(light music) - [Male Announcer] This program is made possible through support from Bloomsburg University.

(light music) From the WVIA studios Bloomsburg University, and WVIA present, Conversations for the Common Good, Civil Discourse, Civic Engagement.

Reaction to 9/11: Dialing Back Civil Rights Violation of Human Rights.

- Hi I'm Larry Vojtko coming to you from the Sadony Theater of the WVIA public media studios.

And welcome to the latest edition of Conversations for the Common Good, Reaction to 9/11: Dialing Back Civil Rights Violation of Human Rights, a community conversation.

The Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp first opened after the September eleventh 2001 attacks during the war on terror.

Of the 780 people detained there since January 2002, 731 have been transferred elsewhere.

39 remain there and nine have died while in custody.

Indefinite detention without trial and torture lead the operations of this camp to be considered a major breach of human rights by Amnesty International, and a violation of the Due Process clause of the fifth and fourteenth amendments of the United States Constitution by the Center for Constitutional Rights.

In early February 2021 the Biden Administration declared its intention to shut down the facility before he leaves office.

Now let's meet our panel of special guests who are here to add perspective to the conversation.

Mohamedou Ould Salami is a best-selling author and a 14 year Guantanamo detainee.

Elizabeth Miller is a rule of law fellow with the September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrow's and a Bloomsburg University graduate.

Andy Worthington is an activist, writer, and founder of Close Guantanamo dot org.

Now we'll be asking for your questions as well.

So you can submit your questions at W-V-I-A dot org slash conversations, or on social media using the hashtag W-V-I-A conversations.

Well we begin our discussion really on the very evening of the attacks of 9/11.

And the White House even at that time on the evening of 9/11 was using the word war.

So given that the United States was not going to wage war on a nation state, meaning that traditional methods could not be used or did not apply were not the leaders of the US tasked with a supremely difficult job of devising a way to retaliate against a nation-less organization that seemingly had no recognizable rules of engagement?

And I'll go to you first Mohamedou because you were detained in Guantanamo Bay for 14 years and wrote a diary about it.

And in that diary I was surprised to read that you said in the diary that you understood the anger and frustration of the United States after those terrorist attacks.

So could you expand on that please?

- First I would like to thank you Larry so much for inviting me to this beautiful panel.

Some of my best friend Liz and Andy.

And the funny thing that I wrote this before even I met Liz.

So but I was thinking about people like Liz who were in a senseless way lost the people they loved.

And this is like very very big tragedy.

And done by people who had no regards for human life, no regards to human dignity.

And they killed humanity in one day.

They killed Muslims, Christians, Jewish people, and everybody, everybody even people with no affiliation whatsoever, religious affiliation I mean.

And.

I do remember also my on the other side of the Atlantic that I was living my own tragedy being at the receiving end from this anger.

I just finished my work and it was about four, 4:20 PM I think.

And I was going back home, I had a very big family, I was very young graduate and I just needed to work a lot to feed them.

My extended family.

And there was only me and my mother.

And these two police man in plain clothes came to our door and they ask me to come with them.

This is not America or, the United Kingdom, this is Mauritania, a very small military regime that rely on the support of big countries like the United State.

And they receive all this to arrest me, nothing else is needed.

And I was really afraid, but not that afraid, I don't know why.

But my mother was really really scared.

And I could the fear in her eyes.

- Yeah so Mohamedou, we'll get back and you can tell us more about your story.

But you had mentioned a couple of emotions that you felt and that you empathize with the victims of the attacks.

We have anger, sadness, and fear.

And Elizabeth do you think you know when you're working with emotions like that, such visceral emotions, anger, and fear, and sadness, do you think that could lead anywhere?

And you're making decisions based on those emotions, will that lead to justice?

- I don't think so, and I think that's what we eventually, you know like that's what we're seeing play into this day.

And I think it's very difficult to remove your own emotions from decision making.

But when you have the authority and power that those individuals had at the time you know we would hope that they could you know put those emotions aside, put them in the back of their minds, and move forward in a way that abides by human rights, that abides by you know the rules of war.

And I don't think we saw that.

- Well Andy, let's talk more about these particular responses to 9/11.

And we saw the authorization of the use of force that was passed by the Congress that gave so much power to the executive.

We saw the Patriot Act, that gave the executive these sweeping powers of surveillance.

We saw that even the decision to place inmates in Guantanamo Bay under the direction of the Department of Defense, all of this had to do with an interpretation of the Constitution that gave the president these sweeping powers under war time.

Andy you've studied and written a lot about the US response to 9/11.

Can you point to where this notion came from, why how the powers that be justify these responses?

You know and by granting this power, did you know congress granting the power to the executive and putting it in the hands of like the president of the United States, did that contribute to what many see as these abuses?

- Yeah, I mean massively so.

So you know one thing is that there was a US lead invasion of Afghanistan, which was essentially to top over Taliban who were accused of having harbored Al-Qaeda.

And the second name of it was to you know destroy Al-Qaeda.

So the problem with the military aspect of the invasion is that the United States decided to do away with the Geneva Conventions.

So.

That's a fundamental problem that afflicted Guantanamo massively.

When you have soldiers who are both wearing uniforms then it's easy to understand how to apply the Geneva Conventions.

When they're not, which wasn't the situation in Afghanistan, then you've got a problem that you're accidentally capturing civilians as well as combatants.

And the United States absolutely refused, the orders came down from on high.

On the ground, the military wanted to screen people according to the Geneva Conventions.

But the rules came from on high that that wasn't going to happen.

