Transcripts For LINKTV Democracy Now 20160407

2004, i utilized a variety of techniques we were calling enhanced to nation enhanced techniques. It, iabout nine years of know it was torture. I wrote it as a confession. I hope the nation joins with me. Amy we will speak with eric fair, author of the new book consequence a memoir. Then professor and journalist Melissa Harris perry joins us in one of her first interviews since leaving msnbc. All that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. The race between Democratic Candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton is growing increasingly contentious ahead of the New York Primary on april 19. During a rally in pennsylvania wednesday, Bernie Sanders responded to Hillary Clintons claims that he is not qualified to be president by saying that she is the one who is not qualified. Well, let me just say in response to secretary clinton, i dont believe that she is qualified if she is [cheers] , through her super pac, taking tens of millions of dollars in special interest funds. I dont think that you are qualified if you get 15 million from wall street through your super pacs. Amy also speaking of pennsylvania wednesday, Hillary Clinton fired back as sanders saying his ideas are flawed because his numbers do not add up. Senator sanders and i have some real differences about how we would go about achieving our goals as president. And like a lot of people, i am concerned that some of his ideas just wont work because the numbers dont add up. Amy meanwhile, republican president ial candidates ted cruz and donald trump both faced opposition from new yorkers wednesday. Senator ted cruz had planned to visit Bronx Lighthouse College Preparatory academy, but his trip was canceled after the students threatened a walk out. In a letter written to the school principal, students wrote ted cruzs views are against ours and are actively working to harm us, our community, and the people we love. He is misogynistic, homophobic, and racist. Instead of visiting the school, ted cruz met with voters in the bronx, where he faced heckling by residents who yelled at cruz, this is an immigrant community meanwhile, more than 200 protesters gathered at Donald Trumps rally in bethpage, long island, carrying signs reading, dump trump and stand against racism. 16yearold protester yusra ahmed spoke out. Basically, i came out here because i know he plans to ban all muslims, which doesnt make sense to me. He associates all of us as that one small group of extremists that goes against our religion. Our religion is meant to spread peace. It even means peacemakers or doesnt make sense when he says were all trying to cause trouble. Amy wisconsin congressman Glenn Grothman has sparked controversy with his comments about wisconsins new voter id laws, which prevented thousands of voters from casting ballots in this weeks primary. Speaking to nbc on tuesday, congressman grothman admitted that he believed the states voter id laws would give the republican president ial candidate an advantage during the general election this fall. Tapings four to november, you know a lot of republican since 1984 in the president ial races have not been able to win in wisconsin. Why would it be any different for ted cruz or donald trump . I think Hillary Clinton is about the weakest candidate the democrats have ever put up and now we have photo id and i think it will make a little bit of a difference as well. Amy iceland has had a new Prime Minister after the Panama Papers came out. Icelands former Prime Minister Sigmundur David gunnlaugsson resigned tuesday after the leaked documents from the panamabased Law Firm Mossack Fonseca revealed he owned an offshore company with his wife, which he failed to declare when he entered the icelandic parliament. On wednesday, the Coalition Government announced agriculture minister sigurdur ingi johannsson would take over as Prime Minister and that a general election would be held in the fall. Johannsson spoke out after the announcement. It is not the most is the situation when i am taking the Prime Ministers seat, but i will try to do my best. I am hoping the people of iceland will see the government will increase how would you describe the last three days . [indiscernible] amy new articles of International Consortium of investigative journalistss have revealed three of the most powerful people within the chinese government, including president xi jinping, have relatives with secret offshore Companies Set up by the Law Firm Mossack Fonseca. This comes as british Prime Minister David Cameron and his family are facing increasing questioning over the revelations that davids father, in cameron sought detailed advice on the , best tax havens to use even after his son became the leader of the conservative party. The Tennessee House has passed legislation allowing Mental Health counselors to refuse service to patients on religious grounds, making tennessee the latest state to pass antilgbt measures this year. This comes as the governors of new york, washington, vermont and minnesota have all banned , state officials from making nonessential trips to mississippi as part of the growing backlash against mississippis sweeping new antilgbt law. New york has also banned all nonessential travel to north North Carolina in response to its passage of another antilgbt law, known as the bathroom bill. In west virginia, former coal company ceo Don Blankenship has been sentenced to a year in prison for conspiring to violate federal mine safety laws in the years leading up to the 2010 explosion at a Massey Energy coal mine that killed 29 workers. It was the worst coal disaster in the United States in 40 years. The yearlong sentence is the maximum allowed for the conspiracy charge. Last year, blankenship was acquitted of the more serious charges of lying to regulators and investors. Meanwhile in illinois, three volkswagen dealerships have sued volkswagen, accusing the auto giant of defrauding retailers by installing devices in its vehicles to skirt u. S. Emissions regulations. U. S. Regulators