28.10.09
Last week I recorded an hour-long interview with France Kassing, the producer and host of the public affairs show “It’s about You!” on KDVS in UC Davis, California. The show was broadcast on Monday October 26, and is available here as an MP3.
France was a great host, asking me to guide listeners through the background to my book The Guantánamo Files, and the shocking stories of incompetence, cruelty and lawlessness that I discovered along the way. I spoke at length about the background to the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, the capture of the men who ended up in Guantánamo (many of whom were seized far from the battlefields of Afghanistan), the lack of screening that followed their capture, and why, in so many cases, it is only now that the truth about how most of Guantánamo’s prisoners were randomly seized is emerging in their habeas corpus petitions in US district courts. I had the opportunity to explain how, in the 38 cases that have so far been ruled on by judges, 30 have led to humiliation for the government, as the judges have ruled that Justice Department attorneys (pursuing worthless cases as though George W. Bush was still in power) have failed to establish that the men in question were connected to either al-Qaeda or the Taliban.
We also spoke about why no one else had undertaken the research that underpins The Guantánamo Files, the democratizing power of the Internet (France had noted that I’m in Technorati’s Top 100 World Politics Blogs), and my film “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed with filmmaker Polly Nash), which I’m bringing to the States next week.
It was a great show, and I hope to have the opportunity to talk to France again sometime.
Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (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 I can also be found on Facebook and Twitter). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, published in March 2009, details about my film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed with Polly Nash, and launched in October 2009), and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.
Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker, singer/songwriter (The Four Fathers).
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