September 22, 2021 • 45 mins
What will happen to one of the world's most infamous modern prisons? How long can a person be held without trial -- and what happens when the government sets those people free? In the second part of this two-part series, the guys explore the future of Gitmo.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Null. They call
me Ben. We're joined as always with our superproducer Paul
Mission Controlled decond. Most importantly, you are you. You are here,
and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
to know. Welcome back. In the first part of our series,
we explored the history of Guantanamo Bay, including the centuries
(00:49):
long obsession that so many foreign powers have had with
controlling it. And, as we said now our previous episode,
for most of the world today, the word Guantanamo no
longer describes just that southern Bay and Harbor area in
the nation of Cuba. The word instead means one and
(01:11):
one thing only, the world's most notorious prison. So now
we're diving into the deep water. What's going on in Gitmo?
Here are the facts. So for many many people in
the US and across the planet, this detention center occupies
(01:32):
a strange, nebulous, dodgy legal space. Officially, it opened as
a temporary facility and the first twenty people detained there
and when we hear them called detainees all the time
in the news, they were transported there on January eleven
in two thousand and two. Eventually, over the next few years,
(01:56):
hundreds of prisoners from multiple countries would find themselves at GETMO.
All in all, there have been around seven hundred and
eighty detainees held at GETMO at some point since it opened,
and currently as we record this, there are thirty nine
detainees still held there, many of whom have never been
(02:19):
charged with a crime m HM. And and that's remember
from our last episode. That's after the nineties when Haitian
refugees were kept there as well as a few other
people were kept there, specifically in Camp x Ray that
we're gonna be talking about. Well, campra x Ray is
one of the places that we're gonna be talking about.
(02:39):
But what we're reference referencing right now as part of
GETMO is Camp x Ray, this outdoor cage like thing.
And after the attacks on New York, Pennsylvania the Pentagon
in September of two thousand and one, the Bush Administration Jr.
(03:01):
By the way, launched what they called the War on Terror.
So starting two thousand and two, the Guantanamo Obay Detention Camp,
which is often simply referred to as GETM, was constructed
in several stages. It's a bit, uh, it's a bit
misleading maybe for some people, because Guantanamo Obey the detention
(03:25):
camp is part of the larger naval operation and the
camp itself is actually several different camps, some of which
have closed, uh, some of which are more transparent than others.
Camp x Ray, which you just mentioned, Matt, is now closed.
This was that camp with the chain link fences. This
(03:48):
was this was the site of the photographs that sparked
international outcry and prompted the US public to ask some
very difficult questions about, you know, what what the ultimate
end of this enterprise would be. But there were other
(04:09):
camps too, Yeah, that's right. Camp Extray was closed, but
it was replaced by Camp Delta, which had some SubCamps
within at Camp Echo, Camp Iguana, which was another very
controversial site in two thousand two. This camp actually held
children detainees. And then you had the super luxurious sounding
Camp Platinum, But I have a feeling it wasn't as
(04:32):
fancy as it might sound um and you just to
stay on here for one second. You'll see videos online
of sub sections of Camp Delta referred to as like
Site four, Site five, things like this. You can find
that specifically in a Vice documentary that was made in
that's where you may see that directly, where you actually
(04:54):
see the sign that says Site five. Yeah, these are references.
The names can become a little bit confused, using because
it refers to things like one through six detention areas, right,
and and we'll we'll see how those divisions work. But
nol I, I agree. I suspect you're right about Camp
(05:14):
Platinum because these camps are These camps are not places
you want to live or hang out. They're not created equal,
and they have different levels of amenities or comforts. And
when we say amenities, we don't mean super posh stuff
like Jacuzzi is obviously, uh. These detainees are housed in
different areas depending upon their level of cooperation with guards
(05:38):
and interrogators, and they also clearly differ in their level
of transparency. Until two thousand and eleven, the US public
did not know about something called Camp five Echo. Camp
five Echo is not the same thing as Camp five.
See how these names be confusing. Camp five Echo was
(06:02):
what was called a what is called a disciplinary block.
But then there was also Camp Echo, right yep. And
there was also Camp Strawberry Fields. Camp No. The camps
go on. Camp Strawberry Fields sounds magical. Can I can
I go there? I don't know. I don't I don't
(06:24):
think I want to go there. Um No, it's true.
And then this is all wrapped up in the like
you said, been this idea of the war on terror,
which will get more into it, but to me has
always sort of ended up feeling like the war on drugs.
You know, it's a never ending war, uh, where you
never really make a huge dent in the goal that
(06:45):
you've laid out. Yeah, war on an idea is a
difficult war to win because it's incredibly difficult, could argue,
virtually impossible to find a clear ending point for a
conflict with a concept. Right. This means that there's not
(07:06):
there's not one nation state that can sign a surrender, right.
