War on Terrorism

Guantánamo and Habeas Corpus: Wins and Losses, Part 2

by Andy Worthington July 26, 2010

Part 1 | Part 2 Last week, in the first part of this two-part series, I began looking at how the conservative-dominated D.C. Circuit Court has responded to the rulings in the District Court regarding the habeas petitions of the prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay, where, to date, 38 out of 53 cases have been won ...

Guantánamo and Habeas Corpus: Wins and Losses, Part 1

by Andy Worthington July 19, 2010

Part 1 | Part 2 For the last two years, the prisoners held in the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have been challenging the basis of their detention through habeas corpus petitions filed with the District Court in Washington, D.C., where they have met with a notable degree of success. Of the 51 cases decided,

The GOP Chairman Was Right about Afghanistan

by Sheldon Richman July 14, 2010

They used to say the truth shall set you free. These days it might get you fired. Apparently, stumbling onto the truth is a grave offense in the Republican Party. Ask Michael Steele, its chairman. Steele provoked the wrath of Republican neoconservatives William Kristol, Liz Cheney (the former vice president’s daughter), and Sen. John McCain by saying that “the one thing ...

Freeing the Innocent from Guantánamo

by Andy Worthington July 13, 2010

On Thursday, in the District Court in Washington, D.C., Judge Paul Friedman took the tally of victories by the Guantánamo prisoners to 37, out of 51 cases decided, when he granted the habeas corpus petition of Hussein Almerfedi, a 33-year old Yemeni, and instructed the Obama administration to “take all necessary and appropriate steps to facilitate the release of ...

Freedom and the War on Terrorism

by James Bovard July 9, 2010

On June 4, 2010, FFF policy advisor James Bovard gave the following speech at The Future of Freedom Foundations Restoring Liberty and the Constitution supper seminar in Bernville, Pennsylvania. The speech can be viewed below in its entirety.

Who Are the Three Ex-Guantánamo Prisoners on Hunger Strike in Slovakia?

by Andy Worthington July 6, 2010

A week ago Thursday, three former Guantánamo prisoners who were released in Slovakia in January this year, after the U.S. government concluded that it was unsafe for them to be returned to their home countries, which all have poor human rights records, embarked on a hunger strike to protest the conditions in which they are ...

Endless Occupation?

by Sheldon Richman June 28, 2010

So Gen. Stanley McChrystal is out and Gen. David Petraeus is back at the helm in Afghanistan. I don’t like hackneyed phrases, but if this isn’t rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, what is it? America’s occupation of Afghanistan has no end in sight. The July 2011 date for the beginning of withdrawal is something that even President Obama ...

Who is the Syrian Released from Guantánamo to Bulgaria?

by Andy Worthington May 17, 2010

On May 4, two prisoners were released from Guantánamo — one to Spain and one to Bulgaria. Spanish media revealed that the former prisoner offered a new life in Spain (following the arrival of Walid Hijazi, a Palestinian, in February) was a Yemeni, but no further information has yet been revealed regarding his ...

Why Judges Can’t Free Torture Victims from Guantánamo

by Andy Worthington April 26, 2010

Last December, I wrote about the case of Saeed Hatim, a Yemeni in Guantánamo whose habeas corpus petition had been granted by Judge Ricardo Urbina. At the time, Judge Urbina’s unclassified opinion had not been made publicly available, so all I had to go on were Hatim’s own statements at Guantánamo. In publicly available documents, he told ...

Lawrence Wilkerson Demolishes Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld’s Lies about Guantánamo

by Andy Worthington April 13, 2010

Those of us who have been studying the recent career of Col. Lawrence Wilkerson were not surprised when, last week, he submitted a declaration (PDF) in a lawsuit seeking compensation from the U.S. government that was filed by former Guantánamo prisoner Adel Hassan Hamad. A Sudanese hospital worker, Hamad was sold ...

Abu Zubaydah: Tortured for Nothing

by Andy Worthington April 5, 2010

The story of Abu Zubaydah a Saudi-born Palestinian whose real name is Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn has always been absolutely central to the war on terror. Seized in a house raid in Faisalabad, Pakistan, on March 28, 2002, he was immediately touted as al-Qaeda's chief of operations and top recruiter, who would be ...

Will Obama Sell Out on Terrorist Trials?

by Andy Worthington March 22, 2010

In the dark farce that is the Obama administrations counter-terrorism policy, decisions are now, it seems, being made by whoever makes the most noise, regardless of whether what they are shouting for actually makes sense. Since last November, when Attorney General Eric Holder first announced that five men including ...