During his recent State of the Union address, President Obama reiterated his promise to close Guantanamo Bay operations before he leaves office.
Obama made the same empty promise when he took office back in 2008. Today, 122 prisoners remain.
His timing seems almost uncanny, as it nearly coincided with the release of Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s ?“Guantanamo Diary.”
Slahi, a 44-year-old former ?electrical engineer, has been held at Guantanamo for more than a decade, yet he has never been charged. His book chronicles the horrifying ?experiences he faced.
Slahi speaks eloquently of the compromised ethics he witnessed repeatedly, saying “crime is something the government redefines whenever it pleases.”
Upon taking a closer look at the piece, the reader finds an equally ?chilling level of government ?censorship present within the book.
Words, phrases and even entire pages have been redacted from the ?diary.
After seven years of arguments and counterarguments, the government has agreed to publish the book as long as it could edit the book first.
While the government claims these redactions stemmed from potential risks to national security, Slahi’s attorneys believe the government has something shameful to hide about its torture and ?interrogation policies.
The arguments made by Slahi’s representatives seem logical, as the sorts of torture detailed in his book are ?appalling.
Intense beatings, subhuman embarrassment and manipulative lines of questioning are abundant in Slahi’s accounts.
The handwritten manuscript and narrated excerpts on Soundcloud are available online to pull readers into the figurative space of Slahi’s prison ?sentence.
In the face of international pressure to close the Guantanamo Bay facility, it is quite understandable that our government would do its best to hush any sort of frank exposure.
The Editorial Board believes Slahi’s book is well within line.
The compelling tale of an uncharged inmate might fuel the last-ditch effort Obama needs to progress toward a final closing of the ?Guantanamo Bay facility.
The end of Guantanamo will spell victory for both international relations and human rights activists who have decried the existence of the prison since its conception.
Slahi, who has maintained his innocence and has never been tried, has had more than a decade of his life taken from him by an unjust political machine fed by fear.
In the face of this xenophobia, it is time for the United States to make amends and release these prisoners before any more harm can come ?their way.
