The Death of Osama bin Laden

Recalling the significance of the release of “The Guantánamo Files” by WikiLeaks, ten years ago today, on which I worked as media partner, and calling for the release of Julian Assange, who is still imprisoned in Belmarsh, despite a judge refusing to allow his extradition to the US in January.

On the 9th anniversary of the release, by WikiLeaks, of classified military files relating to the Guantánamo prisoners, on which I worked as a media partner, I recall their significance, exposing a system of alleged “evidence” that is actually based primarily on torture, abuse and bribery, and I call, again, for Julian Assange’s proposed extradition from the UK to the US, to face espionage charges for being a publisher, to be stopped.

On August 16, Mustafa Faraj Muhammad Muhammad Mas’ud al-Jadid al-Uzaybi (ISN 10017), a Libyan prisoner in Guantánamo who is better known as Abu Faraj al-Libi, became the 59th prisoner to have his case reviewed by a Periodic Review Board. The PRBs — which include representatives of the Departments of State, Defense, Justice and Homeland Security, […]

As today is the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, initiated by the United Nations in 1997, on the 10th anniversary of the the day that the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment came into force, I’d like to take this opportunity to promote a newly […]

For those of us who have been arguing for years that senior officials and lawyers in the Bush administration must be held accountable for the torture program they introduced and used in their “war on terror,” last week was a very interesting week indeed, as developments took place in Strasbourg, in London and in Washington […]

Two weeks ago, when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other “high-value detainees” were arraigned at Guantánamo, in preparation for their forthcoming trial by military commission, they brought to eight the number of “high-value detainees” tried, put forward for trials or having agreed to a plea deal to avoid a trial and secure a reduced sentence. […]

Law-abiding US citizens have been appalled that Jose Rodriguez, the director of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service until his retirement in 2007, was invited onto CBS’s “60 Minutes” program last weekend to promote his book Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives, in which he defends the use of torture on […]

What a strange and alarming place we’re in, when the US government, under a Democratic President, kills two US citizens it dislikes for their thoughts and their words, without formally charging them with any crime, or trying or convicting them, using an unmanned drone directed by US personnel many thousands of miles away. And yet, […]

A few days ago, I spoke, for the 27th time, to the irrepressible Scott Horton of Antiwar Radio, in response to the ongoing — and false — narrative propagated in the US by torture apologists including Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, which has arisen, like a malignant phoenix, in response to the death of Osama […]

With the death of Osama bin Laden, there is a perfect opportunity for the Obama administration to bring to an end the decade-long “War on Terror” by withdrawing from Afghanistan and closing the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The justification for both the invasion of Afghanistan (in October 2001) and the detention of prisoners in […]