say volkswagen vehicles were emitting up to 40 times more pollution than u. S. Standards allow. Volkswagen has admitted to rigging some 11 million vehicles worldwide. A bangladeshi blogger and law student has been killed in the latest in a string of murders of secular activists and bloggers in bangladesh. Police say 28yearold Nazimuddin Samad was attacked by four men wielding machetes on wednesday night. Fellow University Students protested his killing. Student Billal Hossain spoke out. We are protesting here because one of our lost students at the university was brutally killed. We want a proper investigation and we want justice for the killing. Amy in puerto rico, governor Alejandro Garcia padilla has signed an emergency bill authorizing the suspension of payments on 72 billion in public debt. The move sets up a dramatic showdown between puerto rico and hedge funds amid the islands historic debt crisis. To see our recent coverage of the puerto rican debt crisis with democracy now cohost juan gonzalez, go to democracynow. Org in california, agents from the Justice Department raided the home of antichoice activist david daleiden, seizing computers and hundreds of hours of video footage. Daleiden is under criminal investigation in texas over his role in secretly filming and releasing heavily edited videos that falsely accuse planned parenthood of profiting off donations of fetal tissue. Students at the house State University occupy the campus building bricker hall wednesday to demand the university divest from the corporations caterpillar, hewlettpackard, and g4s over the companyss nest in the Israeli Occupied palestinian territories. The students also demanded more transparency in the universitys finances. Is Human Rights Watch reiterating its call for the United States to stop selling weapons to saudi arabia after Human Rights Watch says it found evidence the Saudiled Coalition used u. S. Supplied bombs in the deadly airstrikes on a crowded market in yemen last month. Least 97es killed at civilians, including 25 children. Human rights watch said it found remnants of both u. S. Supplied bombs and u. S. Supplied satellite guidance kit at the scene. Medical clinic worker othman saleh spoke out about the aftermath of the attack. Weeceived 44ounded in total. Including women, children, and elders. Of those 44, 2 people died, three others were in critical condition. They had to be taken to the icu. Amy and those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. Neremeen welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. As the republican race intensifies between donald trump and ted cruz, we begin todays show show looking at torture, an issue that has repeatedly come up on the campaign trail. In february, both candidates were asked about torture at a debate hosted by abc. Sitter cruz, is waterboarding torture . Ofunder the definition torture, no, it is not. Under the law, torture is excruciating pain that is equivalent to losing organs and systems. Under the definition of torture, it is not. It is enhanced interrogation, vigorous interrogation, but it does not mean the generally recognized definition of torture. I would bring back waterboarding and i would bring back a hell of a lot worse. Amy donald trump said the bombings the torture may have prevented the bombings that killed 35 people. Well today we begin the show with eric fair who served as an interrogator in iraq working as a military contractor for the private Security Firm caci. He was stationed at the abu ghraib prison and in fallujah in 2004. In a new memoir, fair writes about feeling haunted by what he did, what he saw and what he , heard in iraq from the beating of prisone to witnessing the use of sleep deprivation, stress positions and isolation to break , prisoners. In one section of the book, he describes torture as the chair. The military described such actions as enhanced interrogations, but eric fair uses another word torture. He writes if god is on anyones side in iraq, its not mine. Eric fairs book is titled, consequence a memoir. Welcome to democracy now why did you write this . After about well, 12 years now, thinking about abu ghraib and close to nine years of writing about it, the memories do not go away. I grew up as a presbyterian. Part of being a presbyterian is what we call communal confession. You read along with the congregation your confession. It was a critical part of your weekly routine. As i continue to think about what had gone on in abu ghraib and what i had done, it became necessary to confess. I started with smaller articles, a number of different newspapers, but ultimately produced this book. Nermeen can you explain how you ended up going to iraq . I am listed in the army in 1995, presumably to become a Police Officer. As a presbyterian, we sense a calling. I sensed a calling to law enforcement. The army was a means to an end for me. It was 1995 to 2000. I ended up at a Lynwood School language school. There wasnt much going on overseas that the army was involved in. In 2000, took my Honorable Discharge and became a Police Officer in bethlehem. About a euro to do that, i was diagnosed with a heart condition which ended my career. The iraq war was beginning to ramp up. As a former soldier, a Police Officer and someone who had been in that community and around those types of people, i felt an obligation and supported the initial invasion invasion. Contracting was opportunity for me to get over there without a health examination. Amy tell us about this company you contracted with. Number ofere a Contracting Companies that are looking for just about anybody at that time. Amy the military would not have you because of your heart . The heart, but the thought back then was the war was going to be over very quickly, a matter of weeks of not months excuse me, matter of months of not weeks. The army did not think it had time to transfer in to include things like interrogation and thought he could save money on things like security and transportation. The idea would be that Companies Like caci would hire former