Andy Worthington Talks Guantánamo and Torture on Antiwar Radio and The Peter B. Collins Show

Last week, I was delighted to be reunited on air with two of my favorite talk show hosts: the ever irascible Scott Horton of Antiwar Radio, and the more measured, but forensically disappointed Peter B. Collins. My 25-minute interview with Scott Horton is here (and here as an MP3), and my hour-long interview with Peter B. Collins is here (and here as an MP3).

Due to what appears to be a weekend work overload at the House of Worthington, I don’t have time to present my own commentary on the shows, as I normally do, but here’s what Scott had to say:

Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files, discusses his 8-part exposé on the 174 remaining prisoners in Guantánamo, the nearly 600 inmates already released that put the lie to “worst of the worst” claims, Obama’s political decision not to release Yemeni prisoners no matter their innocence, Taliban foot soldiers fighting the Northern Alliance pre-9/11 unfairly lumped together with actual terrorism suspects, and how the Abu Zubaydah case proves that evidence obtained through torture cannot be relied upon.

And here’s what Peter B. said:

Andy Worthington reports on Appeals Court ruling against victims of torture and rendition, declaring “secret” what we already know … Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files, provides the best ongoing coverage of America’s gulag at his website, and he details the cynical ruling by the full 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (the most liberal court in the nation!) which overturned its own 3-judge panel and threw out the suit brought by rendition/torture victim Binyam Mohamed and 4 others. The court makes the fatuous claim that government secrecy prevents the case from going forward, even though most of the evidence is already on the record in the US and Britain. While Obama said he wanted to close Guantánamo, his lawyers continue to cover up for the illegal actions under Bush and Cheney. Dissenting judges point out that courts could limit disclosure of legitimate secrets on an individual basis, but the majority was bent on cover-up.

I hope you have time to listen in. It’s always a pleasure to speak to Scott and Peter B., and to have the opportunity to discuss on air, with knowledgeable hosts, what I spend most of my waking hours writing about.

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) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. 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, updated in July 2010, details about the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, currently on tour in the UK, and available on DVD here), and my definitive Guantánamo habeas list, and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.