Wolosky, Lee - short clip - ConvincingCountriestoTakeDetainees

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-	You know, it wasn't always the easiest job	0:03
	to get foreign countries to take in people	0:05
	who were labeled as terrorists, you know,	0:08
	and labels are very potent.	0:12
	And in fact a lot of the people	0:15
	who we had detained	0:18
	when I took my job were hardly hardcore terrorists.	0:22
	They were in many cases, you know	0:27
	people who were, you know	0:30
	in Yemen one day, 19, 20 years old, or even younger.	0:32
	And someone told them that if they went to Afghanistan	0:37
	and this is all pre 9/11,	0:41
	very few people who we had in Guantanamo	0:43
	who were detained after, who went to Afghanistan	0:47
	after 9/11, these are the low level people.	0:52
	They generally ended up there	0:56
	either because of religious conviction	0:58
	or because of economic conviction, you know	1:02
	they have no economic prospects in Yemen.	1:04
	So they were told that if they went to Afghanistan	1:06
	the Taliban would pay them, you know	1:09
	a couple of hundred bucks and you can get a wife too.	1:11
	So, you know, for a lot of people,	1:14
	the attraction to end up in Afghanistan	1:16
	was economic lack of prospects.	1:20
	In some cases it was to make common cause with Taliban,	1:27
	in very few cases it was actually	1:30
	to take up arms against the United States.	1:32
	Because as I said, a lot of these people who I ended	1:34
	up helping to get out, almost all of them,	1:38
	maybe all of them were people who went	1:43
	to Afghanistan before the 9/11 attacks.	1:46
	So I think that you asked about how to,	1:49
	you know, the challenges and so the challenge	1:53
	is explaining all that, when all that	1:57
	our foreign partners might be reading about in the paper	2:01
	is how Obama is releasing terrorists.	2:05
	Now, some people who I talked to on the Hill	2:08
	actually believe that if you went	2:11
	and did exactly what I just said,	2:13
	you went and you went to Afghanistan pre 9/11, and you pass	2:15
	through an Al Qaeda training camp that you were a terrorist	2:19
	and you were always going to be a terrorist.	2:22
	And I understand that position	2:24
	but then the question is, okay	2:26
	if this person really never did much of anything	2:29
	except pass through a training camp when he was 18	2:31
	does that mean he needs to be held in US custody	2:36
	for decades without charging him with any crime?	2:39
	And so these are the discussions that we had	2:42
	with our foreign partners.	2:45
	And, you know, it's always good to actually talk	2:46
	about specific cases, you know, specific individuals	2:48
	not just label everyone.	2:51
	Oh, those are the baddest dudes.	2:53
	You know, you know, they're a bunch	2:55
	of terrorists, you know, there are some terrorists there	2:57
	and there's some dangerous people.	2:59
	And the Obama administration was never going to	3:01
	release people who we thought fit into that category.	3:03
	Then there were a lot of people who fit	3:06
	into the category that I'm talking about	3:08
	and it's in those people	3:10
	where you really have to, you know, engage.	3:12
	And I tried to do this consistently	3:14
	with members of Congress.	3:16
	I tried to do it with our foreign partners and say, okay	3:17
	I know what you're reading.	3:20
	I know what you're being told	3:21
	but let's talk about a particular individual.	3:23

Item Info

Title:

Wolosky, Lee - short clip - ConvincingCountriestoTakeDetainees

Date:

March 10, 2017

Interviewer:

Honigsberg, Peter Jan

Interviewee:

Wolosky, Lee

Role:

Government

Description:

This interview may include descriptions of violence.
Special Envoy for Guantanamo Closure
Lee Wolosky, male, age 48 was appointed Special Envoy for Guantanamo Closure at the U.S. State Department under President Obama from July 5, 2015 until January 20, 2017. During his tenure, the number of men remaining at Guantanamo went from roughly 116 down to 41.
Description was provided by Witness to Guantanamo.

Subject:

United States

Format:

oral histories

Language:

English

Extent:

0:44:37

Digital Collection:

Witness to Guantanamo

Source Collection:

Witness to Guantanamo Video Collection, 2009-2017

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Rights Note:

Unless otherwise noted, copyright is held by Peter Hongisberg. Under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license, you are free to use and share these materials subject to the following conditions: You must attribute Peter Hongisberg as the rights holder. You may not use the material for commercial purposes. You may not distribute any modifications to the materials. For other uses, including commercial uses, please contact Rubenstein Library at http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/ask.

Identifier:

637c70098a3a8a94884a7c302f78219e
witnesstoguantanamo
ark:/87924/r4c24z699
a43e05c7-2e35-4a99-9991-7d49fb3c3638

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Wolosky, Lee - short clip - ConvincingCountriestoTakeDetainees

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