There are maybe representatives of factions of groups who can
sign over some cessation of hostilities, but they don't speak
for everyone, because there's not one person who speaks for
the entirety of an idea, nor does that one person
(07:27):
speak for every other person's interpretation of that idea. And
you know, there's also a great question. I've raised this
question in the past. Um, the answer can be kind
of depressing. But how come there aren't more things like
a war on a literacy? How come there aren't things
like a a war on you know, easily preventable medical conditions.
(07:50):
You know, there was a short lived war on poverty,
but it didn't seem to quite gain as much traction
as the national consciousness. And like I said, well, we'll
talk a little bit more about the war on terror
in a moment. For now, let's focus on the arguments
for the arguments against the extraordinarily unusual detention camp in
(08:12):
Guantanamo Bay. So multiple presidential administrations have disagreed on the
status of this area, gone back and forth on whether
to close the prison. Um. You know, uh, former President
Barack Obama in fact campaigned on the idea of closing
(08:33):
Guantanamo Bay detention camp, and then later quite recently, the
Biden administration has made some of the same signals, and
then other presidential administrations said, not only do we need
to keep it open, like former President Donald Trump, but
we need to add more detainees. In fact, if I
recall correctly, his exact line was, we need to load
(08:53):
it up with more bad dudes. And as we record,
this controversy continues. It continues because multiple human rights groups
and journalists and other investigators and representatives of other countries
have pointed to get MO as an ongoing example of
human rights abuses, and they're asking questions like they're they're
(09:17):
posing questions like, um, if the US presents itself as
a champion of human rights, then why would it knowingly
and over decades run UH an operation like this like
why why is first not just why does this exists?
(09:37):
But why is it the US? That is? Why is
it the US that created it? And the their primary
controversies hinge on things like torture right? Or what are
what we're euphemistically referred to as enhanced interrogation techniques? UH.
If you want to hear more about that, do check
out our earlier episode does torture w work? It's not
(10:01):
exactly a walk through strawberry fields, but it's important to
be aware of the dilemmas inherent in acquiring information through
through those methods. Uh. Another primary controversy hinges on the
very shady legal status of the prison. Again for the
purposes of detainment, the US officially does not consider Ghetmo
(10:22):
us soil. And it's kind of an odd argument because
the Bush Junior. Again, for anybody outside of the U S.
It's it's often it feels weird to say, yes, this
is technically a meritocracy, but this guy's kid became president
because his dad was president. Whatever, just to say, we
(10:43):
understand how weird that can sound. Anyway, Then President Bush Jr.
Said that detainees in Ghetmo or his administration rather, it's
important that it was his administration. Administration, yes, right, right right,
the other president at the time of that administration. Uh,
(11:05):
this administration said detainees and Getmo are not entitled to
any of the rights or any of the protections guaranteed
under the Geneva Conventions or guaranteed to people in the
U S system of justice. But at the very same
time they said, the US government is still nonetheless treating
all detainees consistently with the principles of the Geneva Convention,
(11:30):
which is a weird thing to say. It really is.
If If anyone out there is interested in those legal
arguments and hearing from the horses mouths exactly why and
how those legal arguments were made, I would highly recommend
on Netflix. I believe it's called Turning point nine eleven.
(11:51):
It's a docuseries, multi part series that goes into that
in depth. And again you can hear you can hear
statement from the people who are making those legal arguments
um and and their reasoning behind it. Right. And there's
another controversy here, which is the cost From two thousand
(12:13):
and two, right when this started, to two thousand and twenty,
just last year, it has cost the United States government
and estimated six billion dollars and the yearly costs of
imprisoning each individual, just one at a time is thirteen
million dollars, says thirteen million dollars a year. According to
(12:36):
reporter Carol Rosenberg, who has been on this story since
all the way back in two thousand two, this almost
certainly makes Guantanamo quote the world's most expensive detention program,
which is saying a lot because the human species love
st incarceerate people. Why is it so much more expensive?
(12:56):
Is it because of its remoteness and kind of disconnect
nests from the rest of the country. Well, they they
can't trade with the country on the soil which they occupy.
So uh yeah, I'm sure it makes it a little weird,
a little tough to get stuff in when you need it.
And additionally, consider you know, we're talking about, um, a
(13:19):
unique situation where the military's administering the prison. We're also
talking about the legal proceedings that have been ongoing, right,
and the arguments. There are arguments, of course and support
of the camp. And the primary one hinges on the
idea that if these detainees are released, they will immediately
(13:43):
return to committing acts of terrorism. This is the argument
that one out when the Obama administration used an executive
order to call for the closure of the camp on
January twenty two, two thousand nine. Spoiler alert, it didn't happen.
Unless just talking about that, there were some detainees who
(14:04):
were sent away, right, they were transferred to other countries.
