u. s. military prison at guantanamo bay. cuba is an important endeavor thanks to a number of whistleblowers. we know what has happened at guantanamo, and we have a feel for the war crimes and crimes against humanity that have taken place. there, but what the human rights community, and indeed the public in general really need is a historian to lay out all the details for future generations and to make sure that revisionists don't try to change the truth of that history. i'm john kerry. aku welcome to the whistle blowers ah we're all aware of whistleblowers who have served at the u. s. military prison at guantanamo, thanks to people like joseph hickman and brandon neely, we know of some of the atrocities that have taken place there in the name of us security policy. thanks to the attorneys representing guantanamo detainees. we know about the utter lack of due process, about torture and degrading an inhumane treatment that continues to take place there. but much of what we knew in the earlier part of guantanamo was, existence was fragmentary. our next guest changed all that using his background as a researcher and an investigative journalist, he sought to document what happened to every single prisoner who passed through guantanamo, as well as those who will likely spend the rest of their lives there. and beyond that, he has cultivated sources outside of guantanamo, that of allowed him to report on us covert action operations and capture and render people around the world who in the end have never been charged with a crime. andy worthington joins us today. andy is a british historian, author investigative journalist and filmmaker, he's the author of the book, the one ton of files, the stories of the 774 detainees in america's illegal prison. he's also published a myriad of articles about one ton of mow and he's the director of the documentary film outside the law. stories from guantanamo, and the welcome to the show. it's great to have you. thank you, john. thank you for inviting me to our pleasure, eddie. let's start with how you got involved in guantanamo and in human rights. you already had of sterling reputation as the author of 2 fascinating historical nonfiction books, one on modern celebrations at the stonehenge archaeological site, and the other on a confrontation between police and new a celebrants at stone end on june, 1st 1985. i remember that i was actually living in the u. k at the time. how did you know? it was a lot of fun kind of a strange event. how did you make that transition to guantanamo and to human rights? and when did that happen for you? well, you know, a very civil liberties in human rights are very closely connected. i'm sure i've always interested in the oppression of and adults. so i think you know, the grand panama was kind of a classic case. really, you know, and if you look at grand panama history, the 1st lawyer became involved when michael ran the senate right to human rights lawyer. and then to death penalty. lawyers who were immediately on the story of guantanamo because they represented people who were particularly treated as victim so civil liberties, human rights issues are always been important to me that most story i think was probably more pulling through lots of non americans from the beginning that applies to people in the us who were encouraged to be in this this the state of vengeance towards the people who caused the 911 attacks. whereas around the world, people were looking at the end of furniture when the people in the orange jumpsuits with them the ears covered kneeling in the gravel and shouted out, my god, david, open, you know, that was, that was shocking for people around the world. and in britain, the right wing daily newspaper ran and ran a headline of torture when, when the prison opened. but it took me when it took most people time to be able to really delve into the grand panama story because of the secrecy. and in fact, i started looking in to try to find out who was at the prison in the fall of 2005. and that was when a couple of speculative listed been put together by writing composed and by the n g o cage, prisoners in the u. k. but nobody really knew who was there because the u. s. government hadn't told the world who they were and that didn't happen until the spring of 2006 by law. freedom of information law suits and were required to tell the world who they were holding their as well as to release thousands of pages of documentation supposedly about who these people were. and that's what i began analyzing. and he turned to no one else attempted to construct a coherent narrative. so ready in the process of researching and writing my book, my panama, i kind of became the custodian of the men stories that lots of people have written about one time over the years. but nobody has done as thoroughly and deliberately, as you have, what made you write a record of every person who's been through guantanamo, what was your ultimate goal in taking on that job, which is a huge task? well, you know, there's a, there's a point of kind of statistical analysis that you can do with the grand panama, establish as the whole local dave, that very few of the people who recall the was to the, was at guantanamo, well, actually, of the west, the west and, you know, and they, they managed to get a lot of media interests, which it, you know, it's a, please. and i, you know, my research is that the same thing, very few, very few percentage of the people that have been held at one time of 779 men held by the us military for when the prison opened nearly 21 years ago. you know, a few percent of those who are accused of having any significant involvement without kite or other talent. but statistics is one thing. another thing is, is who all these people and actually you know, what i found in my and that was based all the documentation that was made publicly available by the transcripts of basically these mickey mouse tribunals that they held at one time tomorrow and, and attempt basically as a way of insulting the supreme court africa simply hold, granted the prisoners have sculpus writes. they held the combatants status, review tribunal, montana where they were a lot of legal