Radio: I Discuss the Aborted Guantánamo Plea Deals and the UK’s Far-Right Riots with Chris Cook on Gorilla Radio

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Last week I was delighted to speak yet again with Chris Cook, who, for 25 years, has been running his Gorilla Radio show out of western Canada, “providing a forum”, as he describes it, “for people and issues not covered in the corporate media.”

Chris and I have spoken countless times over the last 15 years or so, and last week we discussed the latest news regarding Guantánamo, as well as the recent far-right riots in the UK. The show is available on Gorilla Radio’s Substack page here, and our interview is in the second half of the one-hour show.

On Guantánamo, we followed up on my recent article, Lloyd Austin Cynically Revokes 9/11 Plea Deals, Which Correctly Concluded That the Use of Torture Is Incompatible With the Pursuit of Justice, looking at the plea deals agreed with three of the five men charged in connection with the 9/11 attacks, which, however, only survived for 48 hours until they were revoked by defense secretary Lloyd Austin.

This, as I explained, was a shameful capitulation to the ongoing pretence by both Republicans and Democrats that wishing for a successful trial and the death penalty for those allegedly responsible for the 9/11 attacks can overcome the insurmountable obstacles raised by the long and brutal torture of these men in CIA “black sites.”

Chris also asked me to discuss the latest monthly coordinated global vigils for the closure of Guantánamo, which had just taken place at ten locations across the US, and in London, Brussels and Mexico City. I initiated the vigils 18 months ago, and I’m delighted that so many locations have continued to be involved, building up a small but powerful community of campaigners as a kind of global family, who won’t rest until Guantánamo is closed — or, in the shorter term, the 16 men (out of the 30 still held) who have long been approved for release are freed. My latest report, including photos from the vigils, can be found here.

Chris and I also spoke about the far-right riots that had been plaguing the UK for the previous week, and the shameful racist and anti-immigrant sentiment behind them, for which, since the Brexit vote in particular (the EU referendum in June 2016), politicians and the mainstream media bear a huge responsibility, as well as the social media companies that allow misinformation and dangerous far-right individuals and accounts to flourish. My interview with Chris took place just before I published a detailed analysis of the riots and their causes, entitled, Britain’s Racist Far-Right Riots, Brexit and the Shameful Responsibility of Politicians and the Mainstream Media.

I hope you have time to listen to the show, and that you’ll also listen to the first half, in which the investigative journalist Dave Lindorff discussed the latest news involving Israel and the assassination of two prominent political opponents: the “high-ranking Hezbollah co-founding member and senior commander, Fuad Shukr, in Beirut”, and “Hamas political leader and lead peace negotiator, Ismail Haniyeh, in Iran.”

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Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer (of an ongoing photo-journalism project, ‘The State of London’), film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (see the ongoing photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison 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 you can watch it online here, via the production company Spectacle, for £2.50).

In 2017, Andy became very involved in housing issues. He is the narrator of the documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the destruction of council estates, and the inspiring resistance of residents, he wrote a song ‘Grenfell’, in the aftermath of the entirely preventable fire in June 2017 that killed over 70 people, and, in 2018, he was part of the occupation of the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden in Deptford, to try to prevent its destruction — and that of 16 structurally sound council flats next door — by Lewisham Council and Peabody.

Since 2019, Andy has become increasingly involved in environmental activism, recognizing that climate change poses an unprecedented threat to life on earth, and that the window for change — requiring a severe reduction in the emission of all greenhouse gases, and the dismantling of our suicidal global capitalist system — is rapidly shrinking, as tipping points are reached that are occurring much quicker than even pessimistic climate scientists expected. You can read his articles about the climate crisis here.

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, The Complete Guantánamo Files, the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions 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.