They were taken out of Guantana obey, but not all
of them because old Congress stepped in. So let's let's uh,
let's go through that. Yeah, let's see. So, um, the
closure of Guantanamo Bay was delayed, essentially blocked by opposition
from Republicans, and there were some Democrats as well that
(14:26):
were against closing it, and these are congress people. They
argued that the cost of housing the detainees was absolutely
worth it, because doing so in prisons on US soil
would be a threat to national security. So the isolation,
the fact that it occupied this weird kind of geographical
gray area, was a feature, not a bug for these folks.
(14:50):
So in more than half of the camps, one hundred
and sixty six detainees, some of whom had already been
cleared for release or transferred to other facilities, engaged in
a hunger strike to draw attention to the conditions there
and to their situation. And we know what happened in
response to that, right, the United States government began force
(15:12):
feeding the detainees, right exactly. And also, uh, there's there's
something I don't want us to lose here. The individuals
who were undergoing that hunger strike had been cleared, which
means that in the opinion of the US government, they
were free to go once there could be fat, once
(15:33):
the government could find a place for them to go.
And if you fast forward, then President Trump that administration
signs an executive order to keep the prison camp open.
So domestically, the US has been divided on this and
the the idea here is there's something about this idea
(15:55):
that I think we should mention, which is the US
prison system in general is not rehabilitated. There are no
shortages of stories about people becoming more well versed in
how to commit you know, insert crime here because of
(16:16):
their time in prison. Right, And there's a good question, Uh,
does the treatment that people undergo Quintanamo, especially if they're innocent,
does it run the risk of radicalizing these individuals? Uh?
This is this is an open question. But another open question,
one that is in the news a lot frequently, is Okay,
(16:38):
these people are held for years without trial in some cases,
when will there be a trial? If you if you
go back to the origin story from episode one, this
camp was built as a direct response to the attacks
on September eleven, and the initial concept was straightforward. The
(16:58):
initial concept that just of it is the people responsible
for these and other terrorist attacks will be found, apprehended,
and undergo a trial, meaning that justice would prevail over
chaos and acts of terrorism. But now we see that
the detainees in guantanamobey whatever your whatever your stance in
(17:21):
regards to this is, they do not legally have the
rights that a prisoner in the US justice system would
in theory have. I had to put in theory there,
because a lot of those rights for prisoners or people
who have been incarcerated on paper don't end up being
implemented in practice. Sure, And I mean, Ben, you say,
(17:41):
the idea or the question of whether or not prisoners
in this situation are further radicalize or hell, even how
prisoners here in the United States prison system are when
they leave, whether they're rehabilitated or further radicalized. Uh, maybe
not radicalized in the case of prison, but definitely like
to be difficult for them to be reintegrated. Let's just say.
(18:02):
But I would say, you know, the question around Guetanamo
whether radicalizing folks is sort of a open and shut question.
I feel like it's very clearly doing that, especially when
you're taking someone under false pretenses oftentimes, or you know,
maybe it's a good faith attempt to solve a problem,
but oftentimes people get lost in the shuffle, and then
(18:23):
you end up with folks, generations of folks who are
radicalized if that happens to their parents or their family,
or their brother, sister, or whomever. And in the case
of Guantanamo, US constitutional protections things like do process or
habeas corpus do not apply. So, for a quick and
(18:45):
dirty explanation, habeas corpus literally translates to have a body
of and this means that if you have someone under arrest,
they should be brought before a judge or into court
unless they are lawful grounds shown for their detention. So
(19:08):
this does that make sense? The purpose of it is
to give someone who has been detained a chance to
challenge the legality of their detention. Charge me for something,
you know, officer, have I been detained? Okay? Why? Okay,
I need an attorney because I'm going to get a trial.
Well yeah, but it's I mean, that's what that is, right,
(19:31):
and that's that's what an individual should have. It is
definitely it would be very weird if someone, you know,
a police officer or anyone else just stopped you and
made you not go anywhere. You know, there's threat of
gun violence if you defy them. Uh, and they won't
tell you why you're being stopped. I don't know if
that's just a not a good it's a bare minimum
(19:51):
for human rights. And the argument is the ends justify
the means and all of that good stuff. But it's
pretty clear that its people are getting lost in the shuffle,
and that in a sense are absolutely being scooped up
and kept without due process, you know, under pretty nasty conditions,
which again I would argue, could actually make a non
(20:14):
radical person into a radical person. It could make the
United States a real quick enemy if they didn't feel
that way to start. Yeah, that's the point is making
earlier exactly, because how would It's it's a good question
to ask. So what does it mean if you don't
have these protections, Well, it means that the government can
do things like keep evidence against you secret, or evidence
(20:40):
just involved in your case secret, and it could take
evidence derived from torture, and it could hold you if
you are a detainee indefinitely, there is no end date
to your sentences, there could be no evidence against that's
just because it's a secret. It's a black box. So
critics of this arrangement, or critics of the way it's
(21:01):
organized currently maintain you'll you'll hear them argue that these
military commissions, military commissions, sidebar or tribunals organized outside of
US and international law by the d D by the
Department of Defense. So critics are saying that these military
commissions are explicitly created to evade those normal rules of
(21:25):
not just civilian but military courts. And it may surprise
some of our fellow conspiracy realists today to learn that,
almost two decades later, some of these people in Guantanamo
right now have never even had a trial. What are
we talking about? Will tell you after a word from
our sponsor, here's where it gets crazy. You know what,
(21:52):
As a matter of fact, Matt Noel, before we get
to the trial, I think it's important to note that,
regardless again if your stance on prisons in general or
on Guantanamo Obey detention camp in particular, it's not just
human rights groups, it's not just journalists talking about torture
at this facility. People who worked there have come forward
(22:14):
with this same claims. Uh. This this is something that
you know, for administrations that were very supportive of Bontanamo. Uh. This,
this is at the very least not a good look
in some cases. It's uh, these are damning accusations. Uh.