soldiers who have this kind of these and training, bring them over to iraq to fill in the gaps and then send us all back home. Nermeen i would like to find out more about caci, the was private contractor whom you have just spoken about. Lets go to a clip from the first, companys promotional video. Character. The unique set of moral and ethical qualities that defines who we are. Caci is built on a foundation of character. For 50 years, our defense, homeland security, intelligence, and federal food civilian customers have depended on caci for world leading formation solutions. They count on us for our character, honesty, commitment, respect. Character. It defines who we are. Nermeen eric fair, your response to the promotional ad for caci, the private contractor whom you worked for . Also, could you explain why caci did not require you to take health exam . It is enormous. This was a small part of it. The vast majority of my colleagues i think we disagree would agree the management of caci employees in iraq was a disaster. Luckily, was not a physical disaster. We had vehicles that had no armor, no medical kits, no communication equipment, no maps. It was really on the fly. Far be it for me to be the one defending caci, which i write about in some detail about some of the failures, but caci was an organization like so many contractors in many ways forced to step up in this war because so few other americans were joining up. In 2003, nearly 65 of americans supported the invasion. I was one of them. As someone who supported it, i felt an obligation to be a part of it. Many of us who ended up in iraq as soldiers or contractors were curious about where the rest of the 65 of the americans were. Recruiting offices did not have lines out the doors. The administration was not calling for people for national service. Organizations like caci, either accepted that responsibility or they sort of field in the holes depending on your perspective. Amy talk about walking into abu ghraib and what you did there. Some of us have heard of abu ghraib. The ribbon a downed american pilot in the first gulf war who spent time there. We did not have a sense we did not have a sense of a kind of overwhelming sense of fear for iraqis. We just thought of it as a typical prison. Former lawwere enforcement officers and had been in prisons. Abu ghraib, we arrived, they dropped us off and left. They house does in cells at the time. Theres something in the neighborhood of probably less than 500 american personnel, whether be troops or contractors. There were thousands of iraqi prisoners. The idea were going to interrogate these people and gain any kind of useful intelligence was a most immediately impossible. Nermeen what did you see at the hard site and abu ghraib . I spent one day in the hard site as an arabic linguist, id work for the National Security agency and had highlevel secure and is clearances. Site, most americans have seen photographs of this point, to tear open bay prison and many of the prisoners, the iraqi prisoners were naked, whether they were being forced to stand by being handcuffed to their doors or whether they were just stored of being paraded around sort of being paraded around the floor, being moved from place to place. Most of the prisoners either were naked or down to their underwear. Nermeen what was required of interrogators . What did they want to get from the socalled highvalue targets . They put out howard he intelligence requirements and they can cover many things, and intersection he went again intelligence from or much larger sure to check ideas. The number one in 2004 was the location of chemical weapons. Every interrogation on some level we had to at least address the issue of whether or not this prisoner knew anything about chemical weapons. Myself, many of us, included, were under the impression they were there. It was clear quickly that many of the prisoners did not have that kind of information so the pir would go down based on whether they were part of a cell or mortar teams and the idea was that you would fill in the blanks. Nermeen how do they decide who should be interrogating these highvalue targets . I did not interrogate highvalue targets. I cant say exactly how those teams were formed. By the time i got there in january 2004, the setup had already been arranged. I was not placed on that team. I was placed on the former regime elements team, fer. Amy were going to go to break. When we come back, i would like to read from consequence your book. , armytalking to eric fair veteran, who worked as a contract interrogator at abu ghraib prison in iraq, author of the new book, consequence a memoir. Stay with us. [music break] amy randy weston performing on democracy now he turned 90 years old this week. Happy birthday, randy. To see our our with randy weston, go to democracynow. Org. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. Is eric fair, army veteran who worked as a contract interrogator at abu ghraib prison in iraq. As well as other places. He is the author of the new book, consequence a memoir. You have said that what happened outside abu ghraib, what contractors did in terms of torture, was often worse than inside abu ghraib. That was silly my experience. That was certainly my expense. For me, full is a was worse than abu ghraib. Amy why dont you read for us from your book . We passed by the Interrogation Room where tiner has been working. We have not heard him scream or throw anything today. The door, a flimsy sheet of plywood, is blown open in the hot desert wind. Poste, rod is bound to the and in chair. His hands are tied to the ankles, the chair forces them to lean forward in a crouch, forcing all of his weight onto his lies. It is as if he has been trapped in the active mailing down to pray. His knees frozen just above the line, his arms 10, folded. His head is collapsed into his chest. He gas sprayer. There is a pool of urine at his feet. He moans, too tired to cry, but in too much pain to remain silent. Henson comes out under the holy and walks past the room and covers the side