representation where they threw a whole lot of allegations that people with no, not saying where the way these allegations came from, very vague. so many of them and then the men had to try and answer these. and what happened was that you could, i could see through looking at the transcripts, quite often translated from arabic. even with all the obstacles that were in the way the personalities are. some of these people and actually, you know, one of the crucial things that the us government did glance at him from the beginning was to be humanized. the man held, that's what i say to the people better, worse the worst. don't bother thinking about who they are we looking at. you can sleep at night. and actually these are all individuals, even if some of them are a small number of these people, maybe what you would like to call the bad guys. they have stories, but you know, my sympathies lay in particular with the many, many hundreds of people. how clearly were not terrorists at all. you know, what my research indicated was that a large number of people were rounded up by mistake. quite optim through intelligence failures and sometimes because the u. s. was paying bank payments to the allies. but also, you know, many of the hundreds of men, halligan's animal were soldiers. they had, you know, many of them come from the gulf or other countries to help the taliban to establish a p, o is landing state by fighting an ancient muslim civil war against the northern alliance before 911. and these are people who are all branded as terrorists, but again, these are people who have their own individualized, their own individual story. and so i've, over the years, you know, try and tried to tell the stories of the people how these are human beings. and i hope i've been able to do it medication. i'm very interested also to know what kind of pushback you faced as you were doing this work. certainly the american government couldn't have liked what you were researching or that you were talking to former guantanamo detainees. we know from other whistleblowers that the u. s. government is not friendly to freedom of information act requests related to guantanamo. so what was the american government's reaction like, did the government try to stop you or to impede your, your research, your writing, your filmmaking? and what about the british? it's interesting actually, i mean the only then the time i go to any sign that they were paying any attention really was when there was a story about 2 more retaining families. i'm going back years news report of various of media outlets picked up on and, and i reported as well and they turned out that it was completely untrue. and then somebody who worked in publicity sent me emails attacking me for not being a proper journalist. which i started to makes jamie about all the ways in which the pentagon had lied back and you know, and that was the end of that story. but it made me aware that they were paying attention and certainly some people somewhere when needed by what i was doing. the thing with the grand panama is that you can argue with how i have piece together. what looks like a credible narrative about the people who are held it, but i have used information that was made publicly available by the authorities for so much of that. so it's an interpretation. you know, i, in that sense, i haven't cross the line where what i was guessing was information that they didn't want to be available. what i've done is that i've analyzed it and given any type of taishan of their own information. they may not like we are speaking with author and journalist and filmmaker, andy worthington, about the u. s. military prison at one time of a cuba. we're going to take a short break and come right back. so stay tuned. the. 2 ah, i rick sanchez and i'm here to plead with you whatever you do, you do not watch my your show seriously. why watch something that so different opinions that you won't get anywhere else work of it. please do have the state department, the c i a weapon makers, multi 1000000000 dollar corporations. choose your fax for you. go ahead. i change and whatever you do. don't watch my show stay mainstream because i'm probably going to make you uncomfortable. my show is called direct impact, but again, you probably don't want to watch it because it might just changing dwayne thing ah, in 1834 france invaded algeria, and straight away the french started inhabiting it to strengthen their position. the colonists, known as p a no ours took the best land from day one, the local population was put into an unequal position and was brutally exploited. this caused mass discontent. the people of algeria began their long term fight for independence. in 1954, the banner of freedom was raised by the national liberation front. a guerrilla war against the occupants broke out. the french tried to suppress to rebellion using cruel measures. full villages were wiped out packs of georgia and executions of civil people, including pregnant women children and old people took place more than 2000000 people were put into concentration camps. however, these punitive measures didn't help the algerian patriots managed to induce france to start these negotiations. in 1962 evian records were signed, voting algeria on the past towards independence. but this was achieved at a colossal price. algeria by rights, is considered to be a country of martyrs. according to the calculations of historians, the french colonists are responsible for the deaths of one and a half 1000000 algerians. the chinese presidents visit to russia is historic for a number of reasons. first to accent, the growing russia, china strategic partnership, and 2nd, to demonstrate what both countries publicly advocated the transition to a multi polar world beyond american hegemony. the welcome back to the whistle blowers. i'm john kerry. aku, were speaking with british author, journalist and filmmaker, andy worthington, about the u. s. military prison at guantanamo. andy, welcome back. thanks again for being with us. that's nice to be here. i wanted to talk about the kinds of people who have been held at guantanamo and who have undergone, in some cases unspeakable