WEBVTT

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<v Johnny>We're rolling.</v>

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<v Peter>Good, good afternoon.</v>

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<v ->Hi.</v>

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<v Peter>Hi, we are very grateful to you</v>

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for participating in the Witness To Guantanamo project.

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We invite you to speak of your experiences

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with Guantanamo Bay prisoners

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and your knowledge of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

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We are hoping to provide you an opportunity

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to tell your story in your own words.

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We are creating an archive of stories

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so that people in America and around the world

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will have a better understanding of what you have observed,

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and experienced, and the whole story of Guantanamo.

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Hopefully people around the world

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will have a better understanding from that.

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Future generations want to know what happened in Guantanamo

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and by telling the story you contributed to the history.

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And we'd like to let you know

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that if you want to take a break at any time

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you feel free to let us know.

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And also if you say something that you feel

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you'd like removed

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and you tell us at the end of the filming, we can remove it.

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And we'd like to begin by having you tell us your name,

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and date of birth, and age, and where you were born.

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<v ->Okay, well, my name is Andy Worthington.</v>

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I was born in, how precise do you want me to be?

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I was born in 1963 (laughing).

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<v Peter>Great and your age is?</v>

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<v ->At present I'm 53.</v>

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<v Peter>And where were you born?</v>

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<v ->I was born just outside Manchester in Northern England</v>

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where I moved when I was a child,

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when I was just three, actually,

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to the other side of the country in the east,

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place called Hull,

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in fact it's a large village outside Hull

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which is a formerly quite significant fishing port.

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That's where I grew up.

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Then I went to Oxford University,

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and then I moved to London and I've been there ever since.

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<v Peter>And before you started working</v>

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on Guantanamo issues,

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did you have any works that might be interesting

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to the audience?

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Tell us what you did after.

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<v ->Yeah, well I came to Guantanamo</v>

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through an interest in civil liberties and human rights

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that had developed over the years previously.

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I should probably say that I think that the kind of Genesis

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of my interest in human rights and in tackling injustice

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probably comes from my Northern English,

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working class Methodist background.

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And I think it's significant that religion as I perceived it

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is one that is very concerned with justice,

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with combating injustice and is very concerned

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with standing up for the underdog.

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And a lot of those issues are supposed to be basic

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to Christianity as a whole.

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But I think that some of the more establishment Christians

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don't sympathize enough with the underdog.

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But it took me a long time to realize in my life

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that this was something that was significant to me.

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I'd lost my faith, but the values were things

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that I've always carried with me.

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So, I'd been working on a project

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about British social history.

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So, actually it was about Stonehenge

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and it was about the various groups of people

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that have been attracted to Stonehenge over the years.

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So an odd selection of rebels and outsiders.

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People connected with paganism

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and the also people connected

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with the British counterculture.

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And there was a free festival in the 1970s and the 1980s

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that took place at Stonehenge which got massive

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and was shut down very violently by Margaret Thatcher

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in 1985, the year after she'd violently suppressed

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the minors in the UK.

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And she then set up a military exclusion zone

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outside of Stonehenge every summer solstice

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to prevent people getting there

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which lasted for about a decade and a half.

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And eventually what happened

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was that people who were peacefully protesting

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outside Stonehenge were arrested by the police.

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And they took that case to the courts

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and they went all the way up to the Law Lords,

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which was the highest court,

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we now got a Supreme Court.

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At the time they were the Law Lords.

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And they made this decision

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about saying that the government had no right

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to arrest people who were peacefully protesting

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on the side of the road.

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Because if people think that there's no way

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to get redress for a perceived wrongdoing,

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then peacefully protesting is a completely valid way

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to do it.

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If they get violent, it's a different matter,

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but if they're peaceful, which they were.

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So, that suddenly the exclusion zone went

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and they had to allow people back.

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And now bizarrely, they have a young people's hedonistic

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party in Stonehenge every summer solstice.

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Whereas before all this nonsense began,

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the hippies festival was across the road.

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And it was only a small number of them

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who actually went to the solstice.

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But anyway, the key to this story

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is that I had read the Law Lord's ruling

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and I found their language

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and their reasoning really interesting.

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And I was dealing with civil liberties issues.

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And so, this combination of focusing on civil liberties

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and getting into the mentality of how judges operated,

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how the law operated,

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meant that it wasn't that big a leap for me

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to start getting into Guantanamo.

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<v Peter>But there was some gap</v>

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between that, what happened?

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How did that happen that you did get into Guantanamo?

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<v ->Well, I'd actually spent several years</v>

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working on this Stonehenge issue,

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and I'd written two books

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and I was looking for a new project.

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I'd liked that I was just independently writing books.

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And I was looking for something that I could do

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and Guantanamo was something that had been on my radar.

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So, I hadn't been obsessive about it

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but most people outside the United States

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who weren't on the extreme right,

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knew as soon as Guantanamo opened

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that something was fishy about this,

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the whole orange jumpsuit thing.

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Now, I know that in America,

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not only was the spirit of vengeance so strong

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but orange jumpsuits are prison outfits.

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Nobody was surprised by the orange.

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Outside, the rest of the world, all of this stuff,

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and the orange suits was a bit alarming.

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So, there was a low level monitoring, I would say,

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around the world amongst decent people

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of what are they up to here?

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And then of course, when people started being released

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and in Britain, I think in particular, it was noticeable

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that when the British guys were released

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in March, 2014 and spoke to the press,

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we were suddenly hearing these stories

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about the level of torture and abuse

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and what a terrible situation it was in there.

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It built up from there.

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And I became interested from a research point of view

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of how dare the United States be holding people

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when they are not even telling the world

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who they're holding there.

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And I became interested in finding out who was there.

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So, then this was in about September, 2005.

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And I started researching on the internet,

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really, in-depth searches on the internet

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for who might have been held there

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and what their stories were.

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So, released prisoners.

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I had two lists that I worked from.

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One was the list that the "Washington Post"

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had tried to put together.

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And another was a list of Cageprisoners in the UK

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had tried to put together of who might be there.

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And I started searching these names

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and I would find the reports,

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an AP report from Kabul when a plane arrived

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in 2003 with a whole bunch of Afghans on board.

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And they would give little bits of their stories,

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some of them, they would say a few things.

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And I was trying to piece it all together from that.

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But obviously there were huge, huge holes in the story.

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And we didn't know who was there, they hadn't told us.

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So it wasn't until spring 2006,

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that was when the government lost these lawsuits

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about freedom of information

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and were compelled to release the names

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and the nationalities of the prisoners.

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And I think it's about 8,000 pages of documents.

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The unclassified summaries of evidence

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and the transcripts of the the "Mickey Mouse" tribunals

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that they held there, the Combatant Status Review Tribunal

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and the Administrative Review Board.

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And those documents were really the basis

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for how I got into the stories of who the people were.

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<v Peter>That was your goal.</v>

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That was your concern to the stories

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of the people, that really is where you wanted to focus.

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<v ->Well, there were always been two things.</v>

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I wanted to show that these were human beings

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because that's always the case.

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And even people who've done bad things,

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they're human beings, there're stories.

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And we had been told pretty explicitly

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by Donald Rumsfeld in particular,

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don't even bother thinking about who these people are.

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They're the worst of the worst, we're keeping you safe.

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That was very, very, very powerful.

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And on the face of it, quite reasonable,

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total dehumanization of the men held at Guantanamo, really.

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And it's been extraordinarily successful.

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I would say that still is the message

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that it's almost it's beamed out relentlessly

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across the United States.

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Don't think about Guantanamo.

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There're still really terribly bad people there

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and we're keeping you safe.

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So, there's also this very paternalistic,

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we're looking after you side of things.

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<v Peter>Why did the U.S seem so important to you</v>

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as opposed to the way the British

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were treating people they captured?

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<v ->Because Guantanamo was the iconic prisoner of the war</v>

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on terror and because of the United States sets itself up

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as this great nation and the values

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that it claims to uphold.

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Then it was particularly outrageous

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that here was Guantanamo,

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and that Guantanamo itself wasn't being hidden

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but everything about what it stood for

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and what was happening there,

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and who was held there was being hidden.

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<v Peter>And what kind of response</v>

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did you get from people?

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You started blogging with this?

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Is that how you put out your information?

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<v ->No, what I actually started doing</v>

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was I started writing a book.

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So, actually when these documents came out

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I just started analyzing them.

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And there were two lists of prisoners

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and they had the prisoners numbers and their names,

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and all of the documentation of the allegations

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and the transcripts had the prisoner numbers

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on them somewhere.

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So, I had to match the numbers on the list to these

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and then start working out who these people were

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and the Bush administration said they were captured

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on the battlefield.

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No one was captured on the battlefield.

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They were captured, for the most part,

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by the U.S's Afghan or Pakistani allies.

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Or they were captured in what mostly appeared

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to be chronically inept raids on houses in Pakistan.

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But it was important for me in trying to work out

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who they were.

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So, their voices would come through

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sometimes in the transcripts.

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It was amazing that in some cases

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it was almost like you could hear them,

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even when they were translated.

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Even with all these mistakes that would have occurred

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in the translation,

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the whole clunking idiotic system of these reviews

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which was only intended to rubber stamp

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their prior designation as enemy combatants,

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it was not meant to be about justice.

263
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But sometimes you can really hear the people.

264
00:12:19.780 --> 00:12:24.050
But it was important to me not just to convey who they were,

265
00:12:24.050 --> 00:12:28.020
if I could, but to work out the statistics.

266
00:12:28.020 --> 00:12:30.060
If these people weren't the worst of the worst

267
00:12:30.060 --> 00:12:32.894
and captured on the battlefield, then who were they?

268
00:12:32.894 --> 00:12:35.270
So, that nearly half of them were captured

269
00:12:35.270 --> 00:12:40.120
crossing from Afghanistan into Pakistan at the end of 2001.

270
00:12:40.120 --> 00:12:42.490
A much smaller number, actually, were captured

271
00:12:42.490 --> 00:12:45.170
in Afghanistan in various places.

272
00:12:45.170 --> 00:12:48.590
And then these house raids like I said, in Pakistan,

273
00:12:48.590 --> 00:12:52.370
primarily, and then the 40 or so prisoners

274
00:12:52.370 --> 00:12:54.800
who had been through the black sites

275
00:12:54.800 --> 00:12:58.530
and had come to Guantanamo through that route.

276
00:12:58.530 --> 00:13:00.260
And then, so at some point,

277
00:13:00.260 --> 00:13:01.900
I think it must've been quite early on.

278
00:13:01.900 --> 00:13:06.520
I was looking around for someone who might wanna publish it.

279
00:13:06.520 --> 00:13:09.513
And Pluto Press said that they would do it.

280
00:13:10.520 --> 00:13:14.150
So, I spent 14 months working on the book.

281
00:13:14.150 --> 00:13:17.370
And when the book came out, when the book was finished,

282
00:13:17.370 --> 00:13:19.750
I delivered the manuscript to Pluto Pressing.

283
00:13:19.750 --> 00:13:21.100
<v Peter>What was the book called?</v>

284
00:13:21.100 --> 00:13:23.150
<v ->The "Guantanamo Files, The Stories</v>

285
00:13:23.150 --> 00:13:27.900
Of The 774 Detainees In America's Illegal Prison".

286
00:13:27.900 --> 00:13:31.190
And the 774 was right at the time but five more prisoners

287
00:13:31.190 --> 00:13:35.083
arrived after I finished the manuscript.

288
00:13:36.330 --> 00:13:39.970
The 779 is the number of prisoners officially held

289
00:13:39.970 --> 00:13:42.373
by the U.S military at Guantanamo.

290
00:13:44.380 --> 00:13:45.757
So, I finished the manuscript,

291
00:13:45.757 --> 00:13:49.543
handed the manuscript in May, 2007.

292
00:13:52.699 --> 00:13:56.270
And every time I've written a book,

293
00:13:56.270 --> 00:14:00.840
the couple of weeks afterwards are a weird time.

294
00:14:00.840 --> 00:14:03.090
You can't really adjust to reality.

295
00:14:03.090 --> 00:14:04.880
So, you walk around in a daze for a few weeks

296
00:14:04.880 --> 00:14:05.890
and then you wonder what it is

297
00:14:05.890 --> 00:14:07.260
that's gonna bring you back to reality.

298
00:14:07.260 --> 00:14:08.750
And what brought me back to reality

299
00:14:08.750 --> 00:14:11.290
was that a man died at Guantanamo.

300
00:14:11.290 --> 00:14:13.380
A man called Abdulrahman Al-Amri,

301
00:14:13.380 --> 00:14:17.960
who was a Saudi died reportedly by committing suicide

302
00:14:17.960 --> 00:14:20.420
which may or may not be true.

303
00:14:20.420 --> 00:14:23.220
But I already knew who this guy was.

304
00:14:23.220 --> 00:14:26.230
And so, I approached "The Guardian",

305
00:14:26.230 --> 00:14:28.320
actually, to see if they were interested,

306
00:14:28.320 --> 00:14:30.150
I explained what I'd been doing.

307
00:14:30.150 --> 00:14:33.250
And they went, we gotta go with the Associated Press.

308
00:14:33.250 --> 00:14:36.120
And I thought, okay, this isn't gonna be easy then.

309
00:14:36.120 --> 00:14:38.430
I now have this knowledge about the prisoners

310
00:14:39.670 --> 00:14:41.610
but I didn't really seem to be that interested.

311
00:14:41.610 --> 00:14:46.610
So, I had a blog that had been set up for me

312
00:14:46.860 --> 00:14:49.313
to sell my previous books.

313
00:14:50.440 --> 00:14:53.190
And it had been set up as a fixed website.

314
00:14:53.190 --> 00:14:56.230
And then blogging really took off,

315
00:14:56.230 --> 00:14:58.080
I think in about 2005, really,

316
00:14:58.080 --> 00:15:00.260
I think it was when WordPress began,

317
00:15:00.260 --> 00:15:02.170
when you didn't need any coding knowledge.

318
00:15:02.170 --> 00:15:04.910
It was when the first setup of blogging

319
00:15:04.910 --> 00:15:08.693
was that you could just put the info in and publish,

320
00:15:10.020 --> 00:15:11.470
which has been revolutionary.

321
00:15:12.584 --> 00:15:15.010
But I decided that it would make sense

322
00:15:15.010 --> 00:15:19.253
for me to start doing that, so I did.

323
00:15:24.100 --> 00:15:26.780
Pretty quickly I started writing on an almost daily basis

324
00:15:26.780 --> 00:15:29.803
because I didn't want to let go of the story.

325
00:15:30.900 --> 00:15:33.990
I had this role that I had researched

326
00:15:33.990 --> 00:15:35.540
and written myself into

327
00:15:36.570 --> 00:15:39.000
of knowing who all the prisoners were.

328
00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:44.000
And my, I think, reasonable assumptions

329
00:15:44.270 --> 00:15:46.690
about who they were

330
00:15:47.940 --> 00:15:51.400
to the extent that it's hard to gauge properly

331
00:15:51.400 --> 00:15:53.850
in such a chaotic situation as Guantanamo

332
00:15:53.850 --> 00:15:55.383
who these people really are.

333
00:15:56.875 --> 00:15:57.710
<v Peter>Were you surprised</v>

334
00:15:57.710 --> 00:16:00.480
that you the only person on the planet

335
00:16:00.480 --> 00:16:03.180
paying attention to every one of these individuals?

336
00:16:03.180 --> 00:16:04.013
<v ->I was very surprised.</v>

337
00:16:04.013 --> 00:16:07.390
I was surprised that "The New York Times"

338
00:16:07.390 --> 00:16:10.850
and the "Washington Post" didn't put people on

339
00:16:10.850 --> 00:16:15.850
to do a proper analysis of these documents.

340
00:16:16.570 --> 00:16:18.530
I remember what happened.

341
00:16:18.530 --> 00:16:21.560
The Associated Press got the documents,

342
00:16:21.560 --> 00:16:26.240
they put together, I think it was a three-part series

343
00:16:26.240 --> 00:16:28.590
of, they put some people on it.

344
00:16:28.590 --> 00:16:29.480
Said, go through these files,

345
00:16:29.480 --> 00:16:31.180
pick out some interesting stuff.

346
00:16:31.180 --> 00:16:33.330
So they did, and these went all around the world

347
00:16:33.330 --> 00:16:37.640
and they were posted in all kinds of newspapers

348
00:16:37.640 --> 00:16:39.123
and then nobody followed up.

349
00:16:40.310 --> 00:16:42.990
And I met someone from human rights watch

350
00:16:42.990 --> 00:16:46.310
who told me that they had put a couple of researchers on

351
00:16:46.310 --> 00:16:48.163
but they defeated them.

352
00:16:50.265 --> 00:16:52.543
It wasn't an easy subject, I understand.

353
00:16:55.984 --> 00:16:58.607
And from the point of view of an NGO,

354
00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:03.090
I'm kind of more surprised in a way

355
00:17:03.090 --> 00:17:04.040
than with the newspapers.

