On Democracy Now! Andy Worthington Discusses the Cynical Hysteria About the Guantánamo Prisoners Released in Exchange for Bowe Bergdahl
6.6.14
I was delighted to be invited onto Democracy Now! today to discuss the ongoing hysteria in the US about the Obama administration’s decision to release five Taliban prisoners at Guantánamo in exchange for the sole US prisoner of war in Afghanistan, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.
This hysteria — in Congress and the media — has involved outrageous claims that Bergdahl should have been abandoned because he was a deserter, even though this claims has never been proven, and that the Taliban prisoners should not have been released (to monitored freedom in Qatar), because they pose a phenomenal threat to the US (there is absolutely no evidence of this).
Some of the cynical opportunists attacking the president are also calling for him to be impeached because he failed to observe a Congressional requirement to give lawmakers a 30-day notification prior to the release of any prisoners (even though the administration has explained why it failed to do so — primarily because of immediate fears for Bergdahl’s life). Depressingly, those attacking the president are also threatening to try to prevent him from releasing any more prisoners from Guantánamo, even though the majority of the men still held have been cleared for release.
I spoke to Amy Goodman and Juan González in the last section of the show, along with Frank Goldsmith, the attorney for Khairullah Khairkhwa, one of the five men, who spoke powerfully about his client. I then had the opportunity to discuss elements of the story that I had written about in my recent articles, “What We Should Really Be Talking About With the Bowe Bergdahl Controversy” (for PolicyMic) and “Missing the Point on the Guantánamo Taliban Prisoner Swap and the Release of Bowe Bergdahl.”
The video of the show is below:
Sadly, the segment was quite short, and I didn’t have time to specifically discuss the plight of the remaining 149 prisoners in Guantánamo, and, in particular, the 78 men still held who have been cleared for release, as briefly mentioned above — 75 who had their release approved in January 2010 by the high-level, inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force that President Obama appointed when he first took office in 2009, and three approved for release in recent months by Periodic review Boards, established to review the cases of almost all the men who have not been cleared for release.
I do, however, understand Amy and Juan providing a prominent forum for Matthew Farwell, a veteran of the Afghan occupation and now a journalist, who worked with the late Michael Hastings on the definitive profile of Bowe Bergdahl, “America’s Last Prisoner of War,” for Rolling Stone two years ago. Matthew Farwell was interviewed in the first part of the show, and I’m happy to also make the video of his interview available below:
Perhaps if the false hysteria about Bowe Bergdahl and the Taliban prisoners is still thriving next week, I will get the opportunity to speak again about why all decent people should be appalled that the cleared prisoners are in danger of, yet again, being used in a cynical game of political football by lawmakers and their cheerleaders in the media.
I take heart, however, that, in an otherwise dreadful article in the Washington Post today, US officials “stressed that the swap does not set a precedent either for flouting the 30-day notice requirement to Congress or for future releases of prisoners from Guantánamo Bay.”
A senior administration official, who “spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the longer-range process of closing the military prison,” told the Post, “Bergdahl is an exceptional case,” adding, “There are a significant number of transfers in the pipeline, and I think you are going to see progress this year.”
Asked if the current hysteria “would complicate future transfers,” the official told the Post, “The facts and the merits very much support the conclusion that Guantánamo should be closed. The fundamentals of that picture are clear now, just as clear as they were a couple weeks ago.”
I hope that, as a result, there will be more releases soon — and a good start would be the six men who cannot be safely repatriated but who were recently offered a new home in Uruguay by President Mujica. Just last week, defense secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters he would be “making some decisions on those specific individuals here fairly soon.”
Hagel said Congress “had assigned him the responsibility of notifying it of a decision to release detainees,” as Reuters put it. “My name goes on that document. That’s a big responsibility,” he said, adding, “I have a system that I have developed, put in place, to look at every element, first of all complying with the law, risks, mitigation of risk. Does it hit the thresholds of the legalities required? Can I ensure compliance with all those requirements? There is a risk in everything … I suspect I will never get a 100-percent deal.”
That, unlike the current hysteria, is a realistic statement, and I hope Chuck Hagel works out that releasing the six men — and others whose release has been under discussion for many months before the prisoner exchange — is still of huge importance.
Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, and 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. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US).
To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, and “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see the definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.
Please also consider joining the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.
Who's still at Guantánamo?
20 Responses
Andy Worthington says...
When I was on the show, Sue Katz wrote on Facebook:
Watching you on Democracy Now! Well done.
...on June 6th, 2014 at 10:39 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Thanks, Sue. That’s very good to hear.
...on June 6th, 2014 at 10:39 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Debra Sweet wrote:
Andy — all we could see on the screen of your t-shirt was the crown. What’s up with that? I suspect you’ve not become a royalist on us.
...on June 6th, 2014 at 10:40 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Well spotted, Debra. I was wearing this shirt (in black): http://www.redmolotov.com/catalogue/tshirts/all/gchq-always-listening-tshirt/blacktshirt.html
I hadn’t realized the whole message wouldn’t be seen, just the crown!
...on June 6th, 2014 at 10:41 pm
arcticredriver says...
Andy, thanks, the trade of Sergeant Bergdahl for the five Taliban leaders, while leaving so many other captives facing indefinite detention, is important, and I agree that it merits multiple articles. So thanks. Thanks for pointing out the five leaders were from the “continued indefinite detention” list, while half the other captives are on the “cleared for release” list.