torture. i've developed a friendship with mohammed would fly, he known as the more italian and the subject of the award winning film of the same name mohammed like so many other people. hundreds of them held at guantanamo was never guilty of any crime, but he was held there for well over a decade. he was one of the lucky ones. he was released, he wrote a best selling book. his experience was made into a movie and he was re settled finally in the netherlands. but what about other innocent people? how have their lives been impacted by their kidnappings and incarceration at guantanamo? well i think, you know, it's, it's difficult to know in so many cases because, you know, most of the people at guantanamo have been read, been sent back to their home countries. and then it becomes a matter of what kind of home governments they have. and clearly, you know, i would say that, you know, people who are returned to western european countries have generally fed quite well not, not necessarily in terms of a certain amount of harassment and surveillance, but in terms of being able to go on with their lives and having access to them to support that is not available to people in so many other countries. so much of it is down to the kind of governments that people have. i don't, i don't generally think that it's been very good from a human rights point to be to been a savvy citizen in guantanamo, for example, and being sent back right aside here a bit. i think that's been a lot harassment to former prisoners. i think one of them, the more difficult aspect of this story is people who, for one reason or another couldn't be sent back to their home countries. this is primarily enroll yemenis because there's a ban in post by congress on releasing any em. and he's back to their home country because of the war and the security situation. and for these prisoners, 3rd countries had to be found that were paid to resettle them. and again, in some cases, this has been successful, i would say in western european countries, in particular, there was a resettlement program under obama, where people were sent to oman, which i think it's been very successful because in the country. and they've been able to rebuild their lives. there are other cases where it is when shockingly wrong. the most extreme example is that, you know, 2 dozen men were sent to the united arab emirates where they were promised rehabilitation. and then being had to rebuild their lives. next, i ended up in prison arbitrarily under circumstances at least as bad as, as 1 10 am. and that was never adequately result. i mean, most of this was taking place on trumps. and i was literally no one in the u. s. government dealing with grand panama issues like this. but the yemen, it's all forcibly repatriated to yemen in the n. for some of them subsequently disappeared. i'm not sure if they are all still safe. but that was an absolute disaster. and you know, there have been other cases where the, the resettlement just has not been helpful. it has not worked out well for the men who were settled in countries where for example, the governments may not have been sympathetic until where there is no little known muslim presence. and. ready what i find particularly shocking, john, is that all of these arrangements that were made between the united states government and these host nations are a secret and be not something that is, that conforms to any recognizable standards of rights and of human rights, arbitrary secret decisions taken by the us about the status of these people. and i think they really, fundamentally, you know, haven't escaped from the situation that is always apply to them since they request these incent grand panama, which is the, you know, the united states determined at the beginning that they were holding people without any rights whatsoever, as human beings, and i think that's something that needs to be resolved when we hopefully get the position where, where one day, one ton of most close that needs to be accountability and redress for the situation that these people have been put. i think you're exactly right we, we don't know thanks to the freedom of information act, for example that, that bradley burke and felt the u. b. s. whistleblower was arrested in exchange for the government of switzerland agreeing to take 2 weaker detainees from guantanamo for example. we only know that things to wiki leaks. so i think you're exactly right that we really don't know much of what the, what the u. s. government has negotiated with other governments. it's still secret . what do you eventually? i'm sorry, go read quite fun to mental that they, that they literally don't have any rights. literally, they are the whim of the united states government, all the house, government, cold, so jurisdiction making go to clarify what their rights you know, and you see everywhere else around the world as well. john, when, when governments either under the pressure of the us government or from their own governments, come on the any kind of suspicion they can be harassed, they can be arbitrarily detain. i mean, most i'm bank for example, the british citizen. how does the possible take him off him was imprisoned for a while. and then you know, when it came to putting him on trial, they may be didn't have any charges. that's what i meant to be given as possible. back on what basis the matter was held at guantanamo without charging the trial it . thank so tonight we're going to get to that in a minute. i have a personal connection as a bag that i'm excited to talk to you about. first, i want to ask you, what do you see eventually happening to those few dozen prisoners who are still at one cono my. my own personal position is that they have a constitutional right to face their accusers in a court of law and to be judged by a jury of their peers. if they've committed a crime, then they should be tried for it and have the opportunity to defend themselves. that has never happened. it likely never will happen. in the case of, i was a beta whom i was responsible for capturing. if we're not going to charge him with a crime, then he must be released in the case of khalid shaikh mohammed. for example, if he truly