So the very fundamental problem with Guantanamo is that the United States from the highest level of government, made no effort to ascertain whether it's to court combatants or not in the first place.

- Right.

- And we've seen that that's just been a huge problem.

- Yeah I-- - For example in the first Gulf War, the United States held around 1,200 of these competent tribunals as they're called held close to the place of time and capture, and sent around three-quarters of those men home because they realized that they were civilians detained by mistake.

So that was a huge problem.

The other issue is that the United States after 9/11 and its response was dealing with terrorism.

Now terrorism is a crime.

But they decided not to pursue a criminal route to dealing with the people that they thought were responsible.

There's a still secret presidential memo that was issued very soon after 9/11 which was the one that kick started the CIA's kidnap rendition and torture program.

None of that should've happened.

I mean quite clearly the problems that we're dealing with still if we're looking at Guantanamo, were the men accused of the 9/11 attacks still not having been tried after 20 years, is that once you bring torture into the equation you've basically destroyed any legal basis for being able to prosecute people fairly.

And it shouldn't have happened.

You know what should've happened from the beginning was that if you're going to capture people then you need to interrogate them humanely using you know traditional techniques of rapport building, which the FBI you know some FBI operatives have spoken about this very publicly almost from the beginning.

But you have to rapport build, and you have to not use torture otherwise you can't build a criminal case.

So those really are the problems that happened after 9/11 was that the US in Afghanistan was capturing civilians with no way of determining whether they were civilians or not, they simply didn't care.

And they were essentially capturing soldiers but treating them as terrorists.

And then the people that they were dragging off the streets all around the world who they were accusing of being terrorists, they didn't treat them as terrorists in a criminal sense and they treated them more as though they were actually warriors.

So the whole thing was every aspect of it was turned on its head from the very beginning.

And those are really the problems that we faced.

- So.

- And are still facing.

- You're right.

And I think one of the contributing factors to that or was the use of the word detainee.

We talk about the Guantanamo detainees, they're not prisoners.

And as I understand it the pentagon made it a point to say that we have to identify these folks as detainees, and not prisoners.

Otherwise if we did that then the clauses of the Geneva Convention would come into play.

I just want to invite your questions again.

Submit your questions at W-V-I-A dot org slash conversations or on social media using the hashtag W-V-I-A conversations.

Now Elizabeth you were at Guantanamo Bay a couple of times and were set to be there again this year, but that fell through.

Could you tell us a little bit about what it would take to go to Guantanamo Bay?

And why it did not happen this time?

- Yeah so I traveled there for the first time on the twentieth commemoration of 9/11.

So for me to grapple with the fact that you know I'm this is the day that I've you know lost my dad.

And not only that, and I preparing to go down to Guantanamo Bay, this you know it's not secret anymore.

But there's a reason why it's very difficult to get to.

So there's this secretiveness that you can feel through the travel process, while you're there.

And you know you travel there almost like through it's almost like a military experience.

You know you go, you're chaperoned, and you sit in this court room, if we can you know really call it that.

So many feet from the masterminds, you know supposed masterminds of 9/11 like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

And you're trying to one grapple with the emotion of being so close to those types of individuals, but for me you're sitting there feeling I feel sorry for myself that you know 20 years later I'm still stuck in this type of situation where I don't feel like we're ever going to see justice.

And I feel terrible for the detainees because they never got due process.

When are we gonna have a trial?

And so, I mean it's awful to say, but there's I think a lot of just feeling sorry while you're physically on this space, this land you know that's a part of the US but feels so foreign and just not right.

- So Mohamedou, you were held in Guantanamo, Gitmo as we often say, for 14 years.

Were you ever charged?

- No.

But before Guantanamo Bay I was also taken to Jordan, and taken to a military base in Bagram.

And I spent more than 15 years, a little bit over 15 years between the secret prisons.

And.

Guantanamo Bay.

One of the thing that I was really watching in horror was my trial.

My habeas corpus.

And I was listening to the lawyers, the government lawyers, and the prosecutor, they were discussing AUMF.

AUMF is what allows the United State of America to come and kidnap people like me.

And they were just like, my lawyers were arguing that I don't belong to this group of people that this prison decided to capture.

And this also one of the myth, that they say "yeah those people were captured "on the battle field" which is wrong.

You know I for instance, and the Bassian people were not captured from the battle field who are captured.

But the United States of America allowed itself to declare the whole world a battle field.

And this is not good for the United States of America, it's not good certainly for the people who were kidnap, and it's not good for democracy or the order of law.

Because if you say that the whole world is a jurisdiction then you have to abide the rule of law and to grant the human rights for those people you capture.

But you say no, if you are a young Muslim you have no rights whatsoever.

But if you are born in the United States of America you have some rights.

Which seems just like a sham, because later on we know that those violation were extended to American citizen themselves.

And I really feel.

What.

Liz is saying about justice not being done, justice not being done.

But whether we agree or disagree with the US government you have to understand the US government never wanted justice.

They never wanted justice, they just wanted a revenge and torture and you know getting even.

- Yeah I wonder if most American's really wanted that.

Did most American's want revenge or do they want justice?

I don't think we can answer that question today.

But I do wanna remind you that, viewers, that you can submit your questions at W-V-I-A dot org slash conversations or on social media using the hashtag W-V-I-A conversations.

Now Mohamedou I want to stay with you a little bit longer 'cause I want you to paint a picture for us.

Because people, the average American hears you were detained.

They might think that okay so this was a humane condition and it was the facilities were humane.