356
00:17:04.040 --> 00:17:07.970
One of the things that was here to defeat the newspapers

357
00:17:07.970 --> 00:17:11.120
was that they didn't know who was telling the truth,

358
00:17:11.120 --> 00:17:13.453
or they didn't have clear voices.

359
00:17:15.160 --> 00:17:20.160
So, I could see that your traditional reporter type scenario

360
00:17:20.880 --> 00:17:22.580
was gonna end up with people flailing around,

361
00:17:22.580 --> 00:17:23.840
going, "I don't know what to think."

362
00:17:23.840 --> 00:17:27.150
On the one hand, you're not gonna get specific information

363
00:17:27.150 --> 00:17:28.370
about any of these guys.

364
00:17:28.370 --> 00:17:30.280
So, you can go through the files

365
00:17:30.280 --> 00:17:33.360
and have them saying, "I didn't do it.

366
00:17:33.360 --> 00:17:38.360
I was a missionary, I was a humanitarian aid worker."

367
00:17:38.950 --> 00:17:41.730
Some of which were true and some of which were covers

368
00:17:41.730 --> 00:17:45.410
for fact that people may have been out in Afghanistan

369
00:17:45.410 --> 00:17:46.390
because they'd been told to go

370
00:17:46.390 --> 00:17:49.945
and support the Taliban by their Imam.

371
00:17:49.945 --> 00:17:53.920
And that's a different thing from being a terrorist.

372
00:17:53.920 --> 00:17:57.210
But this is very fundamental to the Guantanamo story

373
00:17:57.210 --> 00:18:02.210
is that the U.S government treated everybody,

374
00:18:03.100 --> 00:18:05.367
described everybody as these illegal enemy combatants

375
00:18:05.367 --> 00:18:08.090
who had no rights, that was a fundamental thing.

376
00:18:08.090 --> 00:18:11.960
Imprison people with no rights whatsoever

377
00:18:11.960 --> 00:18:14.720
and completely disregard whether you call people

378
00:18:14.720 --> 00:18:17.660
by mistake, because there's supposed to be a process

379
00:18:17.660 --> 00:18:20.020
of reviewing people shortly after capture.

380
00:18:20.020 --> 00:18:21.850
If you've got any doubts whatsoever

381
00:18:21.850 --> 00:18:23.780
about whether they might be a civilian,

382
00:18:23.780 --> 00:18:26.890
completely ruled that Combatant Tribunals,

383
00:18:26.890 --> 00:18:29.420
article five of Geneva Conventions.

384
00:18:29.420 --> 00:18:30.930
The army was prepared to do them,

385
00:18:30.930 --> 00:18:33.200
and they were told from on high we're not doing that.

386
00:18:33.200 --> 00:18:35.220
Everybody that comes into U.S custody

387
00:18:35.220 --> 00:18:39.170
is presumptively guilty of being an enemy combatant,

388
00:18:39.170 --> 00:18:42.090
which is a nebulous enemy of the United States

389
00:18:42.090 --> 00:18:43.510
with no rights.

390
00:18:43.510 --> 00:18:48.510
But they fundamentally confused terrorists with soldiers.

391
00:18:48.590 --> 00:18:50.593
So, if you're a soldier,

392
00:18:51.890 --> 00:18:55.380
if you're some guy who's under somebody's command

393
00:18:55.380 --> 00:18:57.610
engaged in combat in a war zone,

394
00:18:57.610 --> 00:19:01.370
you are supposed to be protected by the Geneva Conventions.

395
00:19:01.370 --> 00:19:03.620
If you've engaged in terrorism,

396
00:19:03.620 --> 00:19:06.320
then that's a criminal offense

397
00:19:06.320 --> 00:19:08.220
and you should be prosecuted in court.

398
00:19:10.140 --> 00:19:12.460
But in this mess of Guantanamo

399
00:19:15.340 --> 00:19:17.080
they didn't know who they had.

400
00:19:17.080 --> 00:19:20.520
When people had an opportunity to talk about who they were,

401
00:19:20.520 --> 00:19:21.570
it was difficult to gauge

402
00:19:21.570 --> 00:19:23.670
whether they were telling the truth or not

403
00:19:25.343 --> 00:19:28.060
without, I think, doing what I did

404
00:19:28.060 --> 00:19:31.360
which was to overview all the stories.

405
00:19:31.360 --> 00:19:36.360
And then you have to have some kind of way

406
00:19:36.760 --> 00:19:39.410
of gauging the probabilities

407
00:19:39.410 --> 00:19:40.980
of what you think is the extent

408
00:19:40.980 --> 00:19:43.330
to which people are telling the truth or lying.

409
00:19:45.050 --> 00:19:46.470
Which I think is what I did

410
00:19:48.093 --> 00:19:50.100
and I think I was reasonably successful

411
00:19:51.810 --> 00:19:55.090
in saying when you've captured a whole bunch of people

412
00:19:55.090 --> 00:19:57.700
who've crossed from Afghanistan into Pakistan,

413
00:19:57.700 --> 00:20:00.760
for example, they didn't all come from Tora Bora

414
00:20:00.760 --> 00:20:03.310
where they'd been fighting with the remnants

415
00:20:03.310 --> 00:20:06.870
of Al-Qaeda against the Afghan proxy forces

416
00:20:06.870 --> 00:20:08.590
who were there on behalf of the United States.

417
00:20:08.590 --> 00:20:11.070
The United States was bombing these Afghan soldiers

418
00:20:11.070 --> 00:20:11.903
on the ground.

419
00:20:11.903 --> 00:20:13.940
And there was an Al-Qaeda presence there.

420
00:20:13.940 --> 00:20:15.660
Osama Bin Laden was there,

421
00:20:15.660 --> 00:20:19.480
senior Al-Qaeda people were there, senior Taliban people.

422
00:20:19.480 --> 00:20:21.410
A lot of these people escaped.

423
00:20:21.410 --> 00:20:24.110
A lot of these people, it seems escaped

424
00:20:24.110 --> 00:20:27.030
with American knowledge that they escaped.

425
00:20:27.030 --> 00:20:29.470
And they were rounding up other people

426
00:20:29.470 --> 00:20:32.710
and all of them are then bodyguards

427
00:20:32.710 --> 00:20:34.270
for bin Laden or whatever.

428
00:20:34.270 --> 00:20:39.270
And some of these people, I think very, very few of them,

429
00:20:40.610 --> 00:20:43.250
if any, were body guards for bin Laden

430
00:20:43.250 --> 00:20:44.860
although dozens were described as that.

431
00:20:44.860 --> 00:20:47.423
But yeah, sure, a lot of these guys were soldiers.

432
00:20:48.680 --> 00:20:51.620
Why were there not also other people fleeing

433
00:20:51.620 --> 00:20:53.370
the death and destruction in Afghanistan?

434
00:20:53.370 --> 00:20:56.010
Of course they were, it was total chaos.

435
00:20:56.010 --> 00:20:58.520
And there were civilians trying to get at it

436
00:20:58.520 --> 00:21:01.180
as much as they were soldiers trying to get at it,

437
00:21:01.180 --> 00:21:02.380
but they muddied the waters,

438
00:21:02.380 --> 00:21:04.580
they always muddied the waters on everything

439
00:21:04.580 --> 00:21:05.530
from the beginning.

440
00:21:06.400 --> 00:21:09.640
<v Peter>Did you seek out the British detainees</v>

441
00:21:09.640 --> 00:21:13.583
to get a personal relationship with any of them

442
00:21:13.583 --> 00:21:16.810
just to understand better who these people were?

443
00:21:16.810 --> 00:21:18.510
<v ->Well, when I was doing the book,</v>

444
00:21:19.640 --> 00:21:22.940
I'd had no connection with this field at all

445
00:21:22.940 --> 00:21:26.223
before I started on it, and I really did it in a bubble.

446
00:21:27.130 --> 00:21:30.313
I reached out to a few lawyers,

447
00:21:31.230 --> 00:21:32.900
mainly I did it by researching

448
00:21:32.900 --> 00:21:35.200
what was publicly available information.

449
00:21:35.200 --> 00:21:39.540
So, the British prisoners had all spoken to the press

450
00:21:39.540 --> 00:21:42.210
and they'd all given pretty serious accounts

451
00:21:42.210 --> 00:21:44.220
of what had been happening.

452
00:21:44.220 --> 00:21:47.230
And Cageprisoners which was the British website

453
00:21:47.230 --> 00:21:50.490
that was set up that involved former prisoners

454
00:21:50.490 --> 00:21:53.100
had quite a lot of information on its site as well,

455
00:21:53.100 --> 00:21:56.690
of things outside of the mainstream media,

456
00:21:56.690 --> 00:22:00.170
of reports from former prisoners and things like this.

457
00:22:00.170 --> 00:22:03.623
So, I didn't really start meeting people until afterwards,

458
00:22:05.100 --> 00:22:06.800
but then I did.

459
00:22:06.800 --> 00:22:09.713
<v Peter>Why did you, how did that happen?</v>

460
00:22:09.713 --> 00:22:11.373
<v ->How did I start meeting people?</v>

461
00:22:14.970 --> 00:22:17.250
I think, actually, the first thing that happened

462
00:22:17.250 --> 00:22:22.170
was probably that Maryam Hassan,

463
00:22:22.170 --> 00:22:25.310
who as I understand it has set up Cageprisoners.

464
00:22:26.659 --> 00:22:27.630
<v Peter>Can you tell her who she is</v>

465
00:22:27.630 --> 00:22:31.760
before we talk, so that people know who she is.

466
00:22:31.760 --> 00:22:36.760
<v ->Well, Maryam is, I only really knew of her</v>

467
00:22:37.300 --> 00:22:41.180
as this formidable, tireless, human rights activist

468
00:22:41.180 --> 00:22:44.550
working on behalf of the prisoners

469
00:22:44.550 --> 00:22:46.560
because this website was devoted

470
00:22:46.560 --> 00:22:50.070
to finding out who was at Guantanamo,

471
00:22:50.070 --> 00:22:51.087
trying to tell the truth about it

472
00:22:51.087 --> 00:22:53.160
and trying to get the prison closed down.

473
00:22:53.160 --> 00:22:54.750
And she was one of the first people

474
00:22:54.750 --> 00:22:56.923
to pick up on what I was doing.

475
00:22:58.612 --> 00:23:01.865
So, after "The Guardian" told me,

476
00:23:01.865 --> 00:23:02.987
"We're not interested in your story."

477
00:23:02.987 --> 00:23:04.800
And then I started writing myself

478
00:23:04.800 --> 00:23:06.680
about who the guy was who died.

479
00:23:06.680 --> 00:23:07.770
And then it carried on from there.

480
00:23:07.770 --> 00:23:10.820
And she very quickly picked up on my work

481
00:23:10.820 --> 00:23:14.202
and started cross posting it on Cageprisoners.

482
00:23:14.202 --> 00:23:15.270
And then she got in touch with me,

483
00:23:15.270 --> 00:23:20.270
and within a couple of months she'd invited me to this event

484
00:23:20.700 --> 00:23:24.207
down in South London for the Guantanamo prisoners

485
00:23:28.850 --> 00:23:29.840
that were still held.

486
00:23:29.840 --> 00:23:34.750
And Moazzam Begg's daughter, was one of his children,

487
00:23:34.750 --> 00:23:36.370
his daughter was speaking at that,

488
00:23:36.370 --> 00:23:39.210
Shaker Aamer's daughter was speaking at it.

489
00:23:39.210 --> 00:23:41.770
And a lot of the former prisoners were there.

490
00:23:41.770 --> 00:23:45.240
So, I got introduced to some of them on that day.

491
00:23:45.240 --> 00:23:47.443
And then it kind of carried on

492
00:23:47.443 --> 00:23:52.040
that I was then part of the scene in a way-

493
00:23:52.040 --> 00:23:53.500
<v Peter>Mary on that day too then?</v>

494
00:23:53.500 --> 00:23:56.800
<v ->I'm not sure I did meet, I may have done actually.</v>

495
00:23:56.800 --> 00:24:00.770
I met her a few times over the years at various events,

496
00:24:00.770 --> 00:24:05.010
but we mainly communicated by email or even by phone

497
00:24:05.010 --> 00:24:05.843
a few times.

498
00:24:05.843 --> 00:24:06.880
<v Peter>You don't know her background,</v>

499
00:24:06.880 --> 00:24:08.915
how she was involved in this?

500
00:24:08.915 --> 00:24:11.520
<v ->I don't, I think that her family</v>

501
00:24:11.520 --> 00:24:15.960
seems to be very interested in these human rights issues.

502
00:24:15.960 --> 00:24:18.640
I think her sister, I could be wrong here,

503
00:24:18.640 --> 00:24:19.700
but I think she has a sister

504
00:24:19.700 --> 00:24:23.930
who's also involved in Muslim charitable work.

505
00:24:23.930 --> 00:24:25.680
And it's not surprising.

506
00:24:25.680 --> 00:24:29.210
There's a very big charitable element to Islam

507
00:24:29.210 --> 00:24:33.170
which I think is much more comparable

508
00:24:33.170 --> 00:24:36.740
to how Christianity used to be than to how it is now.

509
00:24:36.740 --> 00:24:38.610
I don't mean that there aren't charitable Christians,

510
00:24:38.610 --> 00:24:42.570
but I think that big element of it being,

511
00:24:42.570 --> 00:24:45.160
do good for the people who are suffering

512
00:24:45.160 --> 00:24:48.640
and give us your money is a bigger thing

513
00:24:48.640 --> 00:24:50.730
than it used to be in Christianity.

514
00:24:50.730 --> 00:24:52.620
<v ->And how did it seem to you,</v>

515
00:24:52.620 --> 00:24:55.650
how did it feel when you met former detainees

516
00:24:55.650 --> 00:24:57.500
when actually you saw flesh and blood

517
00:24:57.500 --> 00:24:59.260
in the kind of people you were writing about

518
00:24:59.260 --> 00:25:02.040
that changed your perspective at all?

519
00:25:02.040 --> 00:25:06.640
<v ->Well, to be honest, no, I don't think it did.</v>

520
00:25:06.640 --> 00:25:09.740
I'm always slightly amazed at how nice,

521
00:25:12.060 --> 00:25:15.453
how unbitter, how intelligent and how eloquent

522
00:25:16.630 --> 00:25:18.120
so many of the former prisoners are.

523
00:25:18.120 --> 00:25:19.680
Now, that's not universal.

524
00:25:19.680 --> 00:25:21.980
There were people who were very seriously damaged

525
00:25:21.980 --> 00:25:23.324
by what happened to them.

526
00:25:23.324 --> 00:25:25.460
And there are people who are not necessarily that nice,

527
00:25:25.460 --> 00:25:27.960
and they maybe weren't that nice in the first place,

528
00:25:27.960 --> 00:25:31.530
or they may have been okay and have been really damaged

529
00:25:31.530 --> 00:25:32.780
by what happened to them.

530
00:25:33.688 --> 00:25:34.653
And we obviously know that some people

531
00:25:34.653 --> 00:25:37.650
have been so profoundly damaged by what happened to them

532
00:25:37.650 --> 00:25:41.693
that they've developed serious problems.

533
00:25:42.530 --> 00:25:44.780
But most of the people that I've met

534
00:25:44.780 --> 00:25:49.630
have been quite amazing people

535
00:25:49.630 --> 00:25:51.100
considering what happened to them.

536
00:25:51.100 --> 00:25:55.100
They seem to have turned what happened to them

537
00:25:55.100 --> 00:26:00.067
into something that helped them grow as people.

538
00:26:01.250 --> 00:26:02.600
And some of that's related

539
00:26:02.600 --> 00:26:05.540
to their understanding of their religion,

540
00:26:05.540 --> 00:26:06.907
that they were tested by Allah

541
00:26:06.907 --> 00:26:10.720
and that, actually, that is a blessing

542
00:26:10.720 --> 00:26:12.520
that was bestowed upon them.

543
00:26:12.520 --> 00:26:15.333
The opportunity to go through this suffering, to grow.

544
00:26:17.611 --> 00:26:18.640
<v Peter>Were they grateful to you</v>

545
00:26:18.640 --> 00:26:21.420
for telling their story?

546
00:26:21.420 --> 00:26:25.773
<v ->Yeah, as far as I know, I think that's the case.</v>

547
00:26:27.580 --> 00:26:30.183
Moazzam Begg once said to me,

548
00:26:31.586 --> 00:26:33.347
and I said this quite often,

549
00:26:33.347 --> 00:26:36.380
"If I want to know who I was in Guantanamo with

550
00:26:36.380 --> 00:26:38.357
I go and read Andy's book."

551
00:26:39.790 --> 00:26:42.620
Because Moazzam, actually, was held in isolation

552
00:26:43.910 --> 00:26:46.607
for all of his time in Guantanamo.

