Wednesday evenings.

More Evidence of Medical Experimentation at Guantánamo

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
22 December, 2010

In an investigative report for Truthout, my colleagues Jason Leopold and the psychologist and blogger Jeffrey Kaye have followed up on an important story they published three weeks ago, “Controversial Drug Given to All Guantánamo Detainees Akin to ‘Pharmacologic Waterboarding’” (which I cross-posted here, with commentary). In that article, they revealed how, in the months following the opening of Guantánamo on January 11, 2002, every single prisoner was forced to “take a high dosage of a controversial antimalarial drug, mefloquine, an act that an Army public health physician called ‘pharmacologic waterboarding.’”

Is Bradley Manning Being Held as Some Sort of “Enemy Combatant”?

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
20 December, 2010

Image by mar is sea Y via Flickr

In disturbing reports from the US, it appears that Private First Class Bradley Manning, the former intelligence analyst accused of leaking the Afghan and Iraqi war logs, the US diplomatic cables and the “Collateral Damage” video, which have dominated headlines globally since WikiLeaks began making them available in April this year, is being held in conditions that bear a marked and chilling resemblance to the conditions in which a handful of US citizens and residents were held as “enemy combatants” under the Bush administration.