We started hearing right after 9/11 a new term, enhanced interrogation techniques.

So I want you to tell us about, and give us kind of a picture of what you went through while you were there at Guantanamo Bay.

- Yeah of course.

So.

I was so happy when.

Michael.

CIA interrogator who spoke German, told me that I was going to be sent to Guantanamo Bay, I was then in Bagram.

And he was assigned to me because I didn't speak enough English to answer his questions or the question of any interrogators.

And.

He told me something that was sealed in my head to this moment.

He looked at me, he told me, truth will set you free.

I knew then that I will never get out and that truth would never set me, he told me that in German.

(Mohamedou speaks German) And that's you know reminded me of this (Mohamedou speaks German) meaning work will set you free.

And I just remember those poor people who believed that when they work for the Nazi they would be set free.

I'm not trying to compare democracy like the United State of America with the criminal regime of the Nazi.

I'm just saying the parallel of (Mohamedou speaks German) and the truth (Mohamedou speaks German).

And.

- So-- (Mohamedou speaks German) So give us some more details about like a day in your life, particularly a day on which you were interrogated.

Give us a picture of what your conditions were like in the room that you you know spent most of your time.

- Yeah of course.

So in the beginning there was no torture, there was simply very intensive interrogation.

They like every day I would be taken and interrogated, be put back.

But after I think almost a year they didn't like any of what I was telling them.

They said "you are playing games, we need the truth, "or we'll send you to another group."

I didn't know that this was like torture, because I never thought that the United States of America would torture me because I was watching when I was young I used to watch "Married...With Children" which was funny.

And the occasionally "Law and Order".

So the United State people who are very humorous and they respect the law.

Two thing that I gathered from the shows.

And so when they started that the 30, 70 days no sleep.

Like interrogation.

Like first three shift and then four shift.

And in the interrogation I was not allowed to sit most of the time.

And I was like always bent because of the chains.

And for-- - Could you explain that again to the chains how the chains were attached to your body and why you couldn't stand up?

- Yeah sure.

Because my hands were shackled to my feet.

And the four limbs were bolted to the floor so I could not stand straight.

And I told them about my medical condition that I had an accident and resulted in.

Sciatica.

But that was good news for them because they use this to deprive me of pain medication.

And any medications that I took.

Because they also controlled the medical stuff.

I was beaten.

So I broke more than two ribs.

I was forced to drink water.

They just like tilted my head and pour water on my face until I thought I was dying, then they stop.

And you know and things like, I was sexually assaulted on three occasions, I mean full contact.

And but there was no penetration in any way.

But the thing that really broke me, because I was just like a stone, I didn't have any feeling anymore.

But it was like they woke me up one day when they told me they were going to kidnap my mother.

Then I knew I had nothing to lose.

I told the Richard Zuley, a cop from Chicago, that I would sign anything.

He could write it and I sign it.

And he sent me some of his sergeant, Charlie.

His name is Doug Charlie.

And he helped me write this confession and that was a confession.

And they were like very happy but they had like some big people in Washington, like CIA, FBI, told them that this was a lie that I didn't do this, because they knew I didn't do it.

And they came to me, they said "we will put you under.

"This.

"Lie detector."

I was scared, I didn't want any lie detector because I didn't want to be a good guy because good guy means torture, bad guys means they stop the torture.

And they said "no you have to do that."

And I was so shaking all the time.

And then I pass the test, not once but twice, and then they were stuck with me.

After that they stop the torture, but they decided that I was quote unquote un-release-able.

Not because what I did but because of the torture program.

- Well.

I think it's important also to note that Mohamedou's story can be told probably hundreds of other times by detainees over the 20 years.

Again I'll remind you to submit your questions if you have them, at W-V-I-A dot org slash conversations, or on social media using the hashtag W-V-I-A conversations.

Now Andy, do you have an idea of why this particular piece of real estate, Guantanamo bay, was picked for this facility?

- Oh yeah the answer's quite simple, the Bush Administration chose it because they thought it would be beyond the reach of the US courts.

So you know the US government has total power over everything that happens on the naval base established in Guantanamo Bay.

But the land, the sovereign right over the land still belongs to Cuba.

So they hoped that that would mean that they would not be held, that they would not be able to be scrutinized.

I think it's very important for people to know that initially the men that were held at Guantanamo, and in the black sites, but in Guantanamo were literally held without any rights whatsoever as human beings.

They were play things of the United States Government.

There was no way that they could demand any rights, there was nobody that they could go to if they had complaints.

Beyond the visits of the International Committee of the Red Cross who were able to suggest to the US that they should be given more humane treatment.

But they had literally had no rights as human beings.

I think that's something worth dwelling on just for a minute about how fundamental that was.

And it took two-and-a-half years for the lawyers who struggled from the very beginning, when Guantanamo opened there were a handful of lawyers that could perceive that something had gone very badly wrong at Guantanamo.

And the process of going through the lower courts, the appeals court, getting to the Supreme Court, it took nearly two-and-a-half years that the prison had been opened before the prisoners were granted habeas corpus rights by the Supreme Court.

In other words allowing men who said they had been wrongly detained the ability to ask a judge why they were being held, to have that examined.

In fact what happened then was that congress overturned those habeas corpus rights.

It took another four years for them to be implemented again by the Supreme Court.

But what it did crucially was that it allowed attorneys into the prison to start representing the men held.

And that was the first time that the veil of secrecy that had surrounded Guantanamo was pierced.

As soon as the lawyers started arriving in Guantanamo, basically the torture that had been going on had to stop.