553
00:26:46.607 --> 00:26:49.630
So, he didn't have the general population

554
00:26:49.630 --> 00:26:51.350
to mix them with the tool.

555
00:26:51.350 --> 00:26:53.680
But the person that I got to know the best

556
00:26:53.680 --> 00:26:54.530
is Omar Deghayes.

557
00:26:55.900 --> 00:26:59.780
And so, the nicest thing that anyone has ever said

558
00:26:59.780 --> 00:27:02.280
to me about my work is that Omar said

559
00:27:02.280 --> 00:27:05.387
to me "You write as though you were there with us."

560
00:27:06.540 --> 00:27:08.017
You know, that's (chuckling).

561
00:27:09.130 --> 00:27:12.120
<v Peter>So, what happened then after you met</v>

562
00:27:12.120 --> 00:27:15.180
the detainees, did that transform your work at all?

563
00:27:15.180 --> 00:27:17.470
Or did that inform your work further,

564
00:27:17.470 --> 00:27:19.063
or what did happen after that?

565
00:27:20.649 --> 00:27:24.267
<v ->I think it just reinforced my understanding</v>

566
00:27:27.690 --> 00:27:29.070
that what I was doing was right.

567
00:27:29.070 --> 00:27:30.400
But I may not have any doubt

568
00:27:30.400 --> 00:27:32.420
about what I was doing was right.

569
00:27:32.420 --> 00:27:33.593
When I was researching,

570
00:27:34.501 --> 00:27:36.940
I did go through a phase of initially thinking,

571
00:27:36.940 --> 00:27:39.253
oh my God, they literally,

572
00:27:40.660 --> 00:27:43.340
almost everybody they got was innocent.

573
00:27:43.340 --> 00:27:45.270
And then I actually read an interesting book

574
00:27:45.270 --> 00:27:50.270
called the "Interrogators" by an interrogator in Afghanistan

575
00:27:52.380 --> 00:27:54.550
who had written this book under a pseudonym

576
00:27:55.500 --> 00:27:58.220
had to also change the names of everybody

577
00:27:58.220 --> 00:28:00.290
who could be recognized in it.

578
00:28:00.290 --> 00:28:02.640
But it was a really, really powerful book

579
00:28:04.480 --> 00:28:06.910
about explaining how so many mistakes were made,

580
00:28:06.910 --> 00:28:09.170
but also about suggesting that yes,

581
00:28:09.170 --> 00:28:12.170
some of these people were lying about who they were.

582
00:28:12.170 --> 00:28:14.490
And that really helped me to understand.

583
00:28:14.490 --> 00:28:17.310
And there isn't necessarily a malevolence in this.

584
00:28:17.310 --> 00:28:19.360
I think some people at Guantanamo,

585
00:28:19.360 --> 00:28:22.370
when you're arrested by the police,

586
00:28:22.370 --> 00:28:25.585
you come up with some story and then you stuck with it.

587
00:28:25.585 --> 00:28:29.220
I think that happened when some people were first seized.

588
00:28:29.220 --> 00:28:31.940
But that was great for explaining how the CIA,

589
00:28:31.940 --> 00:28:34.830
for example, picked people up, dumped them,

590
00:28:34.830 --> 00:28:38.370
gave no information whatsoever about who people were.

591
00:28:38.370 --> 00:28:40.900
Plucked people out of custody randomly

592
00:28:40.900 --> 00:28:42.203
without telling anybody.

593
00:28:44.118 --> 00:28:48.840
And so, CIA special forces were completely irresponsible

594
00:28:48.840 --> 00:28:51.620
in the way that they were delivering prisoners.

595
00:28:51.620 --> 00:28:52.690
<v Peter>And why do you feel obligated</v>

596
00:28:52.690 --> 00:28:55.743
to continue now that you've identified 789,

597
00:28:58.319 --> 00:28:59.500
or actually 79 people?

598
00:28:59.500 --> 00:29:01.220
Actually, I think it's seven 80 now.

599
00:29:01.220 --> 00:29:03.400
But once you've identified them

600
00:29:03.400 --> 00:29:06.140
why'd you continue with your project?

601
00:29:06.140 --> 00:29:09.110
<v ->Well, I seemed to be the only person</v>

602
00:29:09.110 --> 00:29:11.860
who had this overall knowledge of who was at Guantanamo

603
00:29:12.960 --> 00:29:14.900
and I still seem to be the only person

604
00:29:14.900 --> 00:29:17.220
who has this overall knowledge of who was at Guantanamo.

605
00:29:17.220 --> 00:29:20.640
So, if I could have handed that on to somebody

606
00:29:20.640 --> 00:29:22.940
maybe I could have moved on to something else.

607
00:29:24.980 --> 00:29:26.580
<v Peter>And did newspapers like "The Guardian"</v>

608
00:29:26.580 --> 00:29:28.330
reach out to you subsequently?

609
00:29:28.330 --> 00:29:29.893
<v ->No, nobody reached out to me.</v>

610
00:29:31.090 --> 00:29:34.423
People obviously use my work because it's all online.

611
00:29:36.759 --> 00:29:39.600
I've written over 2000 articles about Guantanamo

612
00:29:40.470 --> 00:29:43.090
since May, 2007 and it's all online,

613
00:29:43.090 --> 00:29:48.090
and it's all free and people use it.

614
00:29:48.463 --> 00:29:49.500
<v Peter>Does that matter to you?</v>

615
00:29:49.500 --> 00:29:51.590
Are you glad, or how do you feel about that?

616
00:29:51.590 --> 00:29:53.540
<v ->Well, I think that it would be useful</v>

617
00:29:54.410 --> 00:29:57.023
if people look at my work.

618
00:29:58.480 --> 00:30:02.900
I have a prisoner list where I identify everyone who's held.

619
00:30:02.900 --> 00:30:06.020
And then I link to everything that I've written about them

620
00:30:06.020 --> 00:30:06.927
over the years.

621
00:30:06.927 --> 00:30:09.650
"The New York Times" has a docket

622
00:30:09.650 --> 00:30:13.150
where they put all the government's documents up,

623
00:30:13.150 --> 00:30:15.220
but there's no editorial analysis

624
00:30:15.220 --> 00:30:17.800
of whether those documents are accurate or not.

625
00:30:17.800 --> 00:30:19.640
In fact, for the first few years, they didn't say anything.

626
00:30:19.640 --> 00:30:22.727
And now they have a disclaimer saying lawyers

627
00:30:22.727 --> 00:30:24.670
and the detainees themselves dispute

628
00:30:24.670 --> 00:30:27.593
elements of what's in these files,

629
00:30:28.450 --> 00:30:29.963
which is putting it mildly.

630
00:30:31.930 --> 00:30:35.830
So, and I've put together lists of the prisoners

631
00:30:35.830 --> 00:30:38.680
who went to the habeas litigation

632
00:30:38.680 --> 00:30:42.770
and the prisoners who've been through the major commissions

633
00:30:42.770 --> 00:30:45.830
and the periodic review boards.

634
00:30:45.830 --> 00:30:48.450
And I know that they're useful documents

635
00:30:48.450 --> 00:30:53.450
in the sense that I have an analysis

636
00:30:53.660 --> 00:30:58.660
of the situation, which is, I am 100% convinced is useful

637
00:30:58.850 --> 00:31:01.320
to people who want to know the truth

638
00:31:01.320 --> 00:31:05.720
about how wrong almost everything

639
00:31:05.720 --> 00:31:08.370
about Guantanamo has been.

640
00:31:08.370 --> 00:31:11.460
<v Peter>And how will people access this information</v>

641
00:31:11.460 --> 00:31:12.293
50 years from now,

642
00:31:12.293 --> 00:31:14.730
where just online that could very well disappear

643
00:31:14.730 --> 00:31:16.270
tomorrow or today?

644
00:31:16.270 --> 00:31:21.023
<v ->Oh, you mean if the U.S. military pulls the big plug,</v>

645
00:31:22.497 --> 00:31:25.250
the entire world wide web.
(Peter laughing)

646
00:31:25.250 --> 00:31:28.298
<v Peter>Well, people forget it can change.</v>

647
00:31:28.298 --> 00:31:32.680
It can change and things do disappear off the web.

648
00:31:32.680 --> 00:31:35.520
<v ->Yeah, well, I don't know.</v>

649
00:31:35.520 --> 00:31:37.410
I would obviously be keeping an eye out on,

650
00:31:37.410 --> 00:31:38.760
they'd have to surprise me.

651
00:31:41.290 --> 00:31:43.410
I would have a paper backup of everything

652
00:31:43.410 --> 00:31:46.270
if I really thought someone was gonna pull the plug.

653
00:31:46.270 --> 00:31:49.230
<v Peter>So, you think going forward</v>

654
00:31:49.230 --> 00:31:51.787
at infinitum your work will always be up there.

655
00:31:51.787 --> 00:31:53.980
<v ->That's the intention, yeah.</v>

656
00:31:53.980 --> 00:31:57.210
If the internet doesn't fundamentally change

657
00:31:57.210 --> 00:32:00.180
then it's just a matter of paying a provider

658
00:32:00.180 --> 00:32:01.527
a small amount of money every year

659
00:32:01.527 --> 00:32:02.853
and the thing stays there.

660
00:32:04.850 --> 00:32:08.900
I would love it all to be in a paper archive somewhere.

661
00:32:08.900 --> 00:32:10.603
I think that would be sensible,

662
00:32:12.090 --> 00:32:16.500
but I'm intending to bring out a book soon

663
00:32:16.500 --> 00:32:21.166
of the best of what I've written out for the last 10 years.

664
00:32:21.166 --> 00:32:23.490
<v Peter>And have other human rights organizations</v>

665
00:32:23.490 --> 00:32:25.420
reached out to you for some of your information

666
00:32:25.420 --> 00:32:27.290
and documented it themselves?

667
00:32:27.290 --> 00:32:29.430
'Cause maybe they can store some of it?

668
00:32:29.430 --> 00:32:31.420
<v ->Well, maybe I haven't really thought about the storage</v>

669
00:32:31.420 --> 00:32:34.183
out, actually, until we're talking about it now.

670
00:32:36.079 --> 00:32:37.210
(clearing throat)

671
00:32:37.210 --> 00:32:39.390
I know that a lot of people use it

672
00:32:39.390 --> 00:32:40.490
and especially people-

673
00:32:43.592 --> 00:32:44.425
<v Peter>Lawyers use it?</v>

674
00:32:44.425 --> 00:32:45.333
<v ->Yeah lawyers use it.</v>

675
00:32:46.500 --> 00:32:48.370
I met a lawyer, this was another nice story,

676
00:32:48.370 --> 00:32:51.823
I met her in Massachusetts a couple years ago.

677
00:32:52.830 --> 00:32:54.900
So, I go over to the states every January

678
00:32:54.900 --> 00:32:58.320
around the anniversary of the opening, on January 11th

679
00:32:58.320 --> 00:33:00.450
and I do events.

680
00:33:00.450 --> 00:33:03.360
And a couple of years ago, I got taken out to Massachusetts

681
00:33:03.360 --> 00:33:05.440
to do a little tour around there.

682
00:33:05.440 --> 00:33:07.310
And I met a lawyer for one of the prisoners

683
00:33:07.310 --> 00:33:08.750
who sat in the secure facility.

684
00:33:08.750 --> 00:33:12.060
So, everything that lawyers and their clients talk about

685
00:33:12.060 --> 00:33:14.360
is presumptively classified.

686
00:33:14.360 --> 00:33:17.890
If they then submit their notes of their meetings

687
00:33:17.890 --> 00:33:20.690
to the Pentagon censorship review process

688
00:33:20.690 --> 00:33:23.943
which decides what can be unclassified or not.

689
00:33:25.910 --> 00:33:28.510
And they also have to go to the secure facility

690
00:33:28.510 --> 00:33:30.120
to look at any of this stuff.

691
00:33:30.120 --> 00:33:31.940
And he said, there's a copy of my book there

692
00:33:31.940 --> 00:33:33.910
which is so well farmed

693
00:33:33.910 --> 00:33:35.750
that it's just totally falling apart.

694
00:33:35.750 --> 00:33:37.940
And I think they've been replacement copies

695
00:33:37.940 --> 00:33:42.410
but that's the paper copy of the initial work that I did.

696
00:33:42.410 --> 00:33:46.173
So, I would like a lot of the other work that I've done,

697
00:33:47.607 --> 00:33:49.750
in some way it would be great if it was in a book form

698
00:33:49.750 --> 00:33:53.090
that it has the stories

699
00:33:53.090 --> 00:33:57.300
in as comprehensive a way as possible.

700
00:33:57.300 --> 00:33:58.610
<v ->I think you've said this Andy,</v>

701
00:33:58.610 --> 00:34:02.160
but I think it's important to have you repeat it in one way.

702
00:34:02.160 --> 00:34:04.510
What exactly is your goal now

703
00:34:04.510 --> 00:34:07.103
or what was your goal in doing all this work?

704
00:34:08.150 --> 00:34:11.130
<v ->Oh, well my intention always is to get the United States</v>

705
00:34:11.130 --> 00:34:13.360
to return to the rule of law as it existed

706
00:34:13.360 --> 00:34:17.713
before September the 11th, 2001, that's fundamentally it.

707
00:34:18.870 --> 00:34:20.620
I don't think that anyone should be held

708
00:34:20.620 --> 00:34:23.400
under the circumstances that the men are held at Guantanamo.

709
00:34:23.400 --> 00:34:26.040
None of them, if you're a criminal

710
00:34:26.040 --> 00:34:28.490
then you should be tried in federal court,

711
00:34:28.490 --> 00:34:29.420
and if you're a soldier

712
00:34:29.420 --> 00:34:32.420
then you should be protected by the Geneva Conventions

713
00:34:32.420 --> 00:34:36.123
and the held unmolested, very important.

714
00:34:38.566 --> 00:34:42.837
And when the people holding you start start pretending

715
00:34:45.470 --> 00:34:47.490
that this is an eternal war,

716
00:34:47.490 --> 00:34:49.010
that you should have a meaningful way

717
00:34:49.010 --> 00:34:51.150
to litigate about that.

718
00:34:51.150 --> 00:34:53.290
And we've barely seen that.

719
00:34:53.290 --> 00:34:56.810
There have been a few prisoners who have tried to challenge

720
00:34:56.810 --> 00:34:58.590
the basis of their detention

721
00:34:58.590 --> 00:35:00.793
and actually, they failed in the courts.

722
00:35:01.670 --> 00:35:04.530
We had this absurd situation over the last couple of years

723
00:35:04.530 --> 00:35:06.550
where President Obama actually said

724
00:35:06.550 --> 00:35:09.220
that major combat operations were gonna end in Afghanistan

725
00:35:09.220 --> 00:35:11.080
and the courts didn't agree.

726
00:35:11.080 --> 00:35:12.967
'Cause the prisoners were trying to say,

727
00:35:12.967 --> 00:35:16.620
"We were caught in connection with the U.S occupation

728
00:35:16.620 --> 00:35:18.447
of Afghanistan, please let us go."

729
00:35:19.320 --> 00:35:21.400
But of course that's never really been realistic

730
00:35:21.400 --> 00:35:24.450
because they could have argued

731
00:35:24.450 --> 00:35:25.500
that they should have been released

732
00:35:25.500 --> 00:35:28.500
when the Taliban was toppled and there was a new government.

733
00:35:32.610 --> 00:35:35.210
We're in this cloud cuckoo land legally

734
00:35:35.210 --> 00:35:36.593
and it's completely wrong.

735
00:35:37.630 --> 00:35:38.940
It's easy to make light of it

736
00:35:38.940 --> 00:35:42.460
but the fundamental truth is that no one should be deprived

737
00:35:42.460 --> 00:35:43.460
of their liberty

738
00:35:44.410 --> 00:35:49.410
unless it's through internationally recognized forms

739
00:35:49.460 --> 00:35:51.870
that have been developed over a very long time.

740
00:35:51.870 --> 00:35:54.030
Last year it was the 800th anniversary

741
00:35:54.030 --> 00:35:58.690
of the creation of the Magna Carta and habeas corpus

742
00:35:58.690 --> 00:35:59.523
in the UK

743
00:35:59.523 --> 00:36:02.610
which of course, it initially only applied to the barons.

744
00:36:02.610 --> 00:36:06.680
But how many people fought, how hard for how long

745
00:36:06.680 --> 00:36:10.093
to get habeas corpus to apply to every human being?

746
00:36:11.250 --> 00:36:12.770
It's a massive achievement.

747
00:36:12.770 --> 00:36:15.940
And it's so fundamentally important

748
00:36:15.940 --> 00:36:19.260
to prevent executive overreach,

749
00:36:19.260 --> 00:36:23.220
to prevent any kind of tyrant from slinging us in a dungeon

750
00:36:23.220 --> 00:36:25.750
and throwing away the key, it's so crucial.

751
00:36:25.750 --> 00:36:28.500
But the prisoners at Guantanamo are political prisoners.

