On Antiwar Radio, Andy Worthington Discusses Bush’s War Crimes and “Congressional Depravity” on Guantánamo

9.11.10

Yesterday I had the pleasure of talking once more to my long-time compadre Scott Horton of Antiwar Radio, for a planned 20-minute interview that turned into an extended 38-minute workout. Available here (and here as an MP3), the interview covers George W. Bush’s reemergence as an unrepentant war criminal at the helm of a memoir of selective truths, evasions and outright lies, how the truth about torture is that it was used to extract false confessions to justify the invasion of Iraq, and the reasons why the story of the supposed “high-value detainee” Abu Zubaydah reveals the horrific arrogance and stupidity at the heart of Bush’s torture program.

We also spoke about how the scandal of “Britain’s Abu Ghraib” is emerging in the UK, and I added some final thoughts about the show trial of former child prisoner Omar Khadr. I was also delighted to have the opportunity to highlight a prime slice of Republican hypocrisy regarding Guantánamo, which emerged just before the mid-term elections — signifying the kind of monstrous obstruction and hyperbole to come — and which I covered in my recent article, “Is There No End to Republicans’ Abuse of Guantánamo Prisoners?

Here’s Scott’ s description of the show:

Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files, discusses George W. Bush’s admission that he emphatically approved of waterboarding — with the unsupported caveat that it saved lives, the post-9/11 US torture regime designed to extract “evidence” linking al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, tracing DHS orange alerts back to false confessions of torture victims, how Congress essentially jails scheduled-for-release Guantánamo prisoners for 2 weeks while vetting their releases, the abolition of accountable and limited government thanks to Obama’s refusal to “look back” at the Bush administration’s lawlessness and how the British got their own Abu Ghraib-type scandal.

Enjoy! I’d write more about it, but time is tight right now, with so much trouble on both sides of the Atlantic.

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.

8 Responses

  1. Andy Worthington says...

    Here are some comments from Facebook:

    TeresaLynn Zimmerman wrote:

    Great work friend. Blessings on all your work keeping America informed with the true facts. Reposted all!

  2. Andy Worthington says...

    Tony Gosling wrote:

    Nice one Andy, this is a well respected show with which to spread the word.

  3. Andy Worthington says...

    It sure is, Tony. It’s been my pleasure to speak to Scott for over three years now!

  4. Andy Worthington says...

    Willy Bach wrote:

    It seems to me that the GWB unrepentant war criminal line that torture was necessary and useful fits your description of “the unsupported caveat that it saved lives” perfectly. It is an afterthought when denial was no longer tenable. It too much resembles the story we were fed about the experimental nuclear bomb demonstrations over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    History is whatever bullshit you can think up after you have committed the crime. This time we must rigorously police the history to ensure that these peoples’ crimes are never air-brushed out of the public memory. Andy, you do a good job of this.

  5. Tweets that mention On Antiwar Radio, Andy Worthington Discusses Bush’s War Crimes and “Congressional Depravity” on Guantánamo | Andy Worthington -- Topsy.com says...

    […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Andy Worthington, Susan Hall. Susan Hall said: On Antiwar Radio, Andy Worthington Discusses Bush’s War Crimes and “Congressional Depravity” on Gu.. http://bit.ly/axzthe […]

  6. Andy Worthington says...

    Allie Mcneil wrote:

    thank you for your continued diligence and tenacity at bringing us the truth…as ugly as it is….

  7. Andy Worthington says...

    Garrett Edward Miller wrote:

    Andy, keep up the good work. “The truth shall set us free.”

  8. Andy Worthington says...

    Maggie Hansen ‎wrote:

    “the unsupported caveat that it saved lives”
    Except Downing Street says that it is torture and Kim Howells (former chair of the Commons intelligence and security committee), cast doubt on Bush’s claim that it had helped save British lives. “We are not convinced,” he said. What was it Saddam used to do again?…… Iraqi torture = evil US torture = good?

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Andy Worthington

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. Also, photo-journalist (The State of London), and singer and songwriter (The Four Fathers).
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