Because suddenly there was a transparency to the place that there absolutely hadn't been before.

So you know I think it still it remains such a crucial thing.

You know and there was a nother decision that was taken in 2006 which was the one that first through out the military commissions.

Which was where the Supreme Court reminded the Bush Administration that if you're depriving someone of their liberty, prisoners, detainees if you want to call them that, everybody has the fundamental right under article three of the Geneva Conventions not to be subjected to torture or ill treatment.

That was the point at which Bush closed down the CIA black sites and brought the remaining black site prisoners to Guantanamo.

Because it took over nearly four-and-a-half years since Guantanamo opened before the US government was told you are not allowed to abuse prisoners that you are holding.

So you know these are some of the terrible timelines of Guantanamo.

And people maybe now think well that was all a long time ago that's all happened, but you know what we should remember is 39 men are still held at Guantanamo, the majority of those men are held without charge or trial.

They have no idea when if ever their imprisonment is going to come to an end.

Despite all these struggles there is no mechanism in place to require the US government ever to release them, they have no way out unless it's through the president and Congress.

And that in itself is a form of abuse to be held in open ended arbitrary detention with no way of knowing if your imprisonment will ever come to an end.

It's a far cry from having been charged, prosecuted in court, and sentenced.

You know we know there are many miscarriages of justice, but if you've been given a prison sentence, you know how long that is.

At Guantanamo it just remains still open ended and arbitrary.

- Mohamedou, as I read your book I was really moved about how you spoke about your devotion to Islam.

It's clear that you are truly a man of faith and you have a respect for the teachings of Islam.

But as you know yet many American's have a negative view of Islam.

And since 9/11 the view of Muslim's in America has even deteriorated more.

The terrorists that attacked at 9/11 were and probably still are thought to be cowardly, dishonorable, you know almost soul-less.

So following up on what Andy just said, that essentially the detainees at Guantanamo Bay are legally non-persons.

What kind of effect do you think that this attitude that American's perhaps if we can just put it in the American government or the leaders of America have on this view of Islam, how much did that have to do with our response and what actually happened after 9/11?

- Sure.

So.

I really, like this experience taught me to see human beings and not see a religion or a color.

Or.

Ethnicity.

Because the vast majority of people who stood by me were not Muslim's.

And I think this is just a name, because like now Muslim's 600 years ago they were Indian's.

And during World War two they were Jewish people.

And like vulnerable minorities.

And.

I remember like discussing with my interrogators and they used to tell me that Muslim's are evil people and we are bad people.

And I was just laughing so hard because I was so amazed that how you could like build an opinion about someone you really don't know.

Because when I think about Muslim I think about my grandmother and the beautifuL thing that she taught me.

She taught me that I should always help those in need.

That when I see someone on the street who needs food, that if I give them one penny Allah would give me back 10 pennies, which is a very good investment by the way.

And I really think that the prevalence of dictatorships and authoritative regime in the majority Islamic countries for the most part is really contributing to this kind of atrocities.

And I will say this very openly, those angry people they did not just wake up and say they are angry.

I mean there live in places where you cannot vote.

You cannot vote anyone in, you cannot vote anyone out, and there is no future, absolutely no future.

And I'm still advocating that terrorism should not be a crime in a democracy because it's just political.

Just a way for the dictatorial regime to oppress peaceful people and peaceful opponent to just want to participate in the political life.

- Elizabeth I wanna follow up with you, but I just want to remind viewers that you can submit your questions at W-V-I-A dot org slash conversations, or on social media using the hashtag W-V-I-A conversations.

Now Elizabeth, you know Mohamedou and you got to know him.

Could you tell us about that relationship, how you got to know each other, and how you could characterize your relationship now?

- Yeah.

So.

I decided that it would be a good idea to read Mohamedou's book which was extremely painful but also enlightening.

And as I read it I felt guilty and I felt complicit because I felt like he was detained and tortured on the behalf of you know those of us who had lost somebody on 9/11 but without our consultation.

- Let me just stop you for a second.

I think it's important to point out that Elizabeth, Elizabeth's father was a first responder in 9/11.

Just give us a little bit of that story.

- Yeah.

So yeah my dad was a fireman who you know risked his life to save others on that day, and of course lost his own.

- [Larry] And you were just.

- I was only six-years-old.

- So you lived most your life without dad.

- Yeah most my life without my father.

But he would not have been happy if I was if I grew up to be an angry or mean person, that was just (Elizabeth laughs) not allowed.

And.

You know I live a privileged life, and I had a wonderful family, and because of that I was able to make my own decisions, grow, learn what I wanted to learn.

And that lead me to learning about the Middle East, and Islam, and seeing how similar, you know I grew up in a Catholic household.

And it was amazing to me to see the similarities between my religion and Islam.

And I was like wow there's so many beautiful similarities, why do people not focus on this?

And it just seemed like everyone always focused on the bad instead of the good.

And there is good in everybody, I think sometimes you just have to look a little bit harder to see that.

And I was taking a course on prison literature in graduate school, and I came across Mohamedou's diary, and I was like I need to read this book, I need to know who he is, I feel awful, I feel responsible.

And so I reached out to his editor and I eventually connected with Mohamedou.

And I was like I'm so sorry.

And I think he had said something to me, like what are you sorry for?

(Elizabeth laughs) But the two of us connected because, you know I don't wanna speak for him, but I think the two of us are very similar.

And but he's funnier than me.

(Larry and Elizabeth laugh) But we both realize that we had suffered a tragedy from the same event.

