When I visited my client Abdul Hamid al-Ghizzawi at Guantánamo on Sept. 25 and 26, he brought with him two letters that he had been working on since summer. The letters, written in Arabic, were six pages and one page in length. The six-page letter described the torture he had endured since bounty hunters picked him up in Afghanistan in late… return to article
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Reader Comments (2)Page 1 of 1 pagesThis story is just plain sick on so many levels it’s hard to know where to begin. Classifying information for “national security” purposes is one thing. I think many people would even agree that it is necessary to keep the public in the dark on some matters (although as a proponent of open government, I would not be one of them). But classifying random information just for the sake of classifying random information is so freaking Orwellian, it’s not funny. And it’s definitely NOT a game. Maybe the government thinks it is, but for many freedom-loving Americans, the stakes are all too real.
Every time I read a story like this, I am astonished at the levels to which our public servants, whose salaries we pay and who are ultimately answerable to us, will stoop to prevent us from finding out what damage they are doing to our nation. If we’re lucky, the 2008 election might bring about some changes in that respect, but I’m not holding my breath for a mass declassification of documents. The Democrats have as much to lose from full disclosure as the Republicans—both parties pretty much gave the war machine a free pass on this. I fear that Guantanamo Bay will become another sad example of truths that the American populace will never know.
Posted by cdamian on Jan 9, 2008 at 2:37 AM By the way, does anybody know how to change the little flag in the lower left corner of the comments? Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch, aber ich bin Amerikaner. (My apologies to any speakers of that great precursor to the English language. I’m sure I butchered that sentence pretty badly.)
Posted by cdamian on Jan 9, 2008 at 2:54 AM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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Also by H. Candace Gorman
- A Kinder, Gentler Torture
- The Hippocratic Oath Dies in Gitmo
- Catch-22 in the 21st Century
Government censors are making like Joseph Heller's character Yossarian and blacking out random information in letters from Guantánamo that has nothing to do with "national security" - Third Time’s the Charm?
The military didn't even bother to retain most of the documents from the Combatant Status Review Tribunals conducted in 2004, so the government has no documents showing any reason for holding these men - Suicide and Spin Doctors
There are many ways for the oppressor to force himself into the mind of the oppressed, but one surefire way is through indefinite detention. Never knowing when--or if--you will be released is a cruel form of psychological torture and allows you to keep hope while simultaneously filling you with fear - Inside the Secret Facility
In an Orwellian twist, the U.S. government monitors all correspondence between a Guantánamo attorney and her client
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