My Reflections on Guantánamo and the 21st Anniversary of the 9/11 Attacks and a Video of My Interview on Salaamedia in South Africa
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Today marks the 21st anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, when nearly 3,000 people lost their lives in coordinated terrorist attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
Sadly, it also marks the launch, in response, of a global ”war on terror” by the administration of George W. Bush that led to the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, a 20-year endeavor that ended in humiliation last year when the US withdrew from Afghanistan, handing the country back to the Taliban; the illegal occupation of Iraq; the shredding of the Geneva Conventions in both countries; the establishment of a global, extrajudicial program of kidnapping, torture and indefinite imprisonment without charge or trial that, between 2002 and 2006, involved the CIA establishing and running numerous “black sites” (torture prisons) around the world; and the creation of a prison at Guantánamo Bay, in Cuba, where 779 men (and boys) have been held by the US military since it opened on January 11, 2002.
Since 2006, I have assiduously chronicled the monstrous injustices of Guantánamo, sought to expose and tell the stories of the prisoners held there — most of whom had nothing whatsoever to do with international terrorism — and campaigned for the prison’s closure, and two days ago, to mark the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I was delighted to be interviewed by Inayat Wadee, of Salaamedia in South Africa, about the anniversary, and about the shameful ongoing existence of Guantánamo, where 36 men are still held.
Video: I Discuss 9/11, Guantánamo and the Significance of the US Defeat in Afghanistan on Salaamedia in South Africa
Please support my work as a reader-funded journalist! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months. If you can help, please click on the button below to donate via PayPal.
On Wednesday, I was pleased to take part in a discussion — “Reflections on 9/11: The Impact on Afghanistan and the Muslim World” — on Salaamedia in South Africa, with whom I have spoken many times, including this time last year, when I took part in a discussion with former Guantánamo prisoner Moazzam Begg, about Guantánamo, torture and the US’s endless wars.
This year, with the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan dominating the news, the former involved four commentators responding to questions from the host Inayet Wadee — myself, the political commentator and foreign policy adviser Sami Hamdi, the academic Ibrahim Moiz, and, rather less successfully, Taji Mustafa from the fundamentalist group Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain.
Please feel free to watch it all if it sounds like it will be of interest, but if you’d like to hear me discussing the lawless prison system established by the US after 9/11, at Guantánamo, at Bagram and other locations in Afghanistan, and in the system of “black sites” established as torture prisons around the world by the CIA, who also rendered other prisoners to proxy torture prisons in other rights-abusing countries, that begins around seven minutes in, and lasts for about six and a half minutes.
Video: Moazzam Begg and I Discuss Guantánamo, Torture and Endless War on the 19th Anniversary of 9/11 on Salaamedia
Please support my work as a reader-funded journalist! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months of the Trump administration. If you can help, please click on the button below to donate via PayPal.
On Friday, the 19th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, I was delighted to be asked to take part in a discussion, “Unpacking 9/11 19 Years Later,” broadcast on Salaamedia in South Africa, along with former Guantánamo prisoner Moazzam Begg, now the outreach director of CAGE (formerly Cageprisoners).
The show was hosted by Inayat Wadee, who used to interview me regularly about Guantánamo for Radio Islam International, also based in South Africa, although we had lost touch in recent years, probably because Guantánamo — and the fate of the 40 men still held — has so largely slipped off the radar under Donald Trump, rather sadly confirming the truth of the motto, “out of sight, out of mind.”
Trump has largely ignored Guantánamo, sealing it shut, and refusing to even contemplate releasing the five men unanimously approved for release by high-level US government review processes that he inherited from President Obama, or the limbo of the 26 other men who are not amongst the nine facing (or having faced) trials, and in response most people have behaved as though they have forgotten that Guantánamo ever existed.
Who's still at Guantánamo?
