By: Luke Pickrell
November 2015
On November 20, 2001, Mohamedou Ould Slahi went willingly into the custody
of the Mauritanian police. This was not the first time that he had been
questioned by forces in the service of the United States for an alleged role in
Al-Qaeda linked terror: despite numerous verifications of innocence – some from
the FBI - he had been trying for years to convince the United States government
that he was in no way linked to the downing of the World Trade Centers, or any
other illegal activity. And yet, Ould Slahi, like millions of others killed in
wars of market expansion and imperial domination, has continued to find out the
hard way that, in the eyes of the American empire, innocence doesn’t matter.
On November 28, 2001, a CIA rendition plane took Ould Slahi to a CIA black
site in Jordan. (Since 2001, an estimated 150 people were transported to black
sites under the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program). From Jordan, Ould Slahi
was rendered to Afghanistan, and then to Cuba. On August 5, 2002, Mohamedou
Ould Slahi arrived at the Guantánamo Bay Detention Center (GTMO) in Cuba – a
hell from which has yet to escape.
From 2003 to 2004, Mohamedou was tortured under a ‘special interrogation
plan’ of physical and psychological terror. Incredibly, he was still able to
write a 466-page manuscript during the summer and fall of 2005 detailing his
story. Upon completion, the manuscript was taken by the US government,
redacted, and classified top-secret. Only through a Freedom of Information Act
did an electronic version end up in the hands of American writer Larry Siems,
who edited the work (trimming some 22,000 words and 100 pages) and made sure it
was published. Thus, Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s work, ‘Guantánamo Diary,’ has seen the light of day –
a privilege so far denied to its author.
Mohamedou is still held at GTMO after the Obama administration appealed a
judge’s 2010 ruling that would have freed the now 45-year-old. Ould Slahi, like
49 of the remaining 100 prisoners at GTMO, has never been charged with a crime
and has never been put on trial. He, like the targets of drone assassinations
and so many other victims of the ongoing ‘war on terror,’ cannot escape a
government that rules with complete indifference to national and international
law. Having experienced the true nature of American ‘democracy,’ Ould Slahi and
the other victims of torture will likely never stand trial – they simply know
too much about the torture program to be let free. By keeping Ould Slahi behind
bars, the United States government, spearheaded by the Obama administration, is
working hard to whitewash a torture program that has yet to end and whose
victims include thousands in domestic jails and prisons. The only official to
see any prison time in connection to the torture program is John Kiriakou; his
‘crime’ was telling the press about waterboarding.
Donald Trump has said he will institute “a hell of a lot worse than
waterboarding.” Hillary Clinton says that we must return to the “spirit” of
September 12, 2001 – the same spirit in which the Patriot Act was passed and
the latest US torture program was started. Both representatives of the 1% are
following lockstep the policies of war, assassination, mass incarceration, and
general global terror put in place by previous Republican and Democrat
administrations, championed by the ruling class, left untouched by a limp
corporate media appendage, and glamorized in popular ‘culture.’
Mohamedou’s story is a parable for the degradation and general decay of the
US capitalism as it fights madly for territory and resources - now in the name
of a farcical ‘war on terror.’ The US ruling class, unable to overcome the
inherent contradictions of capitalism, stops at nothing to control resources
and pacify populations at home and abroad. (It might be worth noting that
torture has been proven useless as a technique to extract information). Every
means of state coercion – the police, the army, the courts – is given and will
continue to be given free reign in a mad quest for control. Aside from one’s
ability to consume and labor, no life is sacred under capitalism.
“Guantanamo Diary’ is truth to the lies of “freedom” and “democracy” that
flow so easily from the lips of the ruling class politicians. Freedom, if it
truly exists at all under capitalism, is a privilege reserved for members of
the ruling class only. Having stepped away from this book, I find my mind
traveling back into its pages, if only to be with Mohamedou Ould Slahi a little
while longer.
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1 comment:
Thank You Luke for this excellent comment on the torture and hypocrisy of the US 1%. Sean O'Torain.
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