of his face as he walks by and says, i dont even want to know. I am silent. This is a sin. I know it as soon as i see it. There will be no atonement for it. In the coming years, i wont have the audacity to seek it. Witnessing a man being tortured in the palestinian chair requires the witnessed either seek justice or cover his face. I will spend the rest of my life covering my face. Any code that is eric fair, author of consequence a memoir. Why do they call it the palestinian chair . I was never clear on the actual words. The rumors within the interrogation cell were that army interrogators had learned to use this chair by israeli presumablyrs which call it the palestinian chair because they were torturing palestinians and it. I do not know that is true. From alan story, im not sure whether it necessarily matters. Nermeen you write that interrogators in iraq said the Israeli Military taught them how to use the palestinian chair during a joint training exercise. In response to this revelation in your book, Human Rights Watch said the description by an american interrogator of a palestinian chair torture device that he says the Israeli Military taught u. S. Soldiers how to use is disturbing and shameful on more than one level, suggesting as it does and means of torture used against palestinian detainees eagerly copied by americans seeking to interrogate and torture iraqis. Could you talk about that and also whether you know if the palestinian chair was used outside fallujah and other sites in iraq . A variety of different ways to interrogate someone under what were being called enhanced interrogation. One of those techniques was confined spaces. We know now that it was used by putting people in boxes and putting insects in the box as well as closets. The palestinian chair was simply a confined space, away rather than putting someone in a box and confining them inside was to confine them with the chair. It was designed like all enhanced interrogation techniques Come Assembly break the will, break them down physically in this case and essentially break their will. Nermeen you also sat in the palestinian chair. Could you talk about what that experience was like . Recognizing that an actual device through reusing and interrogation was i was surprised by that. Ise friend in friend of mine did not use the chair, but that is not to say we wouldnt. We thought if we were going to use it, we should hit in it and get a sense of what it was. We strapped each other in. It locks into a permanent squat from which you cannot recover. We only lasted about a minute. Physically, we could have lasted longer, but it is the overwhelming sense of fear that a horrific sort of pain is on its way. Because your hands are bound, you recognize there is no way to recover from it. Is physical pain excruciating, but the emotional strain of gnome you cannot there is no way to recover from that is what amounted to torture. Amy can you describe what torture session you engaged in onto most . Most . Nts you i wish i could limited to one. I know others disagree with me, but the very act of simply forcing a detainee through interrogation in my mind is torture. The one that certainly has, and appears in the book and other articles i have written, sleep deprivation. I participated. It was my last night in for leisure. Fallujah. Another interrogator was working the sleep deprivation on a detainee on the day shift and i was on the night shift. When i came in, he asked me every hour to wake up this detainee. To wake this prisoner up. I try to use the word prisoner. Amy talk about the difference between detainee and prisoner. Officer, i could detain people almost as i saw fit. In some ways to protect them. I could attain someone on the street if i thought they were going to cross in the wrongpot or detain someone who had blown through a stoplight. Iraqis were not detainees. We were not the taming them. They were prisoners of war. I recognize people say we did not declare war, but anyone who is in iraq and in your those years, including right now, it is a war. They were prisoners of war. Amy im sorry i interrupted you. Thats fine. I went in that evening to utilize sleep deprivation. He was in an isolated cell with no windows. I have been doing paperwork. I walked in and i flipped on the light. I woke him up, stood him up, i was when it take off his robe. It was cold in iraq. What i did not realize is that he was naked. It was a shock to me. It was an instant sense that i had violated his wellbeing. To say nothing of torture, in some ways it was an assault. Theyre all sorts of discussions about sleep deprivation, how i was sleep deprived and basic training or people are sleep deprived in college. That is not the same thing. Sleep deprivation, as i said before, can be accomplished in a matter of hours. You can let someone go to sleep in a dark room with no windows and wake them up in 15 to 20 minutes and that no idea how long they have been asleep. With no windows, they have no idea what time of day it is. You can let them go back to sleep and wake them up in 20 minutes and they still have no idea. Within 45 minutes, there lost all sense of time. Two or three hours later, you can convince his person he has been sleeping for four or five days when it is only been an hour. Amy what is the point . The complete lack of hope is to strip away someones hope into assert a different way of thinking into their minds, which would be my mind into theirs, so theyre going to cooperate with me. Nermeen you wrote in a recent opinion peas and the new york times, you have often been asked when you realized you had gone too far in what you did, and what you participated in in iraq. You said in the piece that you have given different answers to not out of a desire to deceive, but out of an inability to make sense of just how easy it is to become an american torturer. Could you elaborate on that . I quit my job with caci about a month later after the sleep deprivation. I left iraq knowing that things had happened that i was not going to forget and would leave an impact