752
00:36:28.500 --> 00:36:31.820
There is no legal process for them to get out of that place.

753
00:36:31.820 --> 00:36:35.430
They can only be released at the whim of the executive.

754
00:36:35.430 --> 00:36:40.430
Since the appeals court shut down the habeas corpus route

755
00:36:40.960 --> 00:36:43.400
which was a long struggle,

756
00:36:43.400 --> 00:36:46.320
cynically defeated for ideological reasons

757
00:36:46.320 --> 00:36:51.320
by right-wing judges and subsequently not addressed

758
00:36:51.490 --> 00:36:55.570
by the Supreme Court or the administration.

759
00:36:55.570 --> 00:36:57.480
<v Peter>Did anyone ever ask you</v>

760
00:36:57.480 --> 00:36:59.580
why someone in the UK is the person

761
00:36:59.580 --> 00:37:00.900
who had to do all this work

762
00:37:00.900 --> 00:37:03.333
and why no one in the U.S would do it?

763
00:37:05.880 --> 00:37:07.920
<v ->No, obviously I've had a lot of people</v>

764
00:37:09.068 --> 00:37:10.273
that have thanked me for doing the work

765
00:37:10.273 --> 00:37:12.860
that they thought somebody in America should have done.

766
00:37:12.860 --> 00:37:17.847
But as I was saying, it was interesting for me to hear

767
00:37:19.270 --> 00:37:21.840
that Human Rights Watch had tried to analyze it

768
00:37:21.840 --> 00:37:23.340
but the people that they had put on it

769
00:37:23.340 --> 00:37:27.840
just couldn't cope with, probably, the amorphousness of it.

770
00:37:27.840 --> 00:37:31.483
How do you interpret it?

771
00:37:33.580 --> 00:37:37.183
I do think that was my big project.

772
00:37:38.230 --> 00:37:40.500
That I don't know whether anything like that

773
00:37:40.500 --> 00:37:41.993
would ever come along again.

774
00:37:43.750 --> 00:37:46.420
But I do think that the American people

775
00:37:46.420 --> 00:37:51.420
should be justifiably critical of supposedly liberal media

776
00:37:53.340 --> 00:37:57.873
for having not spent their time on this.

777
00:37:59.530 --> 00:38:00.600
<v ->When Obama became president</v>

778
00:38:00.600 --> 00:38:02.960
did you think he was gonna shut down Guantanamo?

779
00:38:02.960 --> 00:38:06.720
<v ->Yeah, (laughing), yeah I did.</v>

780
00:38:06.720 --> 00:38:08.560
He said he was gonna do.

781
00:38:08.560 --> 00:38:13.210
And I know why he hasn't

782
00:38:13.210 --> 00:38:16.380
but that doesn't give him the extent of the excuses

783
00:38:16.380 --> 00:38:19.020
that he claims and that his defenders claim

784
00:38:19.020 --> 00:38:22.380
which is purely that it was opposition from Congress.

785
00:38:22.380 --> 00:38:24.050
<v Peter>You believe in something more than that?</v>

786
00:38:24.050 --> 00:38:26.020
It's other than that.

787
00:38:26.020 --> 00:38:29.520
<v ->Yeah, it's that he didn't prioritize it sufficiently,</v>

788
00:38:29.520 --> 00:38:30.823
it could have been closed.

789
00:38:31.880 --> 00:38:35.560
He had a majority in his two years

790
00:38:35.560 --> 00:38:37.743
and he didn't take advantage of that.

791
00:38:38.720 --> 00:38:43.720
And then obviously what happened is that Congress then,

792
00:38:43.940 --> 00:38:48.360
and Republicans cynically, I think, I never can quite decide

793
00:38:48.360 --> 00:38:51.020
how much it involves cynicism and how much it involves them

794
00:38:51.020 --> 00:38:54.510
actually being hopelessly paranoid,

795
00:38:54.510 --> 00:38:57.160
but it's one or the other, it's cynicism or paranoia.

796
00:38:58.080 --> 00:38:59.100
<v Peter>Obstructionists.</v>

797
00:38:59.100 --> 00:39:01.520
<v ->Yeah and they'd been so obstructionist.</v>

798
00:39:01.520 --> 00:39:03.380
They were so obstructionist to him

799
00:39:06.710 --> 00:39:10.470
to a horribly damaging degree, actually, of impeding

800
00:39:10.470 --> 00:39:13.410
any ability for the government to do anything really.

801
00:39:13.410 --> 00:39:15.200
<v Peter>So, will Guantanamo close now</v>

802
00:39:15.200 --> 00:39:19.070
in the end of 2016, before Obama leaves office?

803
00:39:19.070 --> 00:39:20.770
<v ->I don't think that he can do it.</v>

804
00:39:23.570 --> 00:39:26.520
Actually, he needs the cooperation of the authorities

805
00:39:26.520 --> 00:39:29.630
in whichever state he would choose

806
00:39:29.630 --> 00:39:31.540
to locate a prison to hold them.

807
00:39:31.540 --> 00:39:34.910
And I don't think they're gonna do that

808
00:39:34.910 --> 00:39:36.630
because they've all been worked up

809
00:39:37.512 --> 00:39:40.720
into this state of monstrously paranoid agitation

810
00:39:40.720 --> 00:39:44.260
by the notion that moving a single one of these superhuman

811
00:39:44.260 --> 00:39:46.590
terrorist entities to the United States

812
00:39:46.590 --> 00:39:50.960
will invite some kind of nuclear armageddon, it's pathetic.

813
00:39:50.960 --> 00:39:55.290
Honestly, from a non American point of view it's pathetic

814
00:39:55.290 --> 00:39:57.290
the kind of scaremongering that goes on.

815
00:39:58.360 --> 00:40:01.060
But it's part of the whole stupidity

816
00:40:01.060 --> 00:40:03.040
of they built Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

817
00:40:03.040 --> 00:40:04.883
up into some kind of superhuman.

818
00:40:05.810 --> 00:40:08.900
If he is the man behind the terrorist attacks,

819
00:40:08.900 --> 00:40:12.250
he's dirty criminal scum, and he should have been prosecuted

820
00:40:12.250 --> 00:40:14.433
like every other dirty criminal scumbag.

821
00:40:16.854 --> 00:40:18.530
They made him into a super human,

822
00:40:18.530 --> 00:40:21.620
and then they've kind of allowed him to amplify himself

823
00:40:21.620 --> 00:40:24.050
as the superhuman, it's ridiculous.

824
00:40:24.050 --> 00:40:27.600
But most people, I don't think know

825
00:40:29.001 --> 00:40:32.210
that one of the super humans who was moved from Guantanamo

826
00:40:32.210 --> 00:40:35.980
in 2009 before Congress imposed a ban

827
00:40:35.980 --> 00:40:38.130
on bringing any prisoner to the United States

828
00:40:38.130 --> 00:40:39.360
mainland for any reason,

829
00:40:39.360 --> 00:40:41.780
which is the one that has applied ever since,

830
00:40:41.780 --> 00:40:46.170
which is the most difficult thing from Obama to close it.

831
00:40:46.170 --> 00:40:49.390
But they brought a guy over, he was allegedly complicit

832
00:40:49.390 --> 00:40:54.390
in the African embassy bombings in 1998,

833
00:40:54.400 --> 00:40:58.690
a pretty low key figure in that but involved.

834
00:40:58.690 --> 00:41:01.500
He'd been through the black site, so they tortured him.

835
00:41:01.500 --> 00:41:03.420
So, they had all these whole problems

836
00:41:03.420 --> 00:41:06.380
of if you torture people it's very difficult

837
00:41:06.380 --> 00:41:10.300
then to have a fair trial.

838
00:41:10.300 --> 00:41:12.730
But they brought him over, they put him on trial,

839
00:41:12.730 --> 00:41:15.550
they charged him with all these counts of everything.

840
00:41:15.550 --> 00:41:19.040
And the jury came back and only convicted him on one count

841
00:41:19.040 --> 00:41:20.590
but he got a life sentence for it.

842
00:41:20.590 --> 00:41:24.573
It was in their own terms, it was phenomenally successful.

843
00:41:25.500 --> 00:41:28.250
But Congress shut down the right of the government

844
00:41:28.250 --> 00:41:31.990
to bring any prisoner to the U.S mainland subsequently,

845
00:41:31.990 --> 00:41:32.967
he's the only one.

846
00:41:34.170 --> 00:41:38.763
And it's been a shambles that President Obama declared,

847
00:41:41.730 --> 00:41:43.370
Eric Holder actually the attorney general

848
00:41:43.370 --> 00:41:45.550
declared they were gonna bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

849
00:41:45.550 --> 00:41:48.040
and the other 9/11 co accused to New York,

850
00:41:48.040 --> 00:41:50.510
put them on trial, great idea.

851
00:41:50.510 --> 00:41:53.140
But when they faced criticism again,

852
00:41:53.140 --> 00:41:57.600
mixture of cynicism and paranoia, they backed down on it.

853
00:41:57.600 --> 00:41:58.690
Well, they shouldn't have backed down on it,

854
00:41:58.690 --> 00:42:00.610
but they shouldn't have re-introduced

855
00:42:00.610 --> 00:42:02.300
the military commissions

856
00:42:02.300 --> 00:42:04.530
when they said that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

857
00:42:04.530 --> 00:42:06.330
was gonna be tried in New York.

858
00:42:06.330 --> 00:42:07.950
Because as soon as they face criticism

859
00:42:07.950 --> 00:42:10.920
on federal court trials, they could drop them

860
00:42:10.920 --> 00:42:12.440
knowing that they could put them back

861
00:42:12.440 --> 00:42:14.250
into the military commission system.

862
00:42:14.250 --> 00:42:17.790
The military commission system is like a broken roundabout

863
00:42:17.790 --> 00:42:20.580
that just goes round and round endlessly, giddily,

864
00:42:20.580 --> 00:42:23.653
like this, is incapable of achieving justice.

865
00:42:24.590 --> 00:42:29.590
There have been eight results in the stumbling history

866
00:42:30.830 --> 00:42:34.000
since Dick Cheney and David Addington

867
00:42:34.000 --> 00:42:37.283
dragged them out of the history books in November, 2001.

868
00:42:39.010 --> 00:42:43.060
And half of those have been overturned on appeal,

869
00:42:43.060 --> 00:42:47.220
these convictions, because the fundamental problem

870
00:42:47.220 --> 00:42:48.290
with the military commissions

871
00:42:48.290 --> 00:42:50.420
is that they were trying people for things

872
00:42:50.420 --> 00:42:51.910
that aren't war crimes,

873
00:42:51.910 --> 00:42:54.730
that were invented as war crimes by Congress,

874
00:42:54.730 --> 00:42:59.140
and the judges, on this, failed to go

875
00:42:59.140 --> 00:43:04.140
with the political push to bend the law.

876
00:43:05.490 --> 00:43:07.300
Unlike what they did with habeas corpus

877
00:43:07.300 --> 00:43:10.450
where they very, very deliberately

878
00:43:10.450 --> 00:43:12.900
said, "These are dangerous people.

879
00:43:12.900 --> 00:43:15.480
And we have to change the way that we interpret the law

880
00:43:15.480 --> 00:43:17.070
and habeas corpus, when it applies

881
00:43:17.070 --> 00:43:19.383
to this particular type of dangerous people

882
00:43:19.383 --> 00:43:20.840
that we have at Guantanamo.

883
00:43:20.840 --> 00:43:23.190
But on the military commissions, they went nah.

884
00:43:25.710 --> 00:43:27.150
These are not war crimes.

885
00:43:27.150 --> 00:43:30.100
War crimes are supposed to be terrible things

886
00:43:30.100 --> 00:43:33.290
that are done to civilians deliberately in wartime.

887
00:43:33.290 --> 00:43:37.310
Omar Khadr who was a 15 year old

888
00:43:37.310 --> 00:43:42.310
when he was probably shot in the back by U.S special forces,

889
00:43:42.340 --> 00:43:46.350
who allegedly threw a grenade, but probably didn't.

890
00:43:46.350 --> 00:43:51.000
But even if he did, he was in an occupied country

891
00:43:51.000 --> 00:43:52.993
where the United States was at war,

892
00:43:54.300 --> 00:43:56.150
how is that a war crime?

893
00:43:56.150 --> 00:43:58.070
It's just not a war crime.

894
00:43:58.070 --> 00:44:01.350
And if he had been an adult that would have been bad enough,

895
00:44:01.350 --> 00:44:03.420
but he was a child.

896
00:44:03.420 --> 00:44:05.840
And President Obama signed off on that.

897
00:44:05.840 --> 00:44:10.840
This kid had to agree to a plea deal

898
00:44:11.110 --> 00:44:12.840
to get out of Guantanamo

899
00:44:13.710 --> 00:44:15.750
for something that he probably didn't do.

900
00:44:15.750 --> 00:44:18.350
But even if he did do, it wasn't a war crime.

901
00:44:18.350 --> 00:44:20.900
And in any case, he was a juvenile,

902
00:44:20.900 --> 00:44:25.800
and juveniles are not responsible for what they do in war

903
00:44:25.800 --> 00:44:27.620
when they have been sent there by their fathers.

904
00:44:27.620 --> 00:44:30.680
And the United States signed up to the optional protocol

905
00:44:30.680 --> 00:44:32.130
to the UN Convention

906
00:44:32.130 --> 00:44:33.930
on the rights of the children in wartime.

907
00:44:33.930 --> 00:44:38.410
Signed up to it and completely ignored it, as did Canada.

908
00:44:38.410 --> 00:44:39.640
And in the case of Omar Khadr

909
00:44:39.640 --> 00:44:42.410
is just shameful on every level

910
00:44:42.410 --> 00:44:45.613
for the United States and for Canada, completely.

911
00:44:47.790 --> 00:44:52.790
<v Peter>Well, why aren't people in the U.S</v>

912
00:44:53.940 --> 00:44:55.428
as average as you are?

913
00:44:55.428 --> 00:44:56.980
(Andy laughing)

914
00:44:56.980 --> 00:45:01.423
<v ->Well the magician Donald Rumsfeld told them,</v>

915
00:45:02.507 --> 00:45:03.470
"Don't worry about it.

916
00:45:03.470 --> 00:45:06.860
Go to bed early, sleep soundly, you're safe.

917
00:45:06.860 --> 00:45:11.327
We got the bad guys we're looking after you now."

918
00:45:11.327 --> 00:45:14.370
Now obviously, you could only do that

919
00:45:16.420 --> 00:45:20.400
when there's a certain racist narrative, it must be said.

920
00:45:20.400 --> 00:45:25.020
Because the people at Guantanamo are all Muslims.

921
00:45:25.020 --> 00:45:27.150
Actually it's a little aside,

922
00:45:27.150 --> 00:45:31.900
but I will say there was an Iranian well digger

923
00:45:31.900 --> 00:45:34.900
who was held at Guantanamo, they released him in about 2005.

924
00:45:36.120 --> 00:45:39.430
Who said that he'd crossed the border to get some hashish

925
00:45:39.430 --> 00:45:41.243
and who claimed to be a Catholic.

926
00:45:42.436 --> 00:45:44.309
(Andy laughing)

927
00:45:44.309 --> 00:45:46.120
Which may actually be true.

928
00:45:46.120 --> 00:45:48.400
And he may be the only non Muslim to have been held

929
00:45:48.400 --> 00:45:52.100
at Guantanamo, but it's a prison for Muslims.

930
00:45:52.100 --> 00:45:55.550
So, let's imagine that somebody has a prison

931
00:45:55.550 --> 00:45:58.540
where the law doesn't apply and it's holding Christians

932
00:45:58.540 --> 00:46:02.640
or it's holding Jews, how could that be acceptable?

933
00:46:02.640 --> 00:46:04.680
It could not be acceptable.

934
00:46:04.680 --> 00:46:08.863
So, there's a fundamental racism built into it.

935
00:46:08.863 --> 00:46:12.914
And I think we can see the damage that's caused.

936
00:46:12.914 --> 00:46:15.333
I'm really upset, actually, that the hysteria

937
00:46:15.333 --> 00:46:18.970
that I understand that took place after 9/11.

938
00:46:18.970 --> 00:46:23.090
I don't condone the fruits of that hysteria at all

939
00:46:23.090 --> 00:46:26.800
but I can understand that people would be very upset

940
00:46:26.800 --> 00:46:31.800
and would not be thinking in terms of the total importance

941
00:46:37.220 --> 00:46:38.258
of respecting the law,

942
00:46:38.258 --> 00:46:40.223
I could see that people would get a bit carried away.

943
00:46:41.690 --> 00:46:45.650
And we've worked for years to say yes

944
00:46:45.650 --> 00:46:47.973
but everything that's happened is awful.

945
00:46:49.670 --> 00:46:51.160
This is terrible.

946
00:46:51.160 --> 00:46:52.670
The way that you've rounded people up,

947
00:46:52.670 --> 00:46:53.830
the way you've treated them,

948
00:46:53.830 --> 00:46:56.830
the way you blame the wrong people for things that happened.

