The Guantánamo Files: one of the books of the year, as chosen by Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch
1.1.08
My thanks to Joanne Mariner, Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program Director at Human Rights Watch, who has described The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison as “An admirable book,” and has recommended it as one of her books of the year in a column for FindLaw.
Thanks also to the Brighton-based political activists at SchNEWS for a recent review, and to David Swanson, US author, activist and co-founder of the pro-impeachment website After Downing Street, for his enthusiastic endorsement of The Guantánamo Files as a “stunning new book,” in an article demolishing the administration’s claims that those who are opposed to US foreign policy hate the United States for its “freedom.” Writing of the book, Swanson notes, “Here they are: they. Who are ‘they’? Why did we pay people money to turn them over, imagining we’d get the right ‘they’ that way? Why did we torture them to tell us about others, imagining we’d learn something useful that way? Why do we look back on the slavery abolition movement with respect but look askance at those struggling to close Guantánamo and secret prisons because they wear orange jumpsuits and complain about things we never see on television?”
The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison is published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed, and see here for my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, published in March 2009.
Who's still at Guantánamo?