on me. But i was not i had not processed it enough at that point to recognize or to admit or to confess that i had tortured anyone. We were still calling these enhanced techniques. I had not done this behind closed doors. We have filed paperwork. Most other interrogators on some level had used some of these techniques. I realized there was something dehumanizing about it, but i had not made that leap. It is taken me 12 years to come to terms. When i first writing in 2007, even then as i was confessing and saying id. Wrong, i was not ready to call it torture. I am well aware by calling it torture what i am accusing ople love. I am well aware of what im accusing myself though. The last couple of years ive recognize it is the only other way the only word for it. Nermeen the justification for it, especially with respect to high valued detainees, was that valuable information was extracted from them using the cicely these techniques or tort precisely these techniques or torture. By most effective interrogation in iraq as a prisoner the sibley wanted to cooperate, he walked in and i was tired and was the and of my time and pollution i wanted to write a report and go home. In the first five minutes, he said he wanted a piece of cake andjuice and i spent hours with him gathering critical intelligence information. People have made the argument that torture can gain information but this brings me back to what you started with with the statements from ted cruz and donald trump. What you did not show was the next statement from marco rubio. Marco rubio said he would not tell his enemies what we were doing. He would not advertise what our techniques are. And that is exactly wrong. That is not the way the u. S. Should operate. We should absolutely be telling people what we do and what our prisoners will expect in detention. That they will be well taken care of, they will be watched over until begin of the conflict. If they want to cooperate, we will be more than happy to speak with them, but we will not in anyway torture them. Amy lets go to donald trump after the brussels attacks. Donald trump repeating his endorsement of the use of waterboarding of suspects. Im not looking for breaking news on your show but frankly, the waterboarding, if it was up to me, and if we changed the laws or have the laws, waterboarding would be fine. If they want to do it we work within laws. They dont work within laws. They have no laws. We work within laws. The waterboarding would be fine. If they could expand the laws, i would do a lot more than waterboarding. You have to get information from these people and we have to be smart and we have to be tasked and we cant be soft and weak, which is what we are right now. Weakwe cant be soft and as good as he endorses torture. I dont know where to begin. Getink veterans in general so frustrated with this tough talk and this idea that these men and some women have any idea what the difference between soft and weak and tough and hard is. This is not about being soft and weak, this is about being smart. Far more portly, it is about being americans and it hearing to the values that make us americans, the constitution and bill of rights. Im not suggesting we read the miranda rights to prisoners of war or we give them Constitutional Rights that we absolutely are obligated to treat them humanely. Amy abu ghraib, what it meant to iraqis and the fact you are doing this there. The wordested that alcatraz has a similar meaning to americans. Americans think of a difficult prison when they hear the word. Over the last two years, i recognize that is not true. We dont really have a word in the english language that sounds the same way as abu ghraib for iraqis. Many iraqis i spoke to, interrogated at abu ghraib, had been there under saddam hussein. There . D been imprisoned either for being shia or fled during the iraniraq war, for any reason, or for no reason at all. Would empty out that prison and turn it back into a prisoner of war cap was the very definition of foolish. Nermeen do you recall when you first saw the images the first images that were released the newghraib and yorker peas and why you think the u. S. , people were so shocked by those images . I was in fallujah at the time. Im not sure i saw it as breaking news, but we felt the story coming out of people talking about it. As i said before, we were not shocked. We were not afraid to see this coming out because we had figured all along people knew about this. I think in some ways we were shocked at the American People were so shocked and they had this kind of idea or that there were so ignorant about what was going on. Some of the images that we saw were unfamiliar to me. Ink execution that showed up the use of dogs were not things i had seen or done. Im also not here to suggest i would not have done those things. The story remains about my own failures. If someone had come into my interrogation booth with a dog and said, this is a useful tool, i may very well have used it. Nermeen in writing this book, could you say a little bit about what you want americans to learn from it, your audience who reads the book . I think drone strikes have the new topic. I think of americans had a better sense of what a drone strike really was, if we saw digital photographs of the after affects of age or and strike up close, i think we would have an enormous discussion about the efficacy certainly a different discussion. I think we need a different discussion about issues like interrogation. A year or two ago, people, as i got ready to publish this book, the question being asked was, why are we still talking about this . We have seen with the clips from donald and ted cruz and many others that aggressive interrogation and torture and enhanced techniques remain something it is a door that is still wide open. Those of us who were there need to tell our stories. We need to be honest and let the American People have a really good lord at what this stuff was. Amy you talk about this being a confession and you talk about your religious background, confession is for