949
00:46:58.210 --> 00:47:00.550
And I thought that we should have reached a point

950
00:47:00.550 --> 00:47:02.713
where we were coming back round,

951
00:47:03.610 --> 00:47:05.480
but we now actually seem to have entered

952
00:47:05.480 --> 00:47:10.480
a new reinvigorated stage of anti-Muslim hysteria.

953
00:47:11.160 --> 00:47:13.660
And I understand that there have been terrorist attacks

954
00:47:13.660 --> 00:47:14.530
in the United States.

955
00:47:14.530 --> 00:47:17.410
I understand that there was a terrorist attack in Paris.

956
00:47:17.410 --> 00:47:19.910
There've been various terrorist attacks in Europe.

957
00:47:20.950 --> 00:47:25.950
But the reasons for us not to lose our sense

958
00:47:26.620 --> 00:47:29.677
and our sense of proportion, and our adherence to the law

959
00:47:29.677 --> 00:47:32.270
are just as important as they've been

960
00:47:32.270 --> 00:47:35.163
throughout this whole war on terror period.

961
00:47:38.107 --> 00:47:42.740
I think it's very worrying because in Europe, in Britain,

962
00:47:42.740 --> 00:47:45.530
we have this anti-immigrant sentiment at the moment

963
00:47:45.530 --> 00:47:48.290
which has led to this ludicrous decision

964
00:47:48.290 --> 00:47:50.660
to leave the European Union.

965
00:47:50.660 --> 00:47:52.670
And part of that is not just driven

966
00:47:52.670 --> 00:47:57.670
by anti-immigrant rhetoric that has been ramped up

967
00:47:58.360 --> 00:48:02.140
cynically by the media primarily, but politicians

968
00:48:02.140 --> 00:48:04.170
and we lack moral leadership.

969
00:48:04.170 --> 00:48:07.513
There is no moral leader, there just isn't.

970
00:48:08.950 --> 00:48:10.800
But it isn't just that one element of it,

971
00:48:10.800 --> 00:48:15.800
it's the immigrant terrorist line that's just total lies,

972
00:48:18.134 --> 00:48:18.967
but that has been peddled.

973
00:48:18.967 --> 00:48:21.030
And we can see the same thing that happened with Trump

974
00:48:21.030 --> 00:48:24.540
in America, the way that immigrants and terrorists

975
00:48:24.540 --> 00:48:27.760
were preyed on in the rhetoric.

976
00:48:27.760 --> 00:48:32.760
Encouraging people to believe that their terrible fantasies

977
00:48:35.620 --> 00:48:37.863
as something that has some kind of reality.

978
00:48:40.840 --> 00:48:43.580
<v Peter>So, when we travel around the world,</v>

979
00:48:43.580 --> 00:48:46.230
people are so much more aware of Guantanamo

980
00:48:46.230 --> 00:48:47.180
than they are in the U.S.

981
00:48:47.180 --> 00:48:50.000
And often when I tell people in the U.S about the work

982
00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:52.607
we do and they say, "Well, Guantanamo's closed."

983
00:48:53.550 --> 00:48:55.485
Why do you think that is?

984
00:48:55.485 --> 00:48:56.970
<v ->Well, that would have to be a failure</v>

985
00:48:56.970 --> 00:48:58.973
of the mainstream media, wouldn't it?

986
00:49:00.540 --> 00:49:02.140
And I think there has been a failure

987
00:49:02.140 --> 00:49:03.540
of the mainstream media.

988
00:49:03.540 --> 00:49:05.160
And I think the failure is a failure

989
00:49:05.160 --> 00:49:08.920
that the liberal media has overall.

990
00:49:08.920 --> 00:49:11.410
And the problem with the failure of the liberal media

991
00:49:11.410 --> 00:49:13.570
overall, is that it has now led us

992
00:49:13.570 --> 00:49:16.260
into partly, into the place that we're at now.

993
00:49:16.260 --> 00:49:21.260
This post-truth world of dangerous right-wing lunacy

994
00:49:22.840 --> 00:49:25.040
which is very worrying.

995
00:49:25.040 --> 00:49:28.220
But part of the problem has been that the right wing

996
00:49:28.220 --> 00:49:30.340
never cares about telling the truth.

997
00:49:30.340 --> 00:49:33.060
But the liberal media ties itself up in knots

998
00:49:33.060 --> 00:49:34.363
trying to be objective.

999
00:49:35.640 --> 00:49:36.920
So, the thing we have here

1000
00:49:36.920 --> 00:49:39.580
where we generally have a better media,

1001
00:49:39.580 --> 00:49:43.890
I think, is that the BBC is becoming hopelessly biased

1002
00:49:45.281 --> 00:49:47.310
partly because it's feels the political pressure

1003
00:49:47.310 --> 00:49:51.100
from government which is exerting pressure on them

1004
00:49:51.100 --> 00:49:54.375
to tow the government line, which isn't supposed to happen.

1005
00:49:54.375 --> 00:49:55.340
<v Peter>What is biased media?</v>

1006
00:49:55.340 --> 00:50:00.340
<v ->But also because they are constantly giving voice</v>

1007
00:50:02.360 --> 00:50:06.000
to right wing people in this.

1008
00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:09.290
Their suggestion is that it's actually balanced,

1009
00:50:09.290 --> 00:50:10.123
but it's not,

1010
00:50:10.123 --> 00:50:12.610
they are actually giving much more prominence

1011
00:50:12.610 --> 00:50:13.650
to these people

1012
00:50:13.650 --> 00:50:15.970
than they're giving to people on the other side.

1013
00:50:15.970 --> 00:50:20.050
And the only case that I can think of

1014
00:50:20.050 --> 00:50:25.050
when the media on the center left,

1015
00:50:26.620 --> 00:50:31.470
said, we aren't going to be slaves to this objectivity

1016
00:50:31.470 --> 00:50:33.600
was after the invasion of Iraq.

1017
00:50:33.600 --> 00:50:36.110
When the "Daily Mirror" here in the UK

1018
00:50:36.110 --> 00:50:38.730
had a WMD o-meter that they printed

1019
00:50:38.730 --> 00:50:41.320
on the front page of the newspaper every day

1020
00:50:41.320 --> 00:50:43.650
counting how many days it was

1021
00:50:43.650 --> 00:50:45.610
that the weapons of mass destruction

1022
00:50:45.610 --> 00:50:47.590
hadn't been found in Iraq.

1023
00:50:47.590 --> 00:50:48.960
Because that was the reason

1024
00:50:48.960 --> 00:50:51.200
that we were supposed to be invading,

1025
00:50:51.200 --> 00:50:53.580
was to find the weapons of mass destruction

1026
00:50:53.580 --> 00:50:55.123
that Saddam Hussein had.

1027
00:50:56.470 --> 00:50:59.850
And it was a great campaign by a newspaper

1028
00:50:59.850 --> 00:51:03.750
that was prepared to recognize that it was a right wing

1029
00:51:03.750 --> 00:51:07.680
plot to suggest that left-wing newspapers weren't allowed

1030
00:51:09.280 --> 00:51:14.120
to actually say, "Some issues need this kind of reminder."

1031
00:51:14.120 --> 00:51:17.250
And Cageprisoners, the website used to have a clock

1032
00:51:17.250 --> 00:51:19.100
that ticks counting how many days.

1033
00:51:19.100 --> 00:51:21.620
Then you can still go to the old Cageprisoners website

1034
00:51:21.620 --> 00:51:23.180
which has been archived,

1035
00:51:23.180 --> 00:51:25.470
and the clock is still there showing how many days

1036
00:51:25.470 --> 00:51:26.680
Guantanamo's has been open.

1037
00:51:26.680 --> 00:51:31.530
But Guantanamo is, I do still think,

1038
00:51:31.530 --> 00:51:34.760
the fundamental principles of what is happening

1039
00:51:34.760 --> 00:51:37.500
at Guantanamo are so important

1040
00:51:37.500 --> 00:51:40.750
that a clock on the front page of a major newspaper

1041
00:51:40.750 --> 00:51:41.583
would be valid.

1042
00:51:43.400 --> 00:51:46.120
<v Peter>And how many people profile you?</v>

1043
00:51:46.120 --> 00:51:47.620
Again, it's the same issue

1044
00:51:47.620 --> 00:51:51.770
that even though you've identified serious human rights

1045
00:51:51.770 --> 00:51:56.103
abuses more than most people have, there's just no traction.

1046
00:51:57.860 --> 00:52:00.663
<v ->Well I've done some work for the United Nations.</v>

1047
00:52:01.856 --> 00:52:03.210
<v Peter>They reached out to you?</v>

1048
00:52:03.210 --> 00:52:05.958
<v ->Yeah, I was the lead writer on a report</v>

1049
00:52:05.958 --> 00:52:08.233
on secret detention in 2010.

1050
00:52:10.270 --> 00:52:15.270
And this isn't specifically the Guantanamo story,

1051
00:52:16.610 --> 00:52:21.450
this is the black site story, well the black site

1052
00:52:21.450 --> 00:52:24.610
and the rendition to other countries story.

1053
00:52:24.610 --> 00:52:26.100
So, some of those people ended up at Guantanamo

1054
00:52:26.100 --> 00:52:28.780
where the picture is bigger.

1055
00:52:28.780 --> 00:52:32.070
As we know, from the Senate report

1056
00:52:32.070 --> 00:52:34.640
it was around 120 people.

1057
00:52:34.640 --> 00:52:37.210
And that doesn't include the dozens

1058
00:52:37.210 --> 00:52:39.840
of people who didn't end up in black sites,

1059
00:52:39.840 --> 00:52:43.110
but were sent out to places like Jordan and Syria

1060
00:52:43.110 --> 00:52:43.943
to be tortured.

1061
00:52:44.790 --> 00:52:47.580
So, the real figure is probably something more like 200

1062
00:52:48.950 --> 00:52:51.250
and 40 of those people ended up at Guantanamo.

1063
00:52:51.250 --> 00:52:55.070
But piecing together that story took a long time.

1064
00:52:55.070 --> 00:52:57.310
So, various NGOs had worked on,

1065
00:52:57.310 --> 00:53:00.630
there was a good report that came out in 2007

1066
00:53:00.630 --> 00:53:02.840
called, I think, Off The Record,

1067
00:53:02.840 --> 00:53:06.172
which a number of NGOs worked on trying to work out

1068
00:53:06.172 --> 00:53:07.883
who the ghost prisoners were.

1069
00:53:09.040 --> 00:53:11.700
And then I did quite a lot of independent research

1070
00:53:11.700 --> 00:53:14.180
for myself and poured a lot of that

1071
00:53:14.180 --> 00:53:18.630
into this UN report in 2010.

1072
00:53:18.630 --> 00:53:21.450
And that was then followed up on by researchers since

1073
00:53:21.450 --> 00:53:24.540
and I think people working on these issues,

1074
00:53:24.540 --> 00:53:29.540
which is more NGO led than the mainstream media

1075
00:53:29.660 --> 00:53:31.860
have helped to reach the point

1076
00:53:31.860 --> 00:53:35.030
where it's been part of the story

1077
00:53:35.030 --> 00:53:37.840
of making the torture report be something

1078
00:53:37.840 --> 00:53:39.783
that was necessary.

1079
00:53:42.520 --> 00:53:46.900
But there's no mechanism that any of this has

1080
00:53:46.900 --> 00:53:50.820
to compel the United States to do anything,

1081
00:53:50.820 --> 00:53:51.990
this is part of the problem.

1082
00:53:51.990 --> 00:53:54.460
Now we're staring at a Trump presidency.

1083
00:53:54.460 --> 00:53:57.850
Now we can see that everything that President Obama

1084
00:53:57.850 --> 00:54:00.430
didn't deal definitively with

1085
00:54:00.430 --> 00:54:03.690
is something that President Trump can take

1086
00:54:03.690 --> 00:54:05.690
and do whatever he wants with.

1087
00:54:05.690 --> 00:54:07.500
So, at Guantanamo that is open

1088
00:54:07.500 --> 00:54:11.083
rather than closed, (chuckling) it's dangerous.

1089
00:54:14.170 --> 00:54:19.170
And, similarly, President Obama issued an executive order

1090
00:54:19.480 --> 00:54:21.053
prohibiting the use of torture.

1091
00:54:22.210 --> 00:54:25.030
The appendix arm of the army field manual

1092
00:54:25.030 --> 00:54:27.700
contains torture techniques which can be applied

1093
00:54:27.700 --> 00:54:31.180
if the commander believes that's useful.

1094
00:54:31.180 --> 00:54:32.320
So, there's a loophole there.

1095
00:54:32.320 --> 00:54:33.930
We don't know how much that's used

1096
00:54:33.930 --> 00:54:37.500
and it shouldn't be there in an ideal world, obviously.

1097
00:54:37.500 --> 00:54:42.140
But he had an executive order to stop the use of torture.

1098
00:54:42.140 --> 00:54:43.690
It's kind of common sense.

1099
00:54:43.690 --> 00:54:46.720
You can see in the way that Trump has been criticized

1100
00:54:46.720 --> 00:54:49.010
even by establishment right wing figures

1101
00:54:49.010 --> 00:54:50.520
that torture doesn't work.

1102
00:54:50.520 --> 00:54:53.100
Everybody sensible knows that it doesn't work.

1103
00:54:53.100 --> 00:54:54.510
But he could bring it back.

1104
00:54:54.510 --> 00:54:56.290
And parts of the problem is that no one

1105
00:54:56.290 --> 00:54:58.370
has been held accountable.

1106
00:54:58.370 --> 00:55:01.660
No one has been held accountable for what they did.

1107
00:55:01.660 --> 00:55:06.070
A few low level people in Iraq at Abu Ghraib

1108
00:55:06.070 --> 00:55:11.070
were held accountable for that abuse, otherwise nothing.

1109
00:55:11.459 --> 00:55:14.109
And the Obama administration constantly shut the door

1110
00:55:15.290 --> 00:55:18.853
on efforts to hold anybody accountable for anything.

1111
00:55:20.700 --> 00:55:22.410
<v Peter>Why do you think they do that?</v>

1112
00:55:23.330 --> 00:55:28.330
<v ->Well, I don't think that the intelligence establishment,</v>

1113
00:55:28.440 --> 00:55:31.650
in particular, wants to be held accountable for what it did.

1114
00:55:31.650 --> 00:55:35.150
I think they fundamentally believed

1115
00:55:35.150 --> 00:55:38.230
that they're outside the law.

1116
00:55:38.230 --> 00:55:40.800
But I also think that what we've seen in the Senate report

1117
00:55:40.800 --> 00:55:42.273
was a big part of that,

1118
00:55:43.130 --> 00:55:45.040
is acknowledgement at various levels

1119
00:55:45.040 --> 00:55:46.800
that something terrible happened

1120
00:55:46.800 --> 00:55:51.800
but not a desire for people to be prosecuted for it.

1121
00:55:53.140 --> 00:55:55.230
But we haven't had the proper accounting for it.

1122
00:55:55.230 --> 00:55:57.720
We haven't had the full report released.

1123
00:55:57.720 --> 00:56:00.140
We haven't had that kind of,

1124
00:56:00.140 --> 00:56:02.750
you'd have to have a truth and reconciliation process

1125
00:56:02.750 --> 00:56:06.880
if you were gonna follow the non prosecution route, I think.

1126
00:56:06.880 --> 00:56:08.410
So, it's been left dangling there.

1127
00:56:08.410 --> 00:56:12.240
It's certainly more transparency than I can say

1128
00:56:12.240 --> 00:56:14.423
the British government comes up with.

1129
00:56:16.024 --> 00:56:18.450
The Senate report was quite an achievement,

1130
00:56:18.450 --> 00:56:21.770
honestly, I think, in terms of there being checks

1131
00:56:21.770 --> 00:56:23.270
and balances in the United States.

1132
00:56:23.270 --> 00:56:27.683
But until someone is given a reason,

1133
00:56:29.210 --> 00:56:31.400
an actual reason to behave,

1134
00:56:31.400 --> 00:56:34.560
that would be if you cross this line

1135
00:56:34.560 --> 00:56:36.270
you will get prosecuted.

1136
00:56:36.270 --> 00:56:38.610
So, the only thing that gives me hope on this front,

1137
00:56:38.610 --> 00:56:41.800
Peter, is that Mitchell and Jessen,

1138
00:56:41.800 --> 00:56:43.790
that there is still a case ongoing

1139
00:56:43.790 --> 00:56:45.343
against Mitchell and Jessen.

1140
00:56:47.217 --> 00:56:49.450
The military contractors, the former psychologists

1141
00:56:49.450 --> 00:56:53.030
who reverse engineered the CIA program

1142
00:56:53.030 --> 00:56:56.100
for training U.S personnel to resist torture

1143
00:56:56.100 --> 00:56:59.600
and twistedly applied it in the real world.