Just last year. January two, guy named James Mitchell, psychologist
(22:36):
and interrogator of prisons at Guantanamo Obey Detention Center, testified
about horrific human rights violations that occurred at this at
this facility. It's why is Mitchell important because he didn't
just interrogate prisoners himself. He also created the CIA's post
(22:58):
September eleven and Terry Asian program. And the stuff that
he talks about is pretty gruesome, that's right. He described
in graphic detail how detainees were tortured while still not
being charged with a crime or afforded the you know,
the kind of treatment that even the most heinous criminal
would get, you know, on US soil. Torture included the
(23:20):
use of tactics like waterboarding, which we know if anyone's
seen Zero Dark thirty or any of these you know
films that came out around the War on Terror, probably
seen depictions of that, uh mock burials, um stress positions.
That's we've seen that. I believe there are photographs of
that from the Abu Gray prison scandal as well. Folks
(23:42):
like you know, in these kind of being forced to
stand on a very narrow bucket for a very long
time or being forced into these very uncomfortable poses, all
kinds of like deprivation, torture in terms of sonic torture,
all of that kind of stuff. And since many of
the detainees at Guantanamo were first held in these black sites,
which we've got a whole episode or or maybe multiple
(24:03):
ones about UM that are created by the CIA that
don't officially exist, or they might have been held elsewhere
by the military UH, and they were also tortured before
being transferred to Guantanamo Bay. There's no official chain of
custody right or records showing where what happened to them,
(24:25):
and they're able to use that legal loophole of Guantanamo
not officially being on US soil to justify that even
if that stuff happened elsewhere. It's all very very slippery. UM.
The lawyers involved are all required to sign in DA's
nondisclosure agreements that prevent them from talking about any UH
claimed act of torture. I go back to the Netflix
(24:47):
documentary just because it shows you the exact wording of
the these types of enhanced interrogation that they were using
and why they were using them, how they got the
government to sign off on it, and uh, I can't
just watch it if you can, what was that one
famous line like, I see no problem with this. I
(25:10):
regularly stand at my desk for hours at a time. Sure,
that's one you might remember. Um, but you've also got
the architects the attorneys saying, you know, well, there's a
very big difference between attaching electrodes to someone's testicles and
shocking someone like that or just you know, slapping someone
really hard in the face. It wasn't that bad, you know,
(25:30):
it had to be an open palm. You can only
be certain a certain number of inches away when you
slapped them, you know, And just like whoa the finality
of evil? Right, And then the idea that overall, in
the in the scheme of the greater good, doing these
things while u unethical in the moment, will result in
(25:53):
saving people's lives. That's the argument, and that's something that
a lot of people has been a lot of time debate. Again,
I think we mentioned this in our first part of
this series. Please do check out the episode on whether
or not torture works. It's an important question and uh,
you may be surprised by the dilemmas involved. The ticking
(26:16):
time bomb scenario that is so often um glorified in
popular film and fiction doesn't occur as as often as
maybe screenwriters would like you to believe. Please remember a
lot of those folks are just trying to sell a film,
not to tell you the truth. So these black sites,
(26:39):
we did a previous episode on black sites, they have
a similar list of advantages right because they are not again,
they're not on US soil, they're not officially acknowledged, they
don't have oversight from the usual institutions that would be
responsible for those oversights. So it may interest some our
fellow conspiracy realists to know that the U. S Government
(27:01):
has in some cases acknowledged that what took place was torture.