sins. Are these crimes . Do you feel you committed crimes . This will sound like a dodge, but at the Police Officer, when i pulled someone over or pulled someone on the side of the street, ident not ask them whether or not a felt they committed a crime. Theyre sort of you in that process meant nothing. It was up to me and it was up to what would essentially be a judge will stop i feel the same way about this process. I have an absolute obligation to be as honest and clear as i possibly can with these things. That being said, if a friend of mine came to me as a former Police Officer and said, ec, i have these memories, i do these things, what is the best way not to be prosecuted . The last thing i would do is say, write book will stop i recognize your question and i know the possibilities here, but that is not something that has anything to do my opinion and theyre really means nothing. Amy if you saw the people do what you saw them do in places like fallujah and abu ghraib, the other interrogators, people who work for caci or the u. S. Military, would you arrest them if you were a policeman . I would not have. I dont know if that brings us back or starts a whole new discussion, but when we were there in iraq, we were never under the impression we were doing anything illegal. Whether or not without were doing something wrong i think is a much broader question. Some like me were confused and not certain. Others quit immediately. There were people who showed up, site, quit. Others certainly stay longterm. Amy you talk about hans. Explain who he is. He was a nazi interrogator in world war ii, known specifically pilots. Rrogating downed he became famous for never using any aggressive techniques. He was quite frankly the most interrogator. You would take the american pilots for walks in the woods and get to know talk about their families. He livedn the u. S. , so he could relate to them in terms of the universities they had gone to. They formed relationships. Heated up acquiring new normas amount of valuable intelligence he ended up acquiring enormous amount of valuable intelligence. After the war, a number of the americans he actually interrogated, invited him back over to the u. S. For christmas dinner. Eventually, he became a u. S. Citizen, naturalized u. S. Citizen, and went on to teach interrogation, believe, to the u. S. Air force. Nermeen eric fair, do you believe people who sanctioned these methods should in any sense be charged . Again, that is not why have written this book and i recognize the value of that discussion and im not suggesting it is one that should not be had out in the open, but my experience does not speak to that issue. Amy were you ever stunned by someone who came and left and said, i cant do this . Honest, theeing people that quit immediately, we thought negatively of them and we thought they were simply not up to the task, which is one of the reasons why, even as i began to have my own sort of moral questions, that i hung on as long as they did. Most of theview soldiers and marines and the idea that you quit something, did not sit well with all of us. Amy how do you live with us now . How does this affect you physically and emotionally . It is something that i continue to live with every day. I suspect i will and i suspect that i should. I mean, this clearly has had some negative effects on me. Nothing like the negative effects of the prisoners that we encountered in iraq. It circles back to why i continue to struggle. I know a part of me is to with those prisoners, those that are alive, with those prisoners in iraq. Amy what you mean 04 07 16 04 07 16 the violence, this was 2004, the violence, never people that were killed, maybe most Americans Still like to think about this, but the blood let was on a biblical biblical scale. Say for sure, i dont know, but i suspect some of the people that i talked to became victims of that violence. Nermeen before we conclude, large parts of the later chapters of your memoir are redacted. Could you explain who is responsible for that and why those bids were redacted . I talk about not wanting to quit because it is sort of who we had been taught to be. Even though when i did leave iraq the first time, my intention was to return. The second time i return in 2005 was with the National Security agency. I had worked with him briefly prior to my first deployment. Anytime you have published anything about the National Security agency, youre required to go through publication review. I signed that agreement, so i fulfilled my obligation. The redacted sections are what the nsa essentially decided was not something for the public. Amy how many of those at abu ghraib did you feel were innocent . The red cross would estimate between 70 and 90 of the prisoners had been arrested by mistake. There are so many different ways to answer that question. Who exactly was guilty at abu ghraib . Why were they there in the first place . Why were they in prison . Certainly, there were men in prison, some of whom i talk too, deserved quite frankly to spend the rest of their lives in a cell. As far as who was innocent and guilty, they were iraqis. It was their country. They absolutely should have been trying to oust us. I have heard this percentages and i recognize what youre getting at, but i dont like the idea that it was ok to sort of torture some of these guys who were guilty but it was not it was simply wrong to do it to anyone who was there. Nermeen you also say that in the context of the violence that was inflicted on iraqis, you say it is a just punishment for us that we suffer some of the consequences. You say what you think the consequences for the United States and people here . I dont think that story is written yet. I think that should be frightening on some level. I ended my very first opinion piece in 2007 by suggesting the consequences o imprisoning large mass of people are typically huge and the names you can start ticking off in the prison environments and then came on to be just monsters in history, is a long list. We are 12 years removed from abu ghraib zero years removed from guantanamo bay. Detentioning facilities in places like afghanistan and probably a rack, i dont know if theres consequences are. Some are unavoidable. I do feel if we address this issue and have a significant change and we did go back to the court values that we absolutely will treat prisoners of war humanely and we broadcast that, that we can shift the narrative. Amy eric fair, think you for being with us, army veteran who worked as a contract negotiator at abu ghraib prison in iraq. He worked for caci. He is the author of the new book, consequence a memoir. We will be back with Melissa Harrisperry in a moment. [music break] amy randy weston. Happy 90th birthday, randy. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. Nermeen we end todays show with professor, author, and political commentator Melissa Harrisperry. For the past four years, she hosted a popular weekend show on msnbc. At the show ended last month after a dispute between her and the network. After her show ended, Democratic Congress member Luis Gutierrez of illinois spoke out about her departure. He gave a speech from the floor of the house was standing next to a sign of the nbc peacock with the hashtag nbcsowhite, what is going on . Last week Melissa Harrisperry was abruptly pulled from the airwaves without even a chance to say goodbye. Nbc said they wanted a show that was more about politics, but i have to say that when i watched the show, Melissa Harrisperry was talking about politics and the unique way, like few others on the airwaves. She brought Diverse Voices to the table to talk directly and unapologetically about the politics of race in america, a major theme among candidates in a critical conversation to include on the airwaves. I am sad to see her go, just like alex wagner before her, but i am even sadder because i dont think these are isolated cases. Amy at was Democratic Congressman Luis Skechers begin on the house floor about the Important Role of Melissa Harrisperrys show on msnbc. She is still sparking critical conversations. To talk more about this years president ial contest, but i do laws, antilgbt legislation a much more, were joined by Melissa Harrisperry herself. She is the maya angelou president ial chair at Wake Forest University where she directs the Anna Julia Cooper center on gender, race, and politics in the south. Shes also executive director of the Pro Humanitate Institute at wake forest and runs the wake the vote initiative. Welcome to democracy now it is so nice to be back. Amy there is Luis Gutierrez, the congressman, with the nbcsowhite. What did you leave . I did not want to leave. I refuse to go back on the air initially because of what had happened the show was gone and i felt that they were asking me to come back to anchor my hours, but not to actually host the show. Amy what do you mean . The show had a sort of branding. We did certain kinds of work. We brought particular voices, had a perspective and point of view and we had a lot of editorial control that have been true for four years. But over the course of really the months that began in 2016, we had moved to i want to be clear, i think the word politics is the wrong word. It was election coverage. That is that the same for my perspective. I was not ready to do horserace coverage. I had not been invited to host my show him a nor to even anchor during my hours for weeks. After some other Media Outlets asked questions about that, i was then invited back, not to host my show, but to anchor 10 00 a. M. To noon saturday and sunday. I felt doing so would have been to signal to the audience that everything was fine and everything was not fine. Therefore, it was important to actually not be there so that it would be a clear and visible signal that everything was not fine. Amy you mean your show at that branded . That is correct. Amy give us the sense of the kind of voices that you had on your program. A roundtable, basically. Sometimes it might be oneonone, but when it was often three or four people at the table. We worked hard to make sure we had Diverse Voices so that meant racially and from perspective and diverse across genders, diverse across perspectives. For us, that meant at any given moment, you might have a heterosexual white man like dave zirin who nonetheless is one of our favorite black feminists, but is a heterosexual white men performing a black feminist analysis of sports. At the same time, we might have aqueer asian constitutional scholar who would be there to talk about the Supreme Court. So he is doing very clear, straightforward mr. Head analysis of the Supreme Court but also doing it in a body that might be unusual. Amy you brought up sports, tell us what happened at super bowl. Not that sports were your big thing, but the 50th anniversary was certainly huge with what the unstated. Dropped formation the night before the super bowl. For us, that was in the wheelhouse of all of the things we cared about. Formation took up the issue of hurricane katrina. I lived in postkatrina new orleans. My husband is an advocate and civil rights attorney who did a lot of postkatrina work in new orleans. Our show had been thinking about new orleans for a long time and frankly, thinking about beyonce for a long time. We immediately knew we wanted to address this video, address the Popular Culture questions, address the racial questions, the black lives matter imagery that emerged as a result. We were told not to do so. Amy who told you not to do so . The sort of senior what is the word . He is not a producer on our show, but he is the person who was sort of over what happened on the weekends. He sadly came in and said, no, you cant do i there was a backandforth struggle for a while. Amy in terms of ratings, dealing with super bowl and beyonce, i cant imagine that there would have been a bigger audience for anything else, but also the black panther imagery i dont think is about ratings. This was never sent to me in any way as being primarily a ratings question. Really, it was a direction question. I want to be really clear