1144
00:56:59.600 --> 00:57:02.200
But as we're talking,

1145
00:57:02.200 --> 00:57:05.460
Mitchell's just had a book out and it's being fated

1146
00:57:05.460 --> 00:57:09.170
on the chat shows and being given a platform

1147
00:57:09.170 --> 00:57:11.510
for peddling his filthy lies

1148
00:57:11.510 --> 00:57:14.173
about how torture was necessary.

1149
00:57:15.270 --> 00:57:17.700
<v Peter>You talked about the Senate report just briefly.</v>

1150
00:57:17.700 --> 00:57:19.390
There's a lot of talk that if Obama

1151
00:57:19.390 --> 00:57:20.920
doesn't add that Senate report,

1152
00:57:20.920 --> 00:57:22.940
it might be buried and disappeared

1153
00:57:22.940 --> 00:57:25.250
and we'll never get to read the entire act.

1154
00:57:25.250 --> 00:57:27.730
Do you think Obama will do something-

1155
00:57:27.730 --> 00:57:29.830
<v ->I'm just really wondering why somebody</v>

1156
00:57:31.600 --> 00:57:34.760
isn't just clicking send with a copy of that.

1157
00:57:34.760 --> 00:57:36.620
It's a 6,000 page report.

1158
00:57:36.620 --> 00:57:40.023
Please come on, whistle blowers somewhere, please.

1159
00:57:41.250 --> 00:57:44.580
I don't know how many copies there actually are of it.

1160
00:57:44.580 --> 00:57:45.703
So, maybe it is possible.

1161
00:57:45.703 --> 00:57:48.390
I've been reading that in the last few days.

1162
00:57:48.390 --> 00:57:49.823
It's like, yeah, it could be.

1163
00:57:49.823 --> 00:57:52.723
They could just destroy it and say gone.

1164
00:57:54.670 --> 00:57:56.560
I would love for him to do something about it.

1165
00:57:56.560 --> 00:57:59.793
But I don't know whether he is.

1166
00:58:01.430 --> 00:58:04.590
<v Peter>So, where do you see yourself going</v>

1167
00:58:04.590 --> 00:58:06.800
forward on this?

1168
00:58:06.800 --> 00:58:10.870
<v ->Well until the United States returns to the rule of law,</v>

1169
00:58:10.870 --> 00:58:15.583
as it was prior to the 9/11 attacks, then I'm still on this.

1170
00:58:16.790 --> 00:58:21.790
So, I think that it would be fair to say

1171
00:58:21.880 --> 00:58:25.080
that it's going to be more difficult to achieve justice

1172
00:58:25.080 --> 00:58:30.080
for the men left at Guantanamo after Obama leaves office

1173
00:58:30.090 --> 00:58:34.963
under Trump, I can't put the word president near his name.

1174
00:58:37.810 --> 00:58:40.720
Because we've heard terrifying things from him

1175
00:58:40.720 --> 00:58:42.210
on the campaign campaign trail

1176
00:58:42.210 --> 00:58:45.943
but I'm not sure that we can necessarily believe them.

1177
00:58:47.170 --> 00:58:49.420
I don't think he's gonna reintroduce torture.

1178
00:58:52.390 --> 00:58:53.400
This is less than,

1179
00:58:53.400 --> 00:58:58.230
I think he will be advised not to send people to Guantanamo.

1180
00:58:58.230 --> 00:59:00.530
So, he will be left with the legacy issue

1181
00:59:00.530 --> 00:59:02.000
that has been for Obama.

1182
00:59:02.000 --> 00:59:05.040
Obama didn't send anyone there, that's crucial.

1183
00:59:05.040 --> 00:59:08.350
He was dealing with an inherited problem.

1184
00:59:08.350 --> 00:59:10.358
What do we do with these people?

1185
00:59:10.358 --> 00:59:12.760
And I should, as an aside, say that one of the reasons

1186
00:59:12.760 --> 00:59:17.190
he didn't have to deal with present and future prisoners

1187
00:59:17.190 --> 00:59:19.800
under his watch is because he's been Gaily killing them

1188
00:59:19.800 --> 00:59:23.283
with drones around the world, which is no more acceptable.

1189
00:59:24.420 --> 00:59:26.607
But he's had this finite population at Guantanamo

1190
00:59:26.607 --> 00:59:31.607
and he, not quick enough, but has been working

1191
00:59:31.910 --> 00:59:33.712
to reduce that.

1192
00:59:33.712 --> 00:59:38.330
And the significant thing this year in 2016

1193
00:59:38.330 --> 00:59:41.010
is that he completed the first round

1194
00:59:41.010 --> 00:59:43.063
of the periodic review boards.

1195
00:59:46.950 --> 00:59:48.800
So, basically when Obama got in

1196
00:59:49.800 --> 00:59:51.950
he made this lavish promise about closing Guantanamo,

1197
00:59:51.950 --> 00:59:53.660
we didn't know who he was holding.

1198
00:59:53.660 --> 00:59:56.110
So, then he appointed a review board

1199
00:59:56.110 --> 00:59:57.057
to find out who he was holding,

1200
00:59:57.057 --> 01:00:00.007
actually, Guantanamo Review Task Force

1201
01:00:00.007 --> 01:00:03.550
who spent a year deliberating.

1202
01:00:03.550 --> 01:00:05.400
He did very little in that first year

1203
01:00:05.400 --> 01:00:07.100
while the deliberations were taking place,

1204
01:00:07.100 --> 01:00:09.480
which is what allowed the Republicans

1205
01:00:09.480 --> 01:00:11.313
to start mobilizing against him.

1206
01:00:13.590 --> 01:00:16.530
So, they quite early on identified

1207
01:00:16.530 --> 01:00:17.363
that there were some people

1208
01:00:17.363 --> 01:00:19.680
that they thought were too dangerous to release

1209
01:00:19.680 --> 01:00:23.090
but then they didn't have the evidence to put them on trial.

1210
01:00:23.090 --> 01:00:25.050
And this has been a key problem.

1211
01:00:25.050 --> 01:00:28.490
Because if you're gonna decide

1212
01:00:28.490 --> 01:00:30.240
that you're gonna release people,

1213
01:00:30.240 --> 01:00:32.960
it doesn't really matter that you dress it up.

1214
01:00:32.960 --> 01:00:36.660
We approve them for transfer subject to security measures.

1215
01:00:36.660 --> 01:00:38.770
This all can lead to complications,

1216
01:00:38.770 --> 01:00:41.360
but you're basically saying we don't wanna hold this person

1217
01:00:41.360 --> 01:00:45.210
anymore, or you approve people for prosecution.

1218
01:00:45.210 --> 01:00:47.430
And that's problematical

1219
01:00:47.430 --> 01:00:50.410
because as I was saying, the military commissions don't work

1220
01:00:50.410 --> 01:00:54.050
but there is at least a set up there.

1221
01:00:54.050 --> 01:00:56.590
The limbo option of holding people indefinitely

1222
01:00:56.590 --> 01:01:00.170
without charge or trial is the fundamental problem

1223
01:01:00.170 --> 01:01:03.380
and has been all along that's not acceptable.

1224
01:01:03.380 --> 01:01:05.860
But that's what they said about these people.

1225
01:01:05.860 --> 01:01:08.420
So, when he was told that,

1226
01:01:08.420 --> 01:01:10.847
then the ball started rolling on how are we gonna do this?

1227
01:01:10.847 --> 01:01:13.470
And then it took another two years

1228
01:01:13.470 --> 01:01:16.900
for him to issue an executive order in March, 2011,

1229
01:01:16.900 --> 01:01:19.670
approving the ongoing imprisonment

1230
01:01:19.670 --> 01:01:20.950
of this category of people.

1231
01:01:20.950 --> 01:01:23.970
There were 48 people in this category.

1232
01:01:23.970 --> 01:01:26.840
And he said that they would have periodic reviews

1233
01:01:26.840 --> 01:01:28.040
of their cases to decide

1234
01:01:28.040 --> 01:01:31.410
whether they were still regarded as too dangerous to release

1235
01:01:31.410 --> 01:01:33.060
or whether they might have become slightly less

1236
01:01:33.060 --> 01:01:34.900
too dangerous to release.

1237
01:01:34.900 --> 01:01:36.970
And that these would be completed within a year.

1238
01:01:36.970 --> 01:01:39.593
They didn't start for two and a half years.

1239
01:01:39.593 --> 01:01:41.660
They started in November, 2013

1240
01:01:41.660 --> 01:01:44.160
and then they took place quite slowly.

1241
01:01:44.160 --> 01:01:47.910
And then you can see Obama seeing the end of his presidency

1242
01:01:47.910 --> 01:01:50.700
looming and the pressure it was being exerted

1243
01:01:50.700 --> 01:01:53.060
by those of us who've tried to exert pressure.

1244
01:01:53.060 --> 01:01:54.000
So, they speed it up,

1245
01:01:54.000 --> 01:01:56.300
they were galloping through them this year.

1246
01:01:56.300 --> 01:01:59.320
The Periodic Review Boards are a parole type process

1247
01:01:59.320 --> 01:02:03.350
for people who, unlike people who normally face parole,

1248
01:02:03.350 --> 01:02:05.220
have never been convicted of anything.

1249
01:02:05.220 --> 01:02:09.347
But in terms of addressing the issues

1250
01:02:12.690 --> 01:02:15.500
of the Guantanamo prisoners politically

1251
01:02:15.500 --> 01:02:20.500
in a way that the Republicans can't argue with

1252
01:02:21.500 --> 01:02:24.663
and in a way that satisfies their security concerns,

1253
01:02:26.250 --> 01:02:28.010
you can see that they made sense.

1254
01:02:28.010 --> 01:02:31.400
They require prisoners to be contrite

1255
01:02:31.400 --> 01:02:34.560
and to establish to this panel of people

1256
01:02:34.560 --> 01:02:39.560
from the agencies that they have a constructive plan

1257
01:02:40.210 --> 01:02:41.760
for their life after Guantanamo

1258
01:02:41.760 --> 01:02:45.500
and they mean no harm against the United States.

1259
01:02:45.500 --> 01:02:47.240
And it's raised bizarre issues where people

1260
01:02:47.240 --> 01:02:49.520
who claimed that they didn't do what they were accused of

1261
01:02:49.520 --> 01:02:53.450
have to be contrived to bad things that they didn't do

1262
01:02:53.450 --> 01:02:55.760
because claiming they were innocent

1263
01:02:55.760 --> 01:02:58.520
doesn't work in a parole type situation.

1264
01:02:58.520 --> 01:03:00.750
But it has led to dozens of prisoners

1265
01:03:00.750 --> 01:03:01.810
being approved for release.

1266
01:03:01.810 --> 01:03:04.390
And these guys are being released

1267
01:03:04.390 --> 01:03:08.080
and it's whittled the population down and it's ongoing.

1268
01:03:08.080 --> 01:03:10.330
These people have reviews,

1269
01:03:10.330 --> 01:03:12.760
administrative reviews every six months

1270
01:03:12.760 --> 01:03:15.480
and full reviews where they can present a case,

1271
01:03:15.480 --> 01:03:17.960
again, in front of the big wigs

1272
01:03:17.960 --> 01:03:20.370
who are seeing them by video conference

1273
01:03:22.090 --> 01:03:23.870
within one or two years.

1274
01:03:23.870 --> 01:03:25.843
There's a whole thing set up.

1275
01:03:26.950 --> 01:03:28.173
Trump could undo it,

1276
01:03:29.420 --> 01:03:32.910
could consign these people back to an oblivion

1277
01:03:33.948 --> 01:03:36.400
of indefinite detention without review,

1278
01:03:36.400 --> 01:03:39.860
and that would be a very negative step.

1279
01:03:39.860 --> 01:03:42.800
And we don't know at the moment.

1280
01:03:42.800 --> 01:03:46.180
<v Peter>The people who are secured for release,</v>

1281
01:03:46.180 --> 01:03:48.000
or cleared for release,

1282
01:03:48.000 --> 01:03:50.430
do you think those will be released

1283
01:03:50.430 --> 01:03:51.730
before Obama leaves office?

1284
01:03:51.730 --> 01:03:55.430
<v ->I think they're scrambling like crazy to find places.</v>

1285
01:03:55.430 --> 01:03:57.520
I don't think they're gonna achieve all of them.

1286
01:03:57.520 --> 01:03:58.610
And that's worrying

1287
01:03:58.610 --> 01:04:03.610
because Trump could suspend that immediately.

1288
01:04:03.710 --> 01:04:05.203
No further releases.

1289
01:04:06.530 --> 01:04:10.130
Hopefully on that, on all of these things Peter,

1290
01:04:10.130 --> 01:04:12.640
I would hope that there are sane voices

1291
01:04:12.640 --> 01:04:13.713
saying to him don't.

1292
01:04:14.830 --> 01:04:19.830
Treat this as a legacy that is still to be completed,

1293
01:04:21.100 --> 01:04:23.100
that needs to be resolved.

1294
01:04:23.100 --> 01:04:26.220
I would hope, but if he doesn't,

1295
01:04:26.220 --> 01:04:29.986
we the community of people who care

1296
01:04:29.986 --> 01:04:33.350
can mobilize like we haven't had to do for quite a long time

1297
01:04:33.350 --> 01:04:34.823
to really, really push it.

1298
01:04:39.660 --> 01:04:43.040
The problem is that it may be a problem

1299
01:04:43.040 --> 01:04:46.830
for some of these people that when receiving countries

1300
01:04:46.830 --> 01:04:47.663
want to take them.

1301
01:04:47.663 --> 01:04:48.960
Because most of these guys are Yemenis

1302
01:04:48.960 --> 01:04:51.580
and the entire U.S establishment agrees

1303
01:04:51.580 --> 01:04:54.020
that no Yemeni can be returned home.

1304
01:04:54.020 --> 01:04:56.910
And actually now it seems pretty sensible

1305
01:04:56.910 --> 01:05:00.940
'cause the country is so ruined by the Western backed

1306
01:05:00.940 --> 01:05:03.783
Saudi demolition of the whole of Yemen.

1307
01:05:05.080 --> 01:05:07.690
But we're culpable in a lot of ways

1308
01:05:07.690 --> 01:05:09.287
for everything that's going on there.

1309
01:05:09.287 --> 01:05:11.360
And there was quite a hypocrisy

1310
01:05:11.360 --> 01:05:13.760
about not sending Yemenis back

1311
01:05:13.760 --> 01:05:15.550
'cause this ban has been in place

1312
01:05:15.550 --> 01:05:20.180
since the underpants bomber at Christmas 2009.

1313
01:05:22.510 --> 01:05:26.270
Which, as I understand, it came about a week

1314
01:05:26.270 --> 01:05:29.450
after there had been a monstrous massacre of civilians

1315
01:05:29.450 --> 01:05:32.263
by U.S bombing raid in Yemen.

1316
01:05:35.410 --> 01:05:36.560
The whole thing is a horrible story.

1317
01:05:36.560 --> 01:05:40.230
But anyway, everybody agrees, no Yemeni can be sent home.

1318
01:05:40.230 --> 01:05:42.530
So, third countries have to be found for them.

1319
01:05:44.290 --> 01:05:49.290
And receiving countries are getting files on people

1320
01:05:49.820 --> 01:05:51.590
where they're making decisions

1321
01:05:51.590 --> 01:05:53.070
about whether they think one person

1322
01:05:53.070 --> 01:05:54.800
is more attractive than another.

1323
01:05:54.800 --> 01:05:55.770
So, if you're not perceived

1324
01:05:55.770 --> 01:05:57.850
as a particularly attractive person.

1325
01:05:57.850 --> 01:06:00.750
You might constantly be shunted to the bottom of the pile.

1326
01:06:01.810 --> 01:06:04.650
Also, I think there are a handful of people in Guantanamo

1327
01:06:04.650 --> 01:06:06.670
who literally have no representation.

1328
01:06:06.670 --> 01:06:08.910
There may be people approved for release

1329
01:06:08.910 --> 01:06:11.660
who are not communicating,

1330
01:06:11.660 --> 01:06:13.400
they have stopped seeing their lawyers.

1331
01:06:13.400 --> 01:06:15.700
There are people who still don't have lawyers.

1332
01:06:20.170 --> 01:06:21.330
How are they gonna be released

1333
01:06:21.330 --> 01:06:24.270
if they're just completely in limbo in Guantanamo

1334
01:06:24.270 --> 01:06:25.810
communicating with nobody?

1335
01:06:25.810 --> 01:06:30.750
I don't know, but they obviously they are working on,

1336
01:06:30.750 --> 01:06:32.953
there are currently 21 of these men.

1337
01:06:33.850 --> 01:06:36.867
Another one just got approved for release

1338
01:06:36.867 --> 01:06:39.070
just yesterday or the day before,

1339
01:06:39.070 --> 01:06:40.520
he won't quite achieved that.

1340
01:06:41.900 --> 01:06:44.913
And then we've got these dozens of people.