One example would be Abu Zubadaya, who is a Palestinian
man who was captured by US forces in Pakistan and
then he was tortured in multiple times in a series
of CIA black sites. And this is before black sites
(27:24):
republic knowledge, by the way, or confirmed. Another example is
Mohammed al Khatani, was a Saudi national. His military charges
were actually dismissed because he and his legal team and
made the case he had been tortured at Guantanamo. So
as military charges they're dismissed, you might say, where is
(27:44):
he now? He is still in prison. Uh, And like
al Khatani in a very real way, the world is
still waiting to see what happens next. Just a few
days ago on September US here the current judge in
the trial of the five men detained who are accused
(28:06):
of plotting the attacks. On September eleven, this judge said
that the actual trial was at least another year away,
at least that's if everything works out, which historically it
never has. In this case, the judges won Colonel matthew
in McCall and he took over this case just a
(28:26):
month ago, just as past August. Right now he's in
the midst of pre trial hearings and in it is
important to note that the coronavirus caused a delay of
more than a year and a half, so they're trying
to pick up where they left off. But this he
makes a point when he says it's going to take
(28:47):
a while to get here, because again, these are not
the types of trials you would expect to see if
you were in any US court. Detainees do not have
a choice of lawyer. They are required to use the
lawyers assigned to them. They are not allowed, to your point, Matt,
to see the evidence against them, not all of it.
And when it comes to a conviction, you only need
(29:08):
two thirds of the jury for the conviction. That's not
the way that you as courts typically work. Even if
you were acquitted, even if you are found not guilty
or innocent, your release is still not guaranteed. Well, even
you know, in the US, I mean, we hear about
people getting public defenders and how that can take a
little time, and how maybe it's a false equivalency of
(29:30):
the idea of everyone gets you know, the same treatment
under the rule of law. Um, that's clearly not the case.
There are people that can afford attorneys that are you know,
much more likely to get them off for something. But
in a situation like this, when you're a detaining not
only do you not have the choice of an attorney,
the option to hire your own attorney, the backlog of
(29:52):
the attorneys that you do do have access to it
can be years. Right to even get like your case hurt,
I mean, the people don't talk to anybody for years.
Sometimes well it can be, but it generally doesn't take
two decades after you know a crime. But but, but,
but it can be years without having any kind of
(30:15):
resolution or any kind of forward movement in someone's case.
We've here all the time about people that have been
detained for years without you know, any kind of hope
for exoneration. Well, yeah, but the biggest thing here is
what Ben said. Yeah, I think the one that's couched
in the middle. When you have a trial, your attorney
(30:36):
gets to argue against the evidence and the points that
the opposing attorney the prosecution makes if you're on the defense, Yeah,
and then the concept of discovery, which means that you
are able to see that evidence. So imagine getting imagined
like worst case scenario and we're just going with hypotheticals here.
Imagine you're innocent and you happen to have a name
(30:58):
that is very similar to something like from the perspective
of someone who does not speak your native language, you
have a name that looks to them very similar to
the name of a known terrorist. You get scooped up
and you're like, what did I do? And they say
you know what you did? No, really tell me, and
they say, oh, no, I'm not going to But you're
(31:20):
going to tell us what you did. And maybe you're
a random taxi driver and you don't know, and maybe
you speak to the lawyer and they say, well, I'm
not I can't tell you the evidence they have against you.
You know what I mean. And the taxi driver example,
by the way, folks, is a real example that match
us reference. So I would also like to say this
(31:41):
is a little bit of a tangent. But there's a
question I've been I've been mulling over recently. If the
law is indeed like Guantanamo aside, put that aside for
a second. If the law in the US is indeed equal,
then why are some lawyers pay more than others. Why
are there really expensive lawyers that seem to get even
(32:05):
the most you know, even the people who have all
the evidence stacked against them. Why are those very highly
paid lawyers able to get someone off whereas less expensive
lawyer wouldn't. I think it's a good question. I'd love
to hear uh your perspective, especially if you work in
the legal system, or if you work as a lawyer,
or you work in litigation where you work in the
(32:25):
criminal justice system. But just really quickly put a pin
in my point that I was trying to make. Um,
there are classes of detainees that are referred to as
forever prisoners. Uh, some of which have never been charged
and have been there since nine eleven, which has been
twenty years now. So uh, it's it's not uncommon. And um,
(32:48):
it's a little bit troubling. It's more than a little
bit troubling. Yeah, and we'll we'll talk about let's talk
about that right now. As a matter of fact, I'd
like to look into the fate of the detainees. So
there are the reports of torture. This may need to
be its own episode. Again. In the meantime, do check
out that very important question whether or not torture actually
(33:10):
quote unquote works. Uh. Part of the hold up on
the trial is due to objections by lawyers defending two
individuals while he'd been Natasha and Ramsey bin alashiep Uh.
There these lawyers are challenging the current judge McCall and
they're saying, hey, are you qualified to reside over these cases?
(33:34):
These are death penalty cases maybe, and we need you
to suspend the proceedings until you're familiar with all the precedent,
all the legal proceedings leading up to the time you
we're given the case in August. Uh. And this includes
they argue the rulings of the three other judges previously
(33:54):
involved in the same case. Wait, record, scratch, you heard
that right. There have been three other judges before Colonel McCall,
none of which actually brought this to trial. None. Colonel
McCall is the fourth judge to preside at the Guantanamo
Court in the conspiracy case against khalege Sheik Mohammed, who
(34:15):
was the alleged mastermind of the nine eleven attacks, and
the four other men who were accused of helping plot
those hijackings. And again those attacks resulted in almost three
thousand people dead in New York and Pennsylvania and at
the Pentagon. The most recent detainee to leave got out
quite recently in July of this year. His name, Abdul
(34:38):
Latif Nazer is a Moroccan national, and he had been
he was finally he was released this year. He had
been cleared to be released four years ago, in two
six he was held for nineteen years. He was not
and now never will be uh charged with a crime.