about something. I think in an organization built on hierarchy, those at the top have every right to change direction. So one of the things i think has gotten lost is, as though i have an argument with the directional change. I do in the sense that it isnt the direction i wanted to go in, but that isnt really where the sort of where the fight broke out. I am the leader of an organization and i change direction in my organization. The issue was there was a directional change that was not being communicated either to me as an employee or even, more important, to my audience. And so what happened was, we were simply disappeared with no communication to the audience, and then i was going to sort of reappear as though everything was fine. That, for me, was what was unacceptable. So the email communication that was leaked was about me explaining to my team while was making me their life harder by not coming back to host. Clearly, the portions of it that ended up in the new york times, the most inflammatory or potentially inflammatory portions relative to race, which is the point at which i made a decision to leak the entire letter so people could read the entire email and make a decision on their own about what they thought i was saying one way or another. Wasnt that msnbc made a decision to go new direction. That is their right. Amy you are a politics professor. You deal with this thats right. Amy here we are in one of the most contested elections we have ever known. Your thoughts . What you cant say no on msnbc . I guess what i would say, for it is interesting to listen to congressman gutierrez stand there and say that he saw politics in our show. I certainly felt that we were completely capable of covering an election. We have covered elections previously. We have been on air for four years, obviously we cover talent amy you were in iowa when your show was in our, but you did not do your show . I was on my show as a guest, but i was not hosting my own show. I was a guest on it. That is part of how we knew things were going wrong. I was not allowed to host my own show, nor was i invited to be in any part of coverage in new hampshire. I was not invited to host my show from South Carolina, despite the fact i live in North Carolina and was in South Carolina i have no idea why. Knowing communicated any of those things to me. Amy you wrote in your letter, of the court i will not be used as a tool for their purposes. U. N. On i am not a token mamie are little round mock my head, i love our show. I want it back. That is true. I loved our show. It is been gone for little over a month and im surprised even about how much i miss it. The people i work with it turns few i did not know how friends i had until suddenly the folks i talk to every day for four years were gone. There were the people i talked about politics all the time and i miss them profoundly. That said, in the end, when i was invited to come again, to come back to host those hours or to anchor those hours but not to host the show, i definitely felt i was being used in order to signal that everything was fine. Again, everything was not fine. When i talk about mamie, the symbol of mami is one historically were the africanamerican woman cares more about the family of the employer and about her own family. What i want to be really clear about is i care more about our audience, about our team than i and a lack, sugar foods family, their profits, the ratings, which seemed to be fine. This was an argument about whether they were making the right decisions for their bottom line, but again, my primary job as a college professor, primary intellectual personal and political commitments are actually not about how many tv minutes or hours i get. I felt like i needed to have them communicated with clearly so i could make a decision about what direction i was going in. The decision to not have a conversation with me about any of that, the decision to leak not only this information, but other information later when the conversation started, the attempt to silence me once we particularly in the context of msnbc having rehired Brian Williams and having made Public Comments were they said things like, we are in embassy family, Second Chances are always possible. Redemption is an important part of who we are [captioning made possible by democracy now ] that, frankly, painful after four years of working strongly hard for these people, after giving up a lot of family time and personal time and professional time, to be discarded in that way, and so for me, although i dont know what the reasons are, i am pleased that ultimately, i cured more about my family than theirs. Wemeen quickly before conclude, can you talk about your experience on the context of the concept crooked room that you talk about in your book, sister citizen . I dont know that we can analyze ourselves in that way. Sister citizen is about the stereotypes that africanamerican women are bound by, so the ways we think that we know who black women are based on some very old stereotypes of mamie, the angry black woman, jezebel. I sometimes feel like i feel there happening in the context of social media, but were not very honest about who we are none of us can see ourselves for a well. It is kind of like we cannot hear the sound of her own voice because of the way it reverberates. I will leave it to others to write about that. Amy we will do a postshow for you and post it on democracynow. Org. Were on our 100 city tour. Democracy now is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. Email your comments to outreach democracynow. Org or mail them to democracy now p. O. Box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now ] 8uxu laura gentrification you hear the word and do some it is development, new stores, seices. To others, it is displacement. Wi all those new stores and services, an come new corporations and new people. We often discuss the policies that bring change in and poor and dark skinned people out. What about the cost of this transformation . What about the fears that get thrown up among the