Donald Trump

With just two months to go until President Biden cedes power to Donald Trump, it’s crucial that pressure is exerted on the Biden administration to secure the release from Guantánamo of 16 men, never charged with a crime, who have long been approved for release — for between two and four years, and in three outlying cases for nearly 15 years. Urgent action is essential, because it is clear that Trump will seal Guantánamo shut, as he did in his first term in office. The scandal of these men’s ongoing imprisonment is that the decisions taken to approve them for release were made by high-level administrative processes, which have no legal weight, meaning that no mechanism exists to compel the government to actually free them if they find it inconvenient or to do so. An additional complication is that most of them are Yemenis, and US law prevents the return of prisoners to Yemen. However, over a year ago, a plan to resettle them in Oman was finalized, but was called off after the October 7 attacks in Israel. That plan urgently needs reviving, or, if that isn’t possible, another country needs to be found that will offer these men new homes. The alternative — another four years of entombment under Donald Trump — doesn’t even bear thinking about.

Following up on a powerful BBC report by Joel Gunter about the art produced by Guantánamo prisoners, which was banned from leaving the prison under Donald Trump, a ban that, shamefully, President Biden has not reversed.

A cross-post of a detailed article about Guantánamo activism over the last 12 years, from President Obama’s eight years in office, through the four lamentable years of Donald Trump, to the current hopes pinned on President Biden. Written by Jeremy Varon of Witness Against Torture, it was originally published on the Waging Nonviolence website.

Video of my half-hour interview, on Jan. 11, the 19th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, with Kevin Gosztola of Shadowproof for his YouTube channel. We also discussed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition case, and the Trump-inspired invasion of the Capitol last week.

After congratulating Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for persuading enough people to vote Democrat to end the dangerous presidency of Donald Trump, I urge Biden to resume releasing prisoners from Guantánamo, and to work towards the long-overdue closure of the prison in its entirety.

A link to, and discussion of my half-hour interview on the topic of “Will Joe Biden Close Guantánamo?” with Ebrahim Moosa on South Africa’s Radio Islam International, after the Biden-Harris team’s victory over Donald Trump in the US Presidential Election.

A cross-post, with my own introduction, of a detailed proposal for how the prison at Guantánamo Bay can be closed, if Donald Trump is removed from the White House in November, as written by representatives of six NGOs for the Just Security website.

My thoughts as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition hearing begins at the Old Bailey in London, with the US government, under Donald Trump, seeking to extradite him to face espionage charges that would lead to him spending the rest of his life in a US prison, if convicted.

The significance of an appeals court ruling, written by Trump appointee Neomi Rao, claiming that the Guantánamo prisoners do not have due process rights, contrary to Boumediene v. Bush, the 2008 Supreme Court ruling affirming their habeas corpus rights, and a ruling last year, Qassim v. Trump, establishing their due process rights, in direction contravention of this latest ruling.

Drawing on an excellent article about COVID-19 and American exceptionalism by the anthropologist Wade Davis for Rolling Stone, I look at the crisis of leadership in the US when it comes to dealing with the unprecedented challenges for our economic future caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and compare how similar failures of leadership also plague the UK.