(34:59):
So what does this mean for the future of Guantanamo
obey and a pause for word from our sponsors, and
we'll be back. And we've returned. So several times in
these episodes you've heard us talk about people like Abdul
(35:20):
Latif Nasa who were who were cleared for release. Uncle
Sam was ready to let them leave Guantanamo obey. So
why did they end up staying there for years? If
that is indeed a case, if the government that apprehended
you says you're good to go, why are you still
stuck there? It's because the U s authorities have struggled
(35:42):
to figure out how to transfer detainees from the base,
even when they wanted them to get out. The big
stumbling block, it's two big stumbling blocks here. First, there's
the problem of getting other countries to guarantee humane treatment.
So like if you are, for example, if you have
(36:03):
been apprehended in your an Albanian national and the US
government says, okay, this person has not committed a crime.
We are going to uh send them away to freedom.
We want to send them to Albania. They can't send
them to Albania unless there's an agreement saying we're going
to treat them humanely. And then if they try to
(36:23):
get a third country to agree to resettle these folks,
they have to say that that third country that agrees says,
not only will we allow them in this country, we
will also prevent them from returning to hostile activities against
the United States. So you can't just say, you know,
here's a plane ticket, go nuts. You have to they
(36:43):
have to have a place to go. And so these
negotiations can go out and for years and years and years.
After everybody agrees, this person could leave. And compounding these complications,
let's consider the case of the five Taliban prisoners who
are transferred to Cutter. This was an exchange deal, and
(37:05):
these happened a lot. They don't always make the news,
but they you'd be surprised how often this happens. Uh.
Five Taliban associated prisoners transferred to Cutter in exchange for
the release of a US soldier, bo Bergdahl, and he
was held captive in Afghanistan and Pakistan for five years
after he deserted the army. So four of those five
(37:29):
prisoners who got sent to Cutter have new jobs. They're
members of the new Taliban government in Afghanistan and justice. February,
the White House announced it's conducting a what they call
an internal review of how to close Quantanamo, not whether
to keep it open, but how to close it. And
(37:50):
one of the big steps that you know people want
this close, one of the big steps they advise taking
first is to get rid of the military tribunals and
allow the d o J, the U. S. Department of Justice,
to reach plea deals with people have been accused of crimes,
including the men suspected of masterminding nine eleven. So how
(38:13):
do you how do you all think that the American
public would react to that idea of a plea deal.
I would say not, Well, it would feel that way
to me as well. It's just weird because when you
make a plea deal, you know that there's evidence against you.
Generally that's not always, but the reason a plea deal
happens is because you know it looks really bad. You're
(38:34):
probably going to get a super intense sentence, so you
take a plea deal in order to lessen that sentence.
That's what a plea plea deal is, right, right. You
agree to plead guilty to some or all of the
charges against you in exchange for some leniency and sentencing
or a series of concessions. Yeah, so like so like
(38:58):
one example would be, um, this is just a very
general example. One example would be, UM, if you are
already in prison for several heinous crimes, right and you
and then you know you're attached to maybe another murder
or something like that, let's see multiple murder, multiple people,
(39:18):
then you could make a plea deal to assist in
in solving further murders in exchange for life in prison
instead of execution. Like that's a that's a very extreme
case of a plea deal. A lot of other plea
deals are just with fairly petty crime or smaller, much
smaller felonies, where it's much it's more effective in getting
(39:43):
a case through the system to get to have someone
accused of something take a plea deal rather than having
to go through a full trial, right, so you can
get you can. It's in this case it's like, okay,
we've done all of this, has been all this time.
Rather than do a full trial, we'll just do plea deals. Well,
what doesn't apple deal often involve giving somebody else up
(40:04):
or providing useful information. Not necessarily, not necessarily it can,
but sometimes it's just to move the case through record,
especially in like a petty crime, like the implication being
that if you take this to a jury, then these
sentence will reflect that you have inconvenienced the system. And
(40:25):
that's like, that's you don't have sufficient evidence, right right,
something like that. And that's again that we're not saying
that happens all the time, but these are not. This
wouldn't be new for these to happen. And so the
idea of a of a plea deal on the part
of people associated with the September eleventh attacks, you can
see how that seems, how that can seem fundamentally deeply
(40:48):
offensive to you know, people whose loved ones died in
those attacks, or people whose loved ones died as a
result of the ensuing wars that followed in the wake
of those attacks. And then to get a plea deal
from someone who was tortured, and then to get a
plea deal from someone who was tortured. So this is
just scratching the surface of the current situation, and it
(41:11):
remains intensely controversial either way you look at it. It
remains disturbing for the people, for the survivors of the
September eleventh attacks, and of other terrorist attacks. You can
understand how justice such as it is seems often to
be an ever moving goalpost. And for critics of the
(41:31):
prison and for relatives of detainees who were held there
for years without being found, in fact, guilty of any crime,
in some cases without ever being charged for a crime,
you can see there's no way to recover the time
that was lost. And you know, don't make any mistake
about this, there were innocent people subjected to this treatment.