And although that tragedy and trauma was different we could bond together and have a beautiful friendship and I think connect in a different way than a lot of other people can.

And I mean sometimes he'll just send me a little text, hey and it just brightens my day.

And I'm very very grateful and thankful that I have a relationship with him.

- And Mohamedou?

What can you say about Elizabeth and your relationship with her?

- So.

Larry is my brother and also my editor.

And he text me one day and I think it was about three years ago or two-and-a-half years ago.

And he told me, oh I have this very good friend, she's one of the victims of 9/11.

Would you like to connect with her?

I said "absolutely."

And then like when we connected as if we knew each other all along you know.

I didn't feel like oh this is a strange person, of course I felt so much pain for the loss.

You know she's a child, she should never have suffered what she had suffered.

And but that's something that we have just like to get past and then just you know we decided to work together you know for actually just peaceful tomorrow you know.

And.

You know like we don't talk with filter or with mask, so I just talk to her like the first thing that comes to my mind and this is what I consider a friend.

Because when I need to put a mask, I don't have time for mask.

And.

I felt so bad because she never got any justice.

And the people who interrogate me in Guantanamo Bay they were not thinking about her, absolutely not, they just want a confession.

Tell me what I need to hear.

I mean this is like so cold and callous you know.

Instead of someone like her having a paper in their hands in a court of law, and looking in the face of that evil, the devil who did the 9/11 and told him this is what I want to tell you.

I am so happy I face you now, and you can forgive or you cannot forgive it's your choice.

And I'm just so happy to be in a relation with.

With Liz.

And I will not forget Andy.

Andy has written the Bible on Guantanamo Bay, he knows everything about Guantanamo Bay and I am so privileged.

And I am also so privileged to be in Holland to be honest.

And I am inviting both of the with you Larry to Holland.

There are very good cafes and nothing is off limit.

(Larry laughs) - Well.

I just want to really encourage all the viewers to read Mohamedou's book.

It is really stunning, it's powerful, at times poignant.

There is some really lovely writing in that book as well as far as style which I particularly admired, because you're not a native English is not your native language.

But we're running out of time, it's almost time for questions, so really submit your questions at W-V-I-A dot org slash conversations or on social media using the hashtag W-V-I-A conversations.

And Andy I have a question for you as a citizen of the UK.

You know America's always prided itself as a country that is devoted to the rule of law, no one is above the law, we run by the law.

And I would think most of American's still would agree with that statement.

But from an outsider looking in, what is your take?

What do you see?

And you know has a response to 9/11 changed that?

And perhaps you've had some experience with other folks from around the globe in has it changed an attitude toward the United States?

- Well I think the most important thing following on from what you said is to understand that the United States lead the way after 9/11 in saying that the normal rules don't apply.

And one way or another, the United States persuaded other countries around the world to go with them on that.

So you know in some cases countries had to be you know threatened to do what they wanted.

You know and that involved all kinds of things.

You know from allowing planes to fly through their airspace or to use their airports that were carrying black site prisoners, or you know the sharing of intelligence.

Some countries went along with that very willingly, and one of the countries that went along with that the most willingly was the UK.

And what we know about those early days of Guantanamo in those first few years before the lawyers got in, was that countries around the world were sending their intelligence agents to Guantanamo.

The knowledge on the part of all of these governments of what was happening in Guantanamo was not legal, was not the way in which you are supposed to hold people.

And yet everybody was involved in it.

So you know I think that what we're looking at now is a situation whereby those other countries are not actively involved anymore, they're no longer sending their intelligence agents to Guantanamo, they're no longer cooperating with the rendition program.

You know all of this is in the past.

The thing that still remains is Guantanamo.

And so that remains the US problem of having to come to terms with the fact that having set up something so in a way that's showed such disdain for the law that it has become so difficult to dismantle.

But that that needs to happen.

And I'm actually rather disappointed that other countries aren't trying to exact more pressure now that we have President Biden, to say to him you know we all know what the situation was 20 years ago, we were all involved one way or another in the establishment of this place, but it absolutely needs to close down.

- Right.

- And that's what I'd very much like to see happen would be just concerted global pressure to do away with this place.

Because.

- [Larry] Right.

- The fundamental problem with it is still that people held there don't have fundamental rights as human beings.

And that's you know-- - Well let's talk about we're running-- - If you'd all remember.

(Andy laughs) - Yeah we're running out of time.

And I just wanna make one last observation with a question.

We'll start with Elizabeth.

And you know we can agree that 9/11 was a turning point for America, the country will never be the same.

We've seen the rise in the power of the presidency to a point where a significant number of citizens in our country now would embrace a more authoritarian form of government.

We've seen civil rights erode, we spent 20 years in Afghanistan with many thousands of American lives lost, many more suffering debilitating injuries.

Billions spent, some say over a trillion dollars spent, which was a debt we're still paying on that debt.

The country's never been more divided since the Civil War.

So it can be argued that the left and right drifted apart further on these actions of that the response to 9/11.

So if the goal of terrorism is to degrade citizens trust in the ruling government and disrupt the economy, cause many casualties as possible, sow fear, distrust, anger, uncertainty, did not Osama Bin Laden succeed on 9/11?

And if so, did we allow it even unwittingly?

- I wouldn't agree necessarily that Al-Qaeda or Bin Laden in general any success.

But I think what happens when something of that magnitude and nature happens, people shelter and they refuse to look at the information in front of them, the facts in front of them.

The reality that again this was a small group of people who did something like this.