1341
01:06:46.220 --> 01:06:48.453
I think the review still need to go on,

1342
01:06:49.970 --> 01:06:52.740
but I don't know whether they will be the willingness

1343
01:06:54.070 --> 01:06:55.470
within the Trump administration.

1344
01:06:55.470 --> 01:06:57.020
Because there clearly was a willingness

1345
01:06:57.020 --> 01:06:58.350
within the Obama administration

1346
01:06:58.350 --> 01:07:01.190
to say look, if these guys will play ball,

1347
01:07:01.190 --> 01:07:03.180
we're gonna get them out of here.

1348
01:07:03.180 --> 01:07:06.770
It's like they've squeezed themselves into a narrower

1349
01:07:06.770 --> 01:07:10.690
and narrower field of opportunities to release these people

1350
01:07:10.690 --> 01:07:14.120
that they've been wrongly holding for so long.

1351
01:07:14.120 --> 01:07:16.420
I don't mean wrongly in that they,

1352
01:07:16.420 --> 01:07:17.650
well, they may or may not have done,

1353
01:07:17.650 --> 01:07:22.650
but the whole basis of detention is wrong.

1354
01:07:23.210 --> 01:07:25.843
And they've been trying to dig their way out of it.

1355
01:07:28.060 --> 01:07:33.060
And I don't see any reason Peter that many more people

1356
01:07:36.570 --> 01:07:40.710
than the 10 who were facing trials should be held.

1357
01:07:40.710 --> 01:07:43.060
They should also be put on trial

1358
01:07:43.060 --> 01:07:44.860
and we should just get it over with.

1359
01:07:46.070 --> 01:07:48.920
<v Peter>So, if Trump does send more people to Guantanamo.</v>

1360
01:07:48.920 --> 01:07:51.420
Let's say we capture ISIS prisoners

1361
01:07:51.420 --> 01:07:55.580
and send them to Guantanamo, will you catalog that?

1362
01:07:55.580 --> 01:07:57.130
<v ->Oh, totally, I'll be totally on it</v>

1363
01:07:57.130 --> 01:07:58.930
but I really hope it doesn't happen.

1364
01:08:00.650 --> 01:08:03.410
That would just be like some horrible war on terror

1365
01:08:03.410 --> 01:08:05.198
ground hog day, wouldn't it?

1366
01:08:05.198 --> 01:08:08.500
(Peter laughing)

1367
01:08:08.500 --> 01:08:13.040
<v Peter>Well, you might have a life in front of you</v>

1368
01:08:13.040 --> 01:08:15.560
where you just continually follow Guantanamo till-

1369
01:08:15.560 --> 01:08:16.950
<v ->Well, it may be.</v>

1370
01:08:16.950 --> 01:08:19.250
If that's the case then I'm prepared to do it.

1371
01:08:21.040 --> 01:08:24.710
It's hard to didn't do these kinds of stuff relentlessly.

1372
01:08:24.710 --> 01:08:28.933
It gets tiring, but what am I gonna do really?

1373
01:08:30.120 --> 01:08:33.127
I really don't feel like I can walk away from it

1374
01:08:33.127 --> 01:08:37.080
and if something new is going to come, then it's awful.

1375
01:08:37.080 --> 01:08:42.080
But it would at least renew the energy

1376
01:08:42.450 --> 01:08:44.710
of people having to deal

1377
01:08:44.710 --> 01:08:47.513
with some terrible injustice that's happening.

1378
01:08:49.990 --> 01:08:52.200
And it could be that it does Peter

1379
01:08:52.200 --> 01:08:54.730
because I've kept my focus on Guantanamo

1380
01:08:54.730 --> 01:08:58.510
and I haven't put much energy into drone strikes

1381
01:08:58.510 --> 01:09:00.630
because other people have been doing it,

1382
01:09:00.630 --> 01:09:02.270
but it's all part of the same thing.

1383
01:09:02.270 --> 01:09:07.270
It's all part of a problem,

1384
01:09:07.520 --> 01:09:12.290
a counter terrorism problem where the policies

1385
01:09:12.290 --> 01:09:17.290
that are being applied are wrong essentially.

1386
01:09:17.600 --> 01:09:20.500
I don't think that there is the justification

1387
01:09:20.500 --> 01:09:23.920
for the remote killing of people in countries

1388
01:09:23.920 --> 01:09:26.280
that the United States isn't at war with.

1389
01:09:26.280 --> 01:09:28.733
I don't see that's become acceptable.

1390
01:09:29.990 --> 01:09:31.880
<v Peter>John Bellinger said to us</v>

1391
01:09:31.880 --> 01:09:34.440
that we might criticize Bush for torturing,

1392
01:09:34.440 --> 01:09:37.490
but Obama just kills them and that is worse.

1393
01:09:37.490 --> 01:09:40.800
So, and similarly, you could focus on the drone killings.

1394
01:09:40.800 --> 01:09:42.130
I'm not sure that there are a lot of people

1395
01:09:42.130 --> 01:09:45.670
doing what you were doing in terms of drone killings.

1396
01:09:45.670 --> 01:09:47.160
It's not all that widespread.

1397
01:09:47.160 --> 01:09:51.280
<v ->Yeah, maybe I should branch out</v>

1398
01:09:51.280 --> 01:09:53.351
into another field of abuse.

1399
01:09:53.351 --> 01:09:54.630
(both laughing)

1400
01:09:54.630 --> 01:09:55.730
<v Peter>Well, believing the rule of law</v>

1401
01:09:55.730 --> 01:09:57.410
I don't have much else to ask Andy.

1402
01:09:57.410 --> 01:10:01.500
But one is, you said it before, I just wanna review it.

1403
01:10:01.500 --> 01:10:03.330
You chose to look at America.

1404
01:10:03.330 --> 01:10:05.690
And I think looking at America from outside the board

1405
01:10:05.690 --> 01:10:07.540
really helps 'cause it gives you a perspective

1406
01:10:07.540 --> 01:10:09.420
that Americans don't always have.

1407
01:10:09.420 --> 01:10:14.420
But you haven't really looked at the UK authorities

1408
01:10:15.270 --> 01:10:18.010
as to their participation.

1409
01:10:18.010 --> 01:10:21.560
And did they follow the rule of law, does that not matter?

1410
01:10:21.560 --> 01:10:23.180
Or are they back on the rule of law now?

1411
01:10:23.180 --> 01:10:25.680
Or do you just need to focus on Guantanamo,

1412
01:10:25.680 --> 01:10:28.180
which does speak for the war of terror

1413
01:10:28.180 --> 01:10:30.060
in a way that nothing else does?

1414
01:10:30.060 --> 01:10:35.060
<v ->Well, no, I have studied the British involvement</v>

1415
01:10:35.650 --> 01:10:40.650
over the years and it was particularly of concern,

1416
01:10:42.250 --> 01:10:44.000
actually under the Blair administration

1417
01:10:44.000 --> 01:10:47.030
and into the Gordon Brown's administration here.

1418
01:10:47.030 --> 01:10:52.030
Because after 9/11 the Blair government rounded up

1419
01:10:52.610 --> 01:10:56.390
foreign nationals who they claimed were involved

1420
01:10:56.390 --> 01:11:00.283
in terrorism and imprisoned them using secret evidence.

1421
01:11:02.020 --> 01:11:03.850
<v Peter>Imprisoned in the UK.</v>

1422
01:11:03.850 --> 01:11:05.160
<v ->And to be honest, Peter,</v>

1423
01:11:05.160 --> 01:11:07.970
a lot of British people don't know that this happened.

1424
01:11:07.970 --> 01:11:09.990
And actually what I've found over the years

1425
01:11:09.990 --> 01:11:13.460
is that when you confront British people on the left

1426
01:11:13.460 --> 01:11:15.640
with the crimes of the United States,

1427
01:11:15.640 --> 01:11:19.440
they're much more ready to get involved

1428
01:11:19.440 --> 01:11:21.393
than if you hold up the mirror.

1429
01:11:22.310 --> 01:11:23.620
Which is part of the reason

1430
01:11:23.620 --> 01:11:25.390
that we're talking about Americans

1431
01:11:25.390 --> 01:11:27.770
not wanting to look in the mirror,

1432
01:11:27.770 --> 01:11:31.193
there's a lot of misinformation, I understand that.

1433
01:11:32.450 --> 01:11:35.840
But there are also people who are supposed to be educated

1434
01:11:35.840 --> 01:11:40.370
and aware who do that thing of, isn't it closed,

1435
01:11:40.370 --> 01:11:42.583
or getting uncomfortable was mentioned.

1436
01:11:44.910 --> 01:11:47.080
But I worked on the British issue.

1437
01:11:47.080 --> 01:11:49.470
So, the other thing that was happening under Blair

1438
01:11:49.470 --> 01:11:54.470
was that British nationals who were suspected

1439
01:11:54.610 --> 01:11:57.500
of involvement in terrorism were,

1440
01:11:57.500 --> 01:11:59.320
and this was some of the foreign nationals

1441
01:11:59.320 --> 01:12:00.153
were held like this as well.

1442
01:12:00.153 --> 01:12:02.840
They were subject to basically house arrest

1443
01:12:04.180 --> 01:12:07.140
with an enormous amount of restrictions on their freedom

1444
01:12:07.140 --> 01:12:12.140
of movement and kept prisoners in their own homes.

1445
01:12:12.490 --> 01:12:13.920
Quite extraordinary, again,

1446
01:12:13.920 --> 01:12:16.760
people don't really know about this.

1447
01:12:16.760 --> 01:12:18.987
And this was, we're only talking dozens of people.

1448
01:12:18.987 --> 01:12:21.500
And then they subjected people to internal exile.

1449
01:12:21.500 --> 01:12:26.500
So, they forcibly moved people from one city

1450
01:12:26.600 --> 01:12:29.793
or town to another often hundreds of miles away,

1451
01:12:32.060 --> 01:12:34.383
again on the basis of secret evidence.

1452
01:12:35.560 --> 01:12:37.640
So, the parallels with Guantanamo

1453
01:12:37.640 --> 01:12:39.973
are not coincidental.

1454
01:12:41.660 --> 01:12:45.110
Britain was doing its own version

1455
01:12:45.110 --> 01:12:47.610
of what the United States had been doing?

1456
01:12:47.610 --> 01:12:52.610
And the reason that I haven't been doing as much on it

1457
01:12:54.270 --> 01:12:57.370
is that it kind of got resolved in a way.

1458
01:12:57.370 --> 01:12:59.370
It's not entirely been resolved

1459
01:12:59.370 --> 01:13:03.670
but most of the foreign nationals

1460
01:13:03.670 --> 01:13:08.670
that the British government had been trying to deport.

1461
01:13:09.820 --> 01:13:14.820
So, basically completely going against the non-reformal

1462
01:13:15.776 --> 01:13:18.070
part of the convention against torture.

1463
01:13:18.070 --> 01:13:20.500
That you aren't allowed to send people

1464
01:13:20.500 --> 01:13:23.330
back to places where they face the risk of torture.

1465
01:13:23.330 --> 01:13:26.880
And the British government got obsessed with Abu Qatada

1466
01:13:26.880 --> 01:13:29.223
who was a preacher from Jordan.

1467
01:13:30.600 --> 01:13:32.760
And this story carried over

1468
01:13:32.760 --> 01:13:34.410
into the conservative government.

1469
01:13:35.594 --> 01:13:38.830
The ludicrously scary authoritarians, Theresa May,

1470
01:13:38.830 --> 01:13:41.580
who is now our unelected prime minister

1471
01:13:41.580 --> 01:13:45.790
chosen by 199 of her fellow MPS and nobody else.

1472
01:13:45.790 --> 01:13:48.133
Who was a home secretary for six years,

1473
01:13:49.336 --> 01:13:53.793
and is, I would say openly Islamophobic and a racist

1474
01:13:55.460 --> 01:13:58.850
and severely dangerously anti-immigrant.

1475
01:13:58.850 --> 01:14:02.023
She was obsessed with sending Abu Qatada back to Jordan.

1476
01:14:03.600 --> 01:14:05.680
As with everything, if a guy's committed a crime

1477
01:14:05.680 --> 01:14:08.600
why are you not putting them on trial for it?

1478
01:14:08.600 --> 01:14:12.060
What was so nebulous about this

1479
01:14:12.060 --> 01:14:13.280
that you couldn't put him on trial

1480
01:14:13.280 --> 01:14:14.960
but it was hugely important

1481
01:14:14.960 --> 01:14:16.490
that you sent him back to Jordan

1482
01:14:16.490 --> 01:14:19.800
where he was in danger, but she obsessed about it.

1483
01:14:19.800 --> 01:14:21.763
And she got her way eventually.

1484
01:14:22.730 --> 01:14:23.920
And he was sent back to Jordan

1485
01:14:23.920 --> 01:14:27.950
and in fact they ruled out evidence in his trial

1486
01:14:27.950 --> 01:14:30.273
and he was not successfully prosecuted.

1487
01:14:31.330 --> 01:14:32.760
But she also wanted to send back

1488
01:14:32.760 --> 01:14:34.793
a whole bunch of nobodies from Algeria.

1489
01:14:36.450 --> 01:14:41.450
And they quietly have dropped that quite recently.

1490
01:14:41.830 --> 01:14:43.950
And it has not been very widely reported

1491
01:14:43.950 --> 01:14:47.223
because everybody wants to keep quiet about it.

1492
01:14:49.460 --> 01:14:52.943
They didn't maintain quite the same.

1493
01:14:54.640 --> 01:14:56.840
I don't think that concept has maintained

1494
01:14:56.840 --> 01:15:00.270
quite the same level of persecution

1495
01:15:00.270 --> 01:15:03.483
against perceived terrorist suspects who were British,

1496
01:15:04.335 --> 01:15:05.420
who they can't put on trial,

1497
01:15:05.420 --> 01:15:06.420
the whole secret evidence thing.

1498
01:15:06.420 --> 01:15:08.170
But their apparatus is still there.

1499
01:15:09.307 --> 01:15:13.420
And still almost entirely ignored

1500
01:15:13.420 --> 01:15:14.870
in the British consciousness.

1501
01:15:16.200 --> 01:15:17.585
<v Peter>Well, that's important</v>

1502
01:15:17.585 --> 01:15:19.083
to have people know that too.

1503
01:15:19.940 --> 01:15:21.137
I only have a couple of questions

1504
01:15:21.137 --> 01:15:22.260
and it goes a little on this.

1505
01:15:22.260 --> 01:15:24.700
One is why do you think Shaker Aamer

1506
01:15:24.700 --> 01:15:27.440
was kept in Guantanamo for so long?

1507
01:15:27.440 --> 01:15:28.530
We know all the other Brits

1508
01:15:28.530 --> 01:15:30.223
were let out so much earlier?

1509
01:15:31.656 --> 01:15:33.324
Do you have a thought on that?

1510
01:15:33.324 --> 01:15:35.968
<v ->Yeah, I think that somebody somewhere</v>

1511
01:15:35.968 --> 01:15:38.763
thought that Shaker Aamer was something that he wasn't.

1512
01:15:41.000 --> 01:15:44.520
Because I think we heard in the end that Shaker

1513
01:15:45.780 --> 01:15:49.660
was not unilaterally signed off for his release

1514
01:15:49.660 --> 01:15:51.480
because it requires consensus

1515
01:15:51.480 --> 01:15:53.983
across the government departments and agencies.

1516
01:15:53.983 --> 01:15:56.520
That there was some stumbling blocks somewhere

1517
01:15:56.520 --> 01:15:58.750
which I think was in the department of defense.

1518
01:15:58.750 --> 01:16:03.400
Somebody at some level or other was obstructing it,

1519
01:16:03.400 --> 01:16:07.333
was essentially obstructing the will of the government.

1520
01:16:10.426 --> 01:16:15.426
And Shaker, he's an extraordinarily charismatic individual,

1521
01:16:16.670 --> 01:16:17.623
he really is.

1522
01:16:21.477 --> 01:16:23.100
I suppose I've met him half a dozen times

1523
01:16:23.100 --> 01:16:24.820
since he was released.

1524
01:16:24.820 --> 01:16:26.373
He's really quite something.

1525
01:16:27.270 --> 01:16:32.270
It amazes me that people would think that this man

1526
01:16:32.760 --> 01:16:37.760
who talks of love and justice was a threat, it amazes me.

1527
01:16:39.660 --> 01:16:44.660
But if it wasn't that whoever didn't want to let him go,

1528
01:16:47.490 --> 01:16:50.140
if they weren't concerned by his behavior.

1529
01:16:50.140 --> 01:16:53.700
Because his behavior in Guantanamo got him into trouble.

1530
01:16:53.700 --> 01:16:55.120
He was persistently unruly

1531
01:16:55.120 --> 01:16:56.240
but so were a lot of the prisoners.

1532
01:16:56.240 --> 01:17:00.540
But it was his ability to mobilize his fellow prisoners

1533
01:17:00.540 --> 01:17:02.140
that they isolated him.