(41:52):
How do we know. We know because of the statements
of multiple government officials. In two thousand and nine, In fact,
a former administration official explicitly publicly said this is the case.
His name Lawrence Wilkerson, former CEOs chief of staff to
Secretary of State Colin Powell, and he said way back
(42:15):
in two thousand nine that he believed most detainees in
Guantanamo Bay should have been released. And when he said this,
he noted that he believed it happened, um not by design,
but because US forces were unable to and his words,
distinguish enemies from non combatants. So now that's where we are.
(42:40):
The world weights parts of Guantanamo, both the facility and
the legal processing. It's the legal processes it's pursuing. They
remain hidden from the public eye. And for some this
is just a necessary evil and it's committed for the
greater good of national security. But for others it is
solid proof that when it comes to Guantanamo Bay, there's
(43:04):
something the US doesn't want you to know. So what
do you think about this? I mean, it's obviously a
very sticky discussion. I mean there's a lot wrapped up,
and in terms of human rights violations, in terms of
what does it even mean to have a prison located
somewhere outside of the jurisdiction of our own countries government
(43:27):
when it's convenient exactly, and do as I say, not
as I do when I when I feel like it. Uh,
please let us know. You can write to us on
the internet. We are in all of the usual places. Yes,
you can find us on Instagram, you can find us
on Facebook, you can find us on Twitter. We would
like to recommend our Facebook community page. Here's where it
gets crazy. But wait then, Matt, you might be saying,
(43:51):
I hate sipping the social needs. I'm a social platform teetotaler.
Wherever will I go to reach you? Well, you can
give us a good old phone call. That's right. You
can talk to us UH directly from your mouth to
our ears via the digital magic, well, the telephonic magic
of technology. We have a phone number and everything. Yeah,
(44:13):
our number is one eight three three st d w
y t K. You have three minutes to leave a message.
Say whatever you'd like. Give yourself a cool nickname, hopefully
not your actual name. That'll keep the anonymity a little higher.
The levels of anonymity higher, just in case you know,
somebody wants to pick you up and put you in Guantanamo. Ha.
That's not gonna happen. By the way, One more recommendation,
(44:35):
if you're still listening, check out the Guardians video My
Brother's Keeper, a former Guantanamo detainee, his guard and their
unlikely friendship. It is a horrifying and heartwarming story about
two men that UH share had some shared experience in bond.
It's really great. So leave that message at one three
(44:57):
three std w y t K. Tell us all your stuff,
But if you've got too much to say, you can't
fit in that three minutes. Instead, send us a good
old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com.
(45:28):
Stuff They don't want you to Know is a production
of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Null. They call
me Ben. We're joined as always with our superproducer Paul
Mission Controlled decond. Most importantly, you are you. You are here,
and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
to know. Welcome back. In the first part of our series,
we explored the history of Guantanamo Bay, including the centuries
(00:49):
long obsession that so many foreign powers have had with
controlling it. And, as we said now our previous episode,
for most of the world today, the word Guantanamo no
longer describes just that southern Bay and Harbor area in
the nation of Cuba. The word instead means one and
(01:11):
one thing only, the world's most notorious prison. So now
we're diving into the deep water. What's going on in Gitmo?
Here are the facts. So for many many people in
the US and across the planet, this detention center occupies
(01:32):
a strange, nebulous, dodgy legal space. Officially, it opened as
a temporary facility and the first twenty people detained there
and when we hear them called detainees all the time
in the news, they were transported there on January eleven
in two thousand and two. Eventually, over the next few years,
(01:56):
hundreds of prisoners from multiple countries would find themselves at GETMO.
All in all, there have been around seven hundred and
eighty detainees held at GETMO at some point since it opened,
and currently as we record this, there are thirty nine
detainees still held there, many of whom have never been
(02:19):
charged with a crime m HM. And and that's remember
from our last episode. That's after the nineties when Haitian
refugees were kept there as well as a few other
people were kept there, specifically in Camp x Ray that
we're gonna be talking about. Well, campra x Ray is
one of the places that we're gonna be talking about.
(02:39):
But what we're reference referencing right now as part of
GETMO is Camp x Ray, this outdoor cage like thing.
And after the attacks on New York, Pennsylvania the Pentagon
in September of two thousand and one, the Bush Administration Jr.
(03:01):
By the way, launched what they called the War on Terror.