We cannot let this filer into our society.

And I think instead of educating themselves on how to be a better nation, on how we can be better people to our neighbors, to give more kindness, to be more forgiving for yourself and for others, ignoring those little components of daily life I think cause problems.

And I think to blame 9/11 is the easy way out.

I think we need to look internally and say how can we as individuals be better people?

How can we make sure that you know we're maintaining human decency and human rights in our every day life?

And until we get to that point, I think the complications and consequences of 9/11 will filter and continue to degrade components of society, but we also have to look at how we ourselves are responsible for that.

- Andy, what is your response to that?

How are those who still have anger toward the United States and are in these different cells, how might they be looking at the US now 20 years after 9/11?

- I suppose you know anyone who is angry or disappointed with he United States over the last 20 years is facing the same problems that those of us who respect the law still face, which is that two things in particular happen as a result of the United States response to 9/11.

Which are dangerous and remain unchecked in a way.

And one was the use of torture.

And the use of torture has kind of you know it's been glorified in Hollywood films.

It's seeped into the American psyche I would say in a way that corrupts almost corrupts the soul of the United States.

So I think that's kind of extremely important to remember.

And then you know the whole military angle and the way that the rules were no longer followed regarding the imprisonment of people is something that also corrodes a fundamental understanding that the law has to protect people, that there are well established legal routes to prosecuting people if they are accused of wrongdoing that we absolutely must adhere to.

And you know as someone who has been working to get Guantanamo closed for 16 years, it still astonishes me and saddens me that so few American people really care that a number of men are held at Guantanamo without charge or trial.

This is not the behavior of a country that respects the rule of law, this is the behavior of a dictatorship.

And you know sadly I suspect that what that means is that these people have been so thoroughly other-ed by you know from the Bush administration onwards that because they're Muslim's, because they're all terrorists, as the shorthand goes for the way that people who support the existence of Guantanamo for example the way behave.

That there's a very fundamental racist issue there.

Or scapegoating of others or targeting others.

And we can see that that's seeped into the national consciousness and has lead to increased divisiveness in the United States which is very dangerous.

- Mohamedou I'll give you the last word.

You spent 14 years in detention at Guantanamo Bay and endured unbelievable treatment.

So now you're free, you're out, there is some time that has passed since your release.

What is your view of America today?

- So.

I would say that I was free even before I was free physically because I chose to forgive, and I chose to be free from hate and from resentment.

And I grew to love the American people.

And I do believe that people who want to see Guantanamo Bay closed, they love the United State of America.

People who don't want to see the prison closed, they don't love really the United State of America.

The United State of America is one of the most powerful countries in the world, arguably the most powerful country in the world.

And they should take the lead in human rights and the rule of law.

There is no moral high ground for the United State America now to tell China or Iran or North Korea to respect human rights and the human dignity as long as they have Guantanamo Bay opened and running.

- Well we're just about out of time, the conversation coming to an end.

And we'll move onto questions and answers.

But unfortunately Mohamedou has to leave us, thank you Mohamedou for participating in the conversation.

And we'll continue with your questions here on the Conversations for the Common Good.

Here's a question Elizabeth.

You said earlier when you read Mohamedou's diary, his book, you felt guilty, there was this feeling of guilt, what did you mean by that?

- I meant that after 9/11 decisions were made by the US government, carried out by the military, by politicians, that were done you know we will do this for your families, we understand your loss, you will never feel this type of pain again.

And it felt like a lot of the actions that took place were done for us.

But they never asked us, and I mean I was six so I get that they you know weren't going to knock on my door and ask me.

But they never thought about the years of pain that I would continue to experience based off these human rights abuses that felt like they were in a sense also my fault because I had lost somebody.

So I've always felt a sense of guilt but maybe complicity in what went on.

And that's something I think that hinders my healing to this day.

- Here's a question from Bill.

Andy you became interested in Guantanamo as a journalist, and Elizabeth you as an academic.

At some point you each shifted to advocacy.

Can you each describe the point at which you made that shift and what seemed to be the catalyst for it?

Andy?

- Yeah sure I mean I think that's a very good question.

What I did was I undertook research into who was being held at Guantanamo for the purpose of writing a book.

So academic research fundamentally.

And what I discovered as a result of that, the extent to which the United States had made false claims about who it was holding at Guantanamo and therefore it's rationale for all of the torture and abuse.

That this was so severe, this was such a chronic abuse of human rights, and such a fundamental failure of intelligence I think almost entirely across the board.

I don't mean to say that there aren't a few dozen people throughout Guantanamo's history who have been held who aren't accused of crimes, I know that that's the case.

But for the majority of the people held there, they simply did not have the significance that was attached to them, and yet this was dressed up as though they were terrorists and that no one should ask any questions about them.

And so I think that when you're a journalist faced with an injustice like that that is so serious then as a result of undertaking all that research then I felt like it became my job to actually advocate for the prisons closure.

And you know and it's fundamentally an issue that I think about and believe in about topics of huge importance is that there's a danger of the media maintaining a kind of distance from topics of huge huge necessity.

I mean I would just throw out, it's not part of our conversation tonight, but I would suggest that the way that climate change is dealt with a lot of the time in the media involves that as though there were two sides of the story.

What I found out with Guantanamo is that really fundamentally there was only one side to the story that the people who set it up lied.

And you know (Andy laughs) I feel that way about other big issues, climate change being one.

- Now Elizabeth, the question again, why and when did you move from an academic look at this subject into an advocate?