1534
01:17:02.140 --> 01:17:04.430
He spent, I think, at one point 2 years

1535
01:17:04.430 --> 01:17:06.283
and eight months in isolation.

1536
01:17:10.690 --> 01:17:12.900
So, they thought he was a dangerous individual.

1537
01:17:12.900 --> 01:17:16.360
And you can see how that ability to influence

1538
01:17:16.360 --> 01:17:18.410
your fellow prisoners has you pegged

1539
01:17:18.410 --> 01:17:21.143
as a senior Al-Qaeda, all that.

1540
01:17:23.720 --> 01:17:26.980
I think that some of the other elements of history

1541
01:17:26.980 --> 01:17:28.140
were the ones that worried them,

1542
01:17:28.140 --> 01:17:29.463
but it may have been both.

1543
01:17:30.858 --> 01:17:32.670
That various people lied about him

1544
01:17:32.670 --> 01:17:35.803
and said that he was a big shot in Al-Qaeda.

1545
01:17:36.890 --> 01:17:38.560
Abu Zubaydah lied about him.

1546
01:17:38.560 --> 01:17:41.570
Some of the other notorious liars in Guantanamo

1547
01:17:41.570 --> 01:17:42.470
lied about him,

1548
01:17:42.470 --> 01:17:46.443
but this is not a story that's well enough known still.

1549
01:17:47.680 --> 01:17:49.070
And I worked with WikiLeaks

1550
01:17:49.070 --> 01:17:52.830
on the release of those classified files.

1551
01:17:52.830 --> 01:17:57.170
And they have not to this day been properly analyzed.

1552
01:17:57.170 --> 01:17:59.770
I actually went through about half of them

1553
01:17:59.770 --> 01:18:03.633
in an obsessive project of assessing everything

1554
01:18:03.633 --> 01:18:07.310
that was in them and challenging

1555
01:18:07.310 --> 01:18:08.850
what I thought needed challenging

1556
01:18:08.850 --> 01:18:10.970
which is a huge amount of it.

1557
01:18:10.970 --> 01:18:13.897
But what does come out is these serial liars.

1558
01:18:18.990 --> 01:18:20.070
And I'm not blaming them,

1559
01:18:20.070 --> 01:18:21.650
some of them were people that I was evading.

1560
01:18:21.650 --> 01:18:23.490
You could see they're torturing the guy.

1561
01:18:23.490 --> 01:18:24.490
And he's saying things

1562
01:18:24.490 --> 01:18:27.310
like he might possibly be somebody

1563
01:18:27.310 --> 01:18:30.690
that I might've seen in an Al-Qaeda safe house

1564
01:18:30.690 --> 01:18:34.300
in Kabul in 1999, the guy's flailing.

1565
01:18:34.300 --> 01:18:37.150
It's horrible when you think what they were doing to him.

1566
01:18:38.420 --> 01:18:42.260
And he couldn't say, I don't know this person, he couldn't.

1567
01:18:42.260 --> 01:18:45.620
You can see him having to come up with something.

1568
01:18:45.620 --> 01:18:48.453
And then there were the people who lied in Guantanamo,

1569
01:18:49.910 --> 01:18:50.890
who can blame them?

1570
01:18:50.890 --> 01:18:52.740
When you put under that much pressure

1571
01:18:53.870 --> 01:18:57.040
and we know now some of these people who lied

1572
01:18:58.162 --> 01:18:59.750
about the other prisoners.

1573
01:18:59.750 --> 01:19:00.930
But there were a lot of them,

1574
01:19:00.930 --> 01:19:04.870
there were a lot of people who some of them chose

1575
01:19:04.870 --> 01:19:08.630
very consciously to be rewarded for lying.

1576
01:19:08.630 --> 01:19:11.510
Some of them just couldn't handle it anymore

1577
01:19:11.510 --> 01:19:15.370
and started saying yes to whatever they were told.

1578
01:19:15.370 --> 01:19:18.640
So, much of that information is discredited,

1579
01:19:18.640 --> 01:19:20.920
Peter, I really do think.

1580
01:19:20.920 --> 01:19:25.870
And I think when historically that stuff is analyzed

1581
01:19:25.870 --> 01:19:27.970
properly as it should be over time

1582
01:19:27.970 --> 01:19:30.810
it will become more and more apparent

1583
01:19:31.720 --> 01:19:35.440
that those documents which, actually, have been more used

1584
01:19:35.440 --> 01:19:37.810
by the right wing than anybody else

1585
01:19:37.810 --> 01:19:39.400
since they were published by WikiLeaks.

1586
01:19:39.400 --> 01:19:42.550
Because all of those idiotic right wing,

1587
01:19:42.550 --> 01:19:45.833
far right sites, they cite it as though it's all true.

1588
01:19:49.840 --> 01:19:51.130
<v Peter>I'm glad you telling us all this,</v>

1589
01:19:51.130 --> 01:19:52.070
I think, for history,

1590
01:19:52.070 --> 01:19:54.693
Andy, it's important that people hear it.

1591
01:19:54.693 --> 01:19:58.280
<v ->Yeah, well, the thing that I would like posterity</v>

1592
01:19:58.280 --> 01:19:59.960
to know about the Guantanamo story

1593
01:19:59.960 --> 01:20:04.960
is the absolutely unforgivable role

1594
01:20:05.840 --> 01:20:07.740
that has been played by the justice department

1595
01:20:07.740 --> 01:20:09.220
in all of this.

1596
01:20:09.220 --> 01:20:13.390
So, I hope I've stressed enough that my blame

1597
01:20:13.390 --> 01:20:18.080
to the judges of the Appeals Court, the DC Circuit Court,

1598
01:20:18.080 --> 01:20:21.760
for blocking the prisoner's habeas corpus petitions.

1599
01:20:21.760 --> 01:20:24.973
Mainly 2010, 2011.

1600
01:20:25.970 --> 01:20:29.140
Around three dozen prisoners had their release

1601
01:20:29.140 --> 01:20:30.290
ordered by judges.

1602
01:20:30.290 --> 01:20:32.110
The only time that the law

1603
01:20:32.110 --> 01:20:35.490
really has come to Guantanamo was when the judges

1604
01:20:35.490 --> 01:20:37.570
looked at these people's habeas petitions

1605
01:20:37.570 --> 01:20:38.880
and said to the government,

1606
01:20:38.880 --> 01:20:41.140
looked the government in the eye, if you will,

1607
01:20:41.140 --> 01:20:43.230
and said, "You have not got a case

1608
01:20:43.230 --> 01:20:45.780
against this Bush, Mark, let him go."

1609
01:20:45.780 --> 01:20:48.090
Very powerful, and they shut it down.

1610
01:20:48.090 --> 01:20:50.830
But the Justice Department,

1611
01:20:50.830 --> 01:20:53.760
the Civil Division of the Justice Department

1612
01:20:53.760 --> 01:20:57.570
deals with the Guantanamo issue.

1613
01:20:57.570 --> 01:20:59.810
So, these guys and these roles

1614
01:21:01.720 --> 01:21:05.950
under Bush had a disproportionate power to dictate

1615
01:21:05.950 --> 01:21:09.270
the kind of movements of lawyers for the prisoners

1616
01:21:09.270 --> 01:21:10.880
and to disrupt them.

1617
01:21:10.880 --> 01:21:14.410
But primarily what they've done is that seamlessly

1618
01:21:14.410 --> 01:21:17.700
from Bush to Obama, these guys have fought

1619
01:21:17.700 --> 01:21:20.270
as though their life depended on it

1620
01:21:20.270 --> 01:21:22.610
to keep everyone in Guantanamo.

1621
01:21:22.610 --> 01:21:27.610
To never concede anything on the habeas front.

1622
01:21:29.260 --> 01:21:30.690
<v Peter>And what's the goal there?</v>

1623
01:21:30.690 --> 01:21:31.700
Where's that coming from?

1624
01:21:31.700 --> 01:21:32.790
<v ->Well, who knows?</v>

1625
01:21:32.790 --> 01:21:34.890
It involves a lack of leadership.

1626
01:21:34.890 --> 01:21:38.240
So, the president is in charge of everything.

1627
01:21:38.240 --> 01:21:40.070
He has to be responsible.

1628
01:21:40.070 --> 01:21:42.210
Eric Holder had to be responsible

1629
01:21:42.210 --> 01:21:44.460
when he was in charge of the Justice Department.

1630
01:21:44.460 --> 01:21:46.623
Loretta Lynch has to be responsible.

1631
01:21:50.005 --> 01:21:52.870
They were defending the ongoing imprisonment

1632
01:21:52.870 --> 01:21:55.040
of people who had been approved for release

1633
01:21:55.040 --> 01:21:56.940
by the Guantanamo Review Task force

1634
01:21:56.940 --> 01:21:58.930
that president Obama set up.

1635
01:21:58.930 --> 01:22:01.390
The left hand doesn't care what the right hand is doing.

1636
01:22:01.390 --> 01:22:04.700
How did that situation arise?

1637
01:22:04.700 --> 01:22:08.670
And they have only ever not fought a case

1638
01:22:08.670 --> 01:22:13.670
which was in the case of a seriously ill schizophrenic

1639
01:22:13.930 --> 01:22:18.930
Sudanese guy where they dropped the challenge in his case

1640
01:22:19.400 --> 01:22:20.833
because he was so ill,

1641
01:22:21.720 --> 01:22:25.578
that the part of the authorities at Guantanamo,

1642
01:22:25.578 --> 01:22:27.210
who were even vaguely concerned

1643
01:22:27.210 --> 01:22:30.160
that they would rather not have people die there,

1644
01:22:30.160 --> 01:22:31.957
were adamant that they needed to get this guy out

1645
01:22:31.957 --> 01:22:32.970
before he died.

1646
01:22:32.970 --> 01:22:34.380
He was released yeah.

1647
01:22:34.380 --> 01:22:35.848
<v Peter>Who was he? Do you remember his name?</v>

1648
01:22:35.848 --> 01:22:38.765
<v ->His name is Idris, Ibrahim Idris.</v>

1649
01:22:39.859 --> 01:22:41.750
<v Peter>And do you think Obama is responsible here</v>

1650
01:22:41.750 --> 01:22:43.750
in telling the Justice Department

1651
01:22:43.750 --> 01:22:47.240
to block every case they'd won in the trial court?

1652
01:22:47.240 --> 01:22:49.130
<v ->I don't know who's managing them</v>

1653
01:22:49.130 --> 01:22:52.180
at the level that nobody told them to stop.

1654
01:22:52.180 --> 01:22:56.560
I can't believe that it's like an automated system.

1655
01:22:56.560 --> 01:23:01.530
These are career lawyers in the Civil Division

1656
01:23:01.530 --> 01:23:03.160
of the Justice Department

1657
01:23:03.160 --> 01:23:07.800
who are carrying on aggressively resisting any effort

1658
01:23:07.800 --> 01:23:10.163
by any prisoner to get out of Guantanamo.

1659
01:23:11.160 --> 01:23:13.290
They're not doing that without leadership.

1660
01:23:13.290 --> 01:23:17.380
So, is it their leadership within the Justice Department

1661
01:23:17.380 --> 01:23:22.380
that is not being told by higher up, we're changing this?

1662
01:23:23.250 --> 01:23:24.083
I don't know.

1663
01:23:24.083 --> 01:23:27.570
I just think that it's a big story.

1664
01:23:27.570 --> 01:23:31.560
I think hopefully more will come out on it over the years.

1665
01:23:31.560 --> 01:23:33.240
But just on that issue alone.

1666
01:23:33.240 --> 01:23:38.240
That there was no attempt to compare

1667
01:23:38.660 --> 01:23:41.070
the decisions taken by the task force

1668
01:23:41.070 --> 01:23:43.170
with what the Justice Department was doing.

1669
01:23:43.170 --> 01:23:44.980
Because what happened in those habeas petitions

1670
01:23:44.980 --> 01:23:48.140
was that people who had been approved for release

1671
01:23:48.140 --> 01:23:52.310
were having their ongoing imprisonment upheld in the courts

1672
01:23:52.310 --> 01:23:53.890
because of what the justice department was doing.

1673
01:23:53.890 --> 01:23:57.140
<v Peter>There was some talk that the president alone</v>

1674
01:23:57.140 --> 01:23:58.870
wanted to make decisions on who's release,

1675
01:23:58.870 --> 01:24:01.530
and didn't want the courts to be involved in that.

1676
01:24:01.530 --> 01:24:04.373
And that was behind what you just described.

1677
01:24:05.900 --> 01:24:07.280
<v ->Didn't want the courts to do.</v>

1678
01:24:07.280 --> 01:24:09.680
<v Peter>They want it to be an executive decision.</v>

1679
01:24:09.680 --> 01:24:10.790
Every person who's released,

1680
01:24:10.790 --> 01:24:11.910
it always should be executive decision.

1681
01:24:11.910 --> 01:24:15.460
<v ->Well then somebody was overriding that</v>

1682
01:24:15.460 --> 01:24:17.327
because the Justice Department was overriding that.

1683
01:24:17.327 --> 01:24:19.370
It was the Justice Department making decisions

1684
01:24:19.370 --> 01:24:21.050
to carry on holding people

1685
01:24:21.050 --> 01:24:24.137
that the executive had said it wanted freed.

1686
01:24:26.660 --> 01:24:30.040
<v Peter>Well, the courts who agreed</v>

1687
01:24:30.040 --> 01:24:32.520
that someone should be freed in the trial court

1688
01:24:32.520 --> 01:24:34.520
were over ruled by the Court Of Appeals.

1689
01:24:35.427 --> 01:24:38.090
And that just probably got involved in to appeal

1690
01:24:38.090 --> 01:24:39.860
and they didn't have to appeal those decisions,

1691
01:24:39.860 --> 01:24:40.960
they could have released them.

1692
01:24:40.960 --> 01:24:42.143
<v ->Exactly, yes.</v>

1693
01:24:43.250 --> 01:24:45.470
<v Peter>And that's what people felt the government</v>

1694
01:24:45.470 --> 01:24:47.130
was involved in, they didn't want the courts

1695
01:24:47.130 --> 01:24:50.243
to make the decisions at any stage.

1696
01:24:50.243 --> 01:24:51.702
<v ->No, they didn't want the courts</v>

1697
01:24:51.702 --> 01:24:54.535
to approve the release of anybody.

1698
01:24:55.890 --> 01:24:57.993
<v Peter>They didn't want courts involved.</v>

1699
01:24:59.540 --> 01:25:00.610
It is a complicated issue

1700
01:25:00.610 --> 01:25:03.030
and you're right that hopefully over time

1701
01:25:03.030 --> 01:25:05.090
someone will write more about it.

1702
01:25:05.090 --> 01:25:07.670
And I think a lot of your work help will help

1703
01:25:07.670 --> 01:25:09.590
whoever does write about it.

1704
01:25:09.590 --> 01:25:12.220
<v ->Well, and I'm always up for writing about it</v>

1705
01:25:12.220 --> 01:25:14.644
if someone one will pay me to write about it.

1706
01:25:14.644 --> 01:25:16.600
(Andy and Peter laughing)

1707
01:25:16.600 --> 01:25:18.485
<v ->Maybe the new administration will-</v>

1708
01:25:18.485 --> 01:25:20.530
(Andy laughing)

1709
01:25:20.530 --> 01:25:21.710
Is there something I didn't ask you

1710
01:25:21.710 --> 01:25:23.660
that you'd like to share with us

1711
01:25:23.660 --> 01:25:27.277
before we shut down this interview?

1712
01:25:28.936 --> 01:25:30.060
<v Peter>That you're thinking about when you came here</v>

1713
01:25:30.060 --> 01:25:31.237
that maybe you want to talk about?

1714
01:25:31.237 --> 01:25:32.550
<v ->No, I can't think of anything</v>

1715
01:25:32.550 --> 01:25:33.780
that we haven't really covered,

1716
01:25:33.780 --> 01:25:36.830
that I wanted to mention the Justice Department thing

1717
01:25:36.830 --> 01:25:39.880
that didn't arise in the conversation.

1718
01:25:39.880 --> 01:25:44.200
But I feel like the donkey

1719
01:25:44.200 --> 01:25:46.683
has almost had its hind legs torqued off it?

1720
01:25:48.540 --> 01:25:50.200
<v Peter>Well, it'd be interesting to see</v>

1721
01:25:50.200 --> 01:25:53.590
where you go with your work in the next generation,

1722
01:25:53.590 --> 01:25:55.632
and the next administration.

1723
01:25:55.632 --> 01:26:00.632
And we need 20 seconds of quiet time or room tone

1724
01:26:01.040 --> 01:26:03.100
where we just have to sit here and Johnny's gonna do-

1725
01:26:03.100 --> 01:26:04.053
<v ->Sure, okay.</v>

1726
01:26:05.400 --> 01:26:07.113
<v Johnny>Okay, getting room tone.</v>