It is encouraging spin doctors assert other transfers are in the pipeline. Andy, I hope you don’t mind me voicing my concern that the reason why the release of those six men to Uruguay [hasn’t taken place] is the pointless and absurd US demands that the host nations provide secret, pointless and absurd “security assurances”.
Poor old UK resident Bisher al-Rawi was never an enemy. The UK public eventually learned he was a cooperative MI5 informant, who ended up in Guantanamo after he declined to undertake a more dangerous role as a mole. The UK public eventually learned that UK and US security officials recklessly and cowardly arranged to kidnap him and try to use detention to pressure him into serving as a mole, paying no attention to his previous cooperation. I remember we have discussed before how UK and US diplomats negotiated for years over transfer him back to the UK, and how eventually some of those UK diplomats leaked some of the USA’s secret crazy demands.
I believe those secret security demands are not only wildly ill-advised, wildly damaging to public safety, I believe they are genuinely crazy, genuinely insane. I believe they are a manifestation of a kind of hysteria that continues to paralyze the USA. The central meme to that hysteria is that the USA cannot afford even a single additional death due to terrorism in the Continental USA itself.
If the UK felt that kind of hysteria during the London Blitz all of its citizens would have abandoned their London jobs, and hid out in the country, or would have lived in bomb shelters 24 hours a day.
I am sure most US GIs and most US security officials are courageous enough to go back into range of enemy guns to rescue a wounded comrade. We need all US security officials to show the same intellectual courage as some of the exceptional individuals you have profiled, including: Stephen Abraham, Bradley Manning, Morris Davis, Captain Allred and Colonel Brownback, William Kuebler and Colby Voker, and more recently Edward Snowden.
...on June 7th, 2014 at 12:12 am
Andy Worthington says...
Thanks, arcticredriver. Your comments are much appreciated.
I particularly liked your discussion of how the “secret security demands” are “a manifestation of a kind of hysteria that continues to paralyze the USA”; namely, “that the USA cannot afford even a single additional death due to terrorism” — you wrote, “in the Continental USA itself,” but I think these scared people, with their multiple layers of reviews but their ultimate reticence to release anyone, don’t want a single death of an American by terrorism anywhere in the world – or to put it another way, a recidivism rate at Guantanamo of zero, which you can only achieve by never releasing anyone, ever. As I have pointed out before, imagine if these kinds of arguments were applied to the perceived “problem” of recidivism in America’s domestic prisons. No one would ever be released from prison, ever.
You are right to call this type of thinking insane.
...on June 7th, 2014 at 12:29 am
Andy Worthington says...
Eric Schwing wrote:
Great Job at cutting through the insane corporate media propaganda and hype.
...on June 7th, 2014 at 12:32 am
Andy Worthington says...
Thanks for the thumbs-up, Eric. That’s exactly what I had hoped to do!
...on June 7th, 2014 at 12:33 am
Andy Worthington says...
Abzter Buffness wrote:
ANDY U R AWESOME. UR PERSISTANCE IS INSPIRATIONAL. APPRECIATE UR HARD WORK MY FRIEND. MAY ALLAH GUIDE U TO ISLAM 🙂
...on June 7th, 2014 at 12:34 am
Andy Worthington says...
Thanks, Abzter, for the supportive words.
...on June 7th, 2014 at 12:34 am
Andy Worthington says...
David Knopfler wrote:
For anyone with an hour to spare the entire show is pretty good- for those who don’t, they save the best til last
...on June 7th, 2014 at 8:00 am
Andy Worthington says...
Thanks, David. Great to hear from you. What a lovely comment!
...on June 7th, 2014 at 8:00 am
Andy Worthington says...
Willy Bach wrote:
Shared, Andy, thanks.
...on June 7th, 2014 at 8:01 am
Andy Worthington says...
Neil Mckenna wrote:
Very pleased to hear you on this particular story, Andy. Been following this with interest for the last few days on Democracy Now!
...on June 7th, 2014 at 8:02 am
Andy Worthington says...
Thanks, Willy and Neil. Much appreciated. Yes, Democracy Now!’s coverage has been very good, Neil, but it’s shocking when you realize the reach of the psychopaths and black propagandist broadcasters they’re up against – not just Fox News, although their coverage of stories like these is always pernicious, but also many other more mainstream shows and channels whose so-called reporting on this issue has been appalling.
...on June 7th, 2014 at 8:02 am
Andy Worthington says...
Dejanka Bryant wrote:
Very good, Andy. Exactly my thoughts. Shared.
...on June 8th, 2014 at 9:46 am
Andy Worthington says...
Thank you, Dejanka. That’s very good to hear.
...on June 8th, 2014 at 9:47 am
Andy Worthington says...
Maryam Waqar wrote:
Thanks for all the effort you put in… you deserve way more credit, gratitude and applause than the world cares to show.
...on June 8th, 2014 at 10:19 am
Andy Worthington says...
Thank you, Maryam, for the wonderfully supportive words.
...on June 8th, 2014 at 10:19 am
Andy Worthington says...
In November 2017, Bergdahl was given a dishonourable discharge but no prison sentence at the end of a trial. As Peter Bergen wrote for CNN, “The prosecution in the case asked the judge, Army Col. Jeffery R. Nance, for 14 years of imprisonment. Nance opted for no prison time and a dishonorable discharge for Bergdahl.”
I recommend his article, which also explains how prejudicial comments by Donald Trump played a role in the judge’s ruling. See: https://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/03/opinions/bergdahl-case-justice-is-served-opinion-bergen/index.html
...on May 21st, 2018 at 9:05 am