- I had received a letter about the possibility of going to Guantanamo as a family member, as a 9/11 family member.

And I felt so uncomfortable because I never agreed with the existence of this prison, with the abuse of human rights that went on there.

I almost didn't want to go with the US, like there was something about it that I felt like my victim-hood would be manipulated while I was there.

This is a 9/11 family member, how sad, you know her life is so sad, we need to persecute these people, we need to you know and I don't believe in the death penalty.

- Would be manipulated by government or by the media, or by both?

- I think anybody.

Just.

You know you see somebody who's experienced something of that nature, I was six, I'm a young woman, you know it's just like a wow how sad.

And I didn't want that.

And so I had actually called up one of the defense attorney's and I said "what's going on down there?

"Is it worth it for me to take this trip?

"You know, what can I be doing in the small capacity "that I have?"

And he connected me to Peaceful Tomorrow's, September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrow's which is you know who I work with now.

And with them we do a lot of advocacy about closure, advocating for plea deals because we see it as he only resolution moving forward to take death penalty off the table and to find some sort of judicial finality to what's going on down there.

So that's when I got involved.

- Well that leads me to Dana's question.

How can people get involved in advocating for Guantanamo Bay detainees, and are there organizations focused on this activism?

- So September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrow's is specifically a 9/11 family organization, but that being said we have a lot of webinars, you know public speaking events, a lot of us write like op ed's that encourage education around Guantanamo.

So that's one.

Go to Andy's website.

(Elizabeth laughs) - Yes Andy's web.

Andy your website is voluminous, it's like an encyclopedia of information on this that you have developed, but then all of these different links to all of this other content and all of these other discussions.

So yeah that's a good source as well.

- And there's you know Amnesty International of course, Human Rights Watch, and there's you know several other organizations if you really just look it up like Guantanamo advocacy you can find groups against torture, groups for constitutional rights.

There's components of a lot of these non-profit organizations that are dedicated to this advocacy.

And I would maybe encourage somebody, just read, look at articles, look at different articles from different places and be patient with yourself because it's hard to read material.

And.

- Very much so.

- It's you know it's upsetting but I give anybody credit who takes five minutes to learn a little bit more about what's going on.

- And Andy do you have anything to add, any other suggestions for people who want to advocate?

- I think Elizabeth's covered most of it, bu I would say that you know it's hard to beat the power of the voice of former Guantanamo prisoner.

You know I'm astonished really at how eloquent so many of the men who were held and brutalized at the prison were.

And you know and as far as I know, around a dozen of them have written books.

But Mohamedou's is clearly a book that I would absolutely recommend to anybody.

And last summer another book came along that I would also recommend highly which by Mansoor Adayfi.

And this his account, not of being regarded as a significant prisoner, but his account of how he and another, a number of young Yemen-ese in particular just resisted the brutality and injustice of Guantanamo.

And it's an astonishing book.

It's harrowing, but at the same time it's incredibly funny, Mansoor is very funny.

Something that Mohamedou also has.

And then when Mansoor also has this mixture of hope and humanity.

So it's extraordinary, it's an extraordinary book.

It's on the one hand extremely difficult, but in the other, just really illuminating.

So you know I recommend (Andy laughs) going to the voices of the men who were held who can explain what was done to them in the name of the United States.

You know and of particular relevance to US citizens who as Elizabeth said, were not asked whether they wanted this done to these people in their names actually.

- And we've brought that up as well in the conversations you know the many average American's may don't even know what's going on, have forgotten, it's so long, they have other demands on their time on their attention.

So how can we raise awareness even heighten that awareness more than we're doing right now?

What is it, and to whom shall we you know go to help us raise this awareness?

- Yep.

I think going to those organizations like I noted, reading the books of former prisoners, because with anything life there's purposeful selection, and there's a reason why Guantanamo is where it's located like Andy said earlier.

There's a reason why there's still this secretive nature.

And there's a reason why it doesn't get a whole lot of media attention, it's because it makes the US look bad.

They tortured people, they literally tortured countless individuals and that's not something people like to highlight.

And it's the unfortunate truth, but it's still a truth that needs to be heard, seen, witnessed.

And it's unfortunate that I think it's the responsibility of the individual.

If anyone wants to advocate, learn more about Guantanamo, it really falls to the individual.

- Hard truths are hard to embrace.

We have another question, here is from Mel.

And this question, I think is for you Andy I believe.

What would have happened if Obama had managed to have trials in the United States?

So maybe you could give us a little bit of background on where that question's coming from?

- Yeah well that goes back to a decision that was announced by Attorney General Eric Holder, Obama's attorney general in 2009 that they were going to bring the five men accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks to trial in New York.

And unfortunately the Obama Administration walked back from that when they faced criticism from Republicans and they capitulated and withdrew that proposal.

Now they had created a problem in the first place in that they had designated some of the men that they were holding for federal court trials, but hey had also kept the broken military commission system at Guantanamo going as well.

So they had these instead of just going for one option, which is what they should've done and stuck with it, then when they capitulated they just shoved everything back to the military commissions.

And Elizabeth has mentioned, you know for 9/11 victims a process that never reaches any kind of conclusion because it's so broken is not doing justice to the people who deserve justice at all, and that's the problem that we're stuck with.

So I wish they hadn't done that, I wish they hadn't moved those trials back to the military commission system.

I don't know what we're gonna see from President Biden because unfortunately he really hasn't spoken personally about Guantanamo at all, and we've heard very little from his administration.

The options it seems to me are that they take the death penalty off the table and arrange counter plea deals at Guantanamo itself.