was the mastermind of the $911.00 attacks, then charge him with that crime and put him on trial. how do you see all of this playing out in the end? well, you know, this again is quite a long story. the president in 2008, the 2nd time secured. hey, this quote was right. that led to the own only time in guantanamo history, where the little actually applied and in a number of coal hearings. over 3 dozen of these men had their release ordered by judge rule that the u. s. government has failed to demonstrate that these people were involved in any meaningful sense without height or tell whether or not i groups and then the appeals court got hold all these decisions and then they started making life difficult. and eventually they, they passed a number of rulings reducing the prison as ability to successfully secure what we have. yes, rulings. and eventually, you know, came to the ruling where they said everything that the u. s. government says, must be treated as present to be accurate unless men who held with that right place can somehow demonstrate that's not true. you know, we should have that. but the supreme court then failed to take the court of appeals or the culture appeals. we wrote that have a decision that was taken by the supreme court and since then only won prison that must have behaviors. petition granted. so the little failed kind of party by a bomber came up with the administrative process. but as i was saying that missed your process and the legal way, the government can say that they are going to release someone from granted on. if they've been done, there is no legal avenue that their lawyers can use to to force them to be released . what i think will happen, and i think the pressure will eventually be effective. if the men who have been approved for release will end up being released. you know, because although it doesn't have a legal right, legal weight, it absolutely has a moral and ethical way. and i would say that the difference that we've had over the years between republican and democratic governments is that there are always people within the democratic government understand fundamentally some notion of right and wrong when it comes to panama. the sonia issue, john, these are basically the man who have been charged crime. right. and they are cool, cool, up in this terrible groundhog day of the military commissions, which simply are not fit for purpose. and the problem, of course, with that is that these member told you and what the united states government should. and then from the beginning, the bush administration is that if you torture people, you basically inextricably separate them from the ability for justice to be in and recognizable. what's gonna happen? i don't know. i mean, i think what's been encouraging you lately is clea dale's being under way to attention, negotiate the way this with the men who are charged with the 911 attacks and various other crimes. because the united states further complicated the fact that it had tortured these people by insisting i'm having these cases be capital cases. and as you will know, john and cleo, your people who are watching will know as well the, the level of defense that is required for a system or a death penalty is much higher than if you were not taking the death penalty off the table. trying to negotiate some kind of plea deal with these men. i mean that they're not going free. no, but to, to, you know, to bring in some kind of conclusion. things would be, be the way that it can end. but i don't know this gonna happen. well, i'd like to thank our guest today, author, journalist, and filmmaker, andy worthington, and thanks to our viewers for joining us, today's. well, remember the words of the great american thinker, howard zinn, who said imprisonment is a way of pretending to solve a problem. it does nothing for the victims of crime, but perpetuate the idea of retribution, thus maintaining the endless cycle of violence in our culture. it is a cruel and useless substitute for the elimination of the conditions that caused crime in the 1st place. poverty, unemployment, homelessness, desperation, racism, and greed which are at the root of most punished crimes. while the crimes of the rich and powerful go mostly unpunished. thanks for joining us for another episode of the whistle blowers i'm john kerry. aku, we'll see you next time. 2 ah, a wrong one, i just don't know. i mean, you will have to see out these days because the advocate an engagement equals betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart, we choose to look for common ground. i rick sanchez and i'm here to plead with you. whatever you do, you do not watch my your show seriously. why watch something that so different my list of opinions that you won't get anywhere else. look of it please. if you have the state department, the cia weapons makers, multi $1000000000.00 corporations, choose your facts for you. go ahead. i changed and whatever you do, don't watch my show, stay mainstream because i'm probably going to make you uncomfortable. my show is called direct impact, but again, you probably don't want to watch it because it might just changing the wayne thing operation. the aerodynamic began shortly after world war 2 and lasted almost 3 decades. it wasn't a major effort to try and split the ukraine off from the soviet union, u. s. intelligence. together with hypnos, executioners drained hundreds of saboteurs to be deployed in the soviet union. restores one of the stuff on there. so we'll have started with junior, which was you in service, you need more than yes. today, security service of ukraine use is not only the statistic methods, but also the ideology of the nationalist. a for a relationship is built on contributing to the progress of mankind. we firmly stand on the right side of history tries, is he doing things about his country's ties with neighboring russia as both states say they hope to pay the wake for a new multi whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, of that li. okay, would be violating international law if it sends you read me laden, i mean, mission plane this decision means that they are ready to take not just risks, but to violate.