You know this isn't gonna let bad guys off the hook, this is gonna mean you know sentences of the people that are involved.

But the death penalty complicates matters so much in terms of the process and the safeguards that are required.

The other option is still I think that possibly the men accused of crimes, there are only 10 of the 39 men currently held who have charges against them, could be moved to the US mainland.

But as I say, it's pretty much all speculation because we hear almost nothing on Guantanamo from the administration itself.

- Well you know in looking at this over time it seems to me that all of this, these decisions, were put in place, we talked about this a little bit earlier, under the emotions of anger and fear and sadness.

And everything moved so quickly.

And there wasn't a thought of ramifications, and there was no exit strategy even right from the beginning.

To me right there is a problem.

Is that correct?

Would you agree with that Andy?

- Yeah I would say so.

I mean there was you know there was Mike Scheuer who ran the CIA's Bin Laden unit at the time of 9/11 and afterwards you know he asked openly to the Bush Administration, what do you think you're gonna do with these people?

You know he basically said "once you've tortured people "you can't put people back into the legal process."

You know so it was a very open criticism of what happens when from the very beginning you treat people in a way that is so incompatible with the law that when you then try to fit them into some kind of legal system it's already too late, you've broken the whole thing.

And you know we've-- - That's what Mohamedou was eluding to earlier when he said you know they found out I didn't do anything but you know they tortured me so they couldn't free me.

That's what you're talking about.

That's what he was eluding to.

And you agree with that too, there just wasn't an exit strategy at all, they didn't know what the plan was.

- Yeah and I don't think that you know we can move forward as maybe we intended because of that torture.

So you can't just dismiss that or not count that in the decision making within the military commissions.

Which is why I believe that the death penalty should be taken off the table because not only that, the US already brought those men near death.

And just because they're not physically being tortured anymore does not mean that there aren't ramifications from that.

Emotional torture, that happens every day.

And to be honest the way that the military commissions system is set up is also to me a form of emotional torture or trauma.

- One more question we have from Bill.

As Peter Bergen of New America said on January eleventh, that's the anniversary, this past January eleventh, the anniversary of the prisons opening.

Folks like you may have ideas for a solution.

What are the outlines of a solution to the Guantanamo problem from your perspective?

Let's start with you Elizabeth.

- So my organization is advocating for plea deals, is advocating for the release of prisoners who are clear to be released for the remaining 39, aside from the 10 charged, either charge them or figure out a way to release them and clear them.

That's you know what I would hope that would happen next.

I understand that's a very difficult process, but things in life are difficult and if you dedicate individuals to work on that.

Like the Biden Administration really should have several individuals tasked with figuring this out, it's been 20 years.

I got my first gray hair last week, I can't wait another 20 more for this.

And it's not fair to me, it's not fair to the individuals at Guantanamo, it's not fair to the individuals like Mohamedou who are seeing you know this play into everybody's lives.

And so I don't know, I'm hoping that somebody steps up.

- And Andy do you have any proposed solutions for this problem?

- What I think Elizabeth has you know has captured most of them and has very eloquently expressed the reasons why it's so frustrating and disappointing and depressing that there hasn't been a resolution.

The 39 men still held, there are the 10 who are charged and the two who have been through that process, there's 27 men held at Guantanamo between 14 and 20 years never ever charged with a crime.

Last year 24 senators and 75 members of the House of Representatives wrote to President Biden not only to urge him to close Guantanamo, but also to say, and I think the twentieth anniversary in sight was something that weighted on them.

That the United States after 20 years was holding people indefinitely without charge or trial and how intolerable that was.

So you know the question really is how is President Biden and his administration, how are they going to free these 27 men?

Because if they're not gonna charge people now they need to release them, and then they need to get the prison closed.

It can be done.

So we know that some of these men need resettling, there are you know all of these issues, but what we've seen this last year is that the review process in place for approving men for release, the periodic review boards, which are a kind of parole type process except no one was ever convicted unlike parole.

But they have approved 13 men for release.

And Biden inherited another five men approved for release from previous administrations.

Nearly half the men have been approved for release, and yet they're not being freed.

There are Pakistani men who've been approved for release who as far as I can see could be put on a plane tomorrow and sent home to their families.

Guantanamo's oldest prisoner, an absolute model prisoner in Guantanamo, falsely accused of Al-Qaeda connections, he's had three heart attacks, he's in his mid 70's, he was approved for release last May.

Why is he not now home with his family?

So you know my issue now is how we manage to put pressure on the Biden Administration to keep moving.

You know what's the point of approving people for release?

Some of these people, you know like I say back in last May.

In what prison situation would you be told you are now free to go and then you just sit there and nobody sends you home.

It's disgraceful to be honest.

And that's what we need to see.

Free the men who are not going to be charged, bring this to an end.

- I do appreciate both of your solutions and proposals, but I was hoping for some answers and after this program and we're left with questions.

And those questions are can the United States ever say that we don't hold political prisoners?

Will actions made through from anger and fear ever result in justice?

Is the United States more secure and more respected today than it was on September tenth 2001?

So I'll just leave it with some questions.

And I would like to thank you.

I thank you for participating, I thank Bloomsburg University and for you for being part of this addition of Conversation for the Common Good, Reaction to 9/11: Dialing Back Civil Rights Violation of Human Rights a Community Conversation.

On behalf of W-V-I-A I'm Larry Vojtko.

Thank you for watching.

(light music) - [Male Announcer] This program was made possible through support from Bloomsburg University.