So starting two thousand and two, the Guantanamo Obay Detention Camp,
which is often simply referred to as GETM, was constructed
in several stages. It's a bit, uh, it's a bit
misleading maybe for some people, because Guantanamo Obey the detention
(03:25):
camp is part of the larger naval operation and the
camp itself is actually several different camps, some of which
have closed, uh, some of which are more transparent than others.
Camp x Ray, which you just mentioned, Matt, is now closed.
This was that camp with the chain link fences. This
(03:48):
was this was the site of the photographs that sparked
international outcry and prompted the US public to ask some
very difficult questions about, you know, what what the ultimate
end of this enterprise would be. But there were other
(04:09):
camps too, Yeah, that's right. Camp Extray was closed, but
it was replaced by Camp Delta, which had some SubCamps
within at Camp Echo, Camp Iguana, which was another very
controversial site in two thousand two. This camp actually held
children detainees. And then you had the super luxurious sounding
Camp Platinum, But I have a feeling it wasn't as
(04:32):
fancy as it might sound um and you just to
stay on here for one second. You'll see videos online
of sub sections of Camp Delta referred to as like
Site four, Site five, things like this. You can find
that specifically in a Vice documentary that was made in
that's where you may see that directly, where you actually
(04:54):
see the sign that says Site five. Yeah, these are references.
The names can become a little bit confused, using because
it refers to things like one through six detention areas, right,
and and we'll we'll see how those divisions work. But
nol I, I agree. I suspect you're right about Camp
(05:14):
Platinum because these camps are These camps are not places
you want to live or hang out. They're not created equal,
and they have different levels of amenities or comforts. And
when we say amenities, we don't mean super posh stuff
like Jacuzzi is obviously, uh. These detainees are housed in
different areas depending upon their level of cooperation with guards
(05:38):
and interrogators, and they also clearly differ in their level
of transparency. Until two thousand and eleven, the US public
did not know about something called Camp five Echo. Camp
five Echo is not the same thing as Camp five.
See how these names be confusing. Camp five Echo was
(06:02):
what was called a what is called a disciplinary block.
But then there was also Camp Echo, right yep. And
there was also Camp Strawberry Fields. Camp No. The camps
go on. Camp Strawberry Fields sounds magical. Can I can
I go there? I don't know. I don't I don't
(06:24):
think I want to go there. Um No, it's true.
And then this is all wrapped up in the like
you said, been this idea of the war on terror,
which will get more into it, but to me has
always sort of ended up feeling like the war on drugs.
You know, it's a never ending war, uh, where you
never really make a huge dent in the goal that
(06:45):
you've laid out. Yeah, war on an idea is a
difficult war to win because it's incredibly difficult, could argue,
virtually impossible to find a clear ending point for a
conflict with a concept. Right. This means that there's not
(07:06):
there's not one nation state that can sign a surrender, right.
There are maybe representatives of factions of groups who can
sign over some cessation of hostilities, but they don't speak
for everyone, because there's not one person who speaks for
the entirety of an idea, nor does that one person
(07:27):
speak for every other person's interpretation of that idea. And
you know, there's also a great question. I've raised this
question in the past. Um, the answer can be kind
of depressing. But how come there aren't more things like
a war on a literacy? How come there aren't things
like a a war on you know, easily preventable medical conditions.
(07:50):
You know, there was a short lived war on poverty,
but it didn't seem to quite gain as much traction
as the national consciousness. And like I said, well, we'll
talk a little bit more about the war on terror
in a moment. For now, let's focus on the arguments
for the arguments against the extraordinarily unusual detention camp in
(08:12):
Guantanamo Bay. So multiple presidential administrations have disagreed on the
status of this area, gone back and forth on whether
to close the prison. Um. You know, uh, former President
Barack Obama in fact campaigned on the idea of closing
(08:33):
Guantanamo Bay detention camp, and then later quite recently, the
Biden administration has made some of the same signals, and
then other presidential administrations said, not only do we need
to keep it open, like former President Donald Trump, but
we need to add more detainees. In fact, if I
recall correctly, his exact line was, we need to load
(08:53):
it up with more bad dudes. And as we record,
this controversy continues. It continues because multiple human rights groups
and journalists and other investigators and representatives of other countries
have pointed to get MO as an ongoing example of
human rights abuses, and they're asking questions like they're they're
(09:17):
posing questions like, um, if the US presents itself as
a champion of human rights, then why would it knowingly
and over decades run UH an operation like this like
why why is first not just why does this exists?
(09:37):
But why is it the US? That is? Why is
it the US that created it? And the their primary
controversies hinge on things like torture right? Or what are
what we're euphemistically referred to as enhanced interrogation techniques? UH.
If you want to hear more about that, do check
out our earlier episode does torture w work? It's not
(10:01):
exactly a walk through strawberry fields, but it's important to
be aware of the dilemmas inherent in acquiring information through
through those methods. Uh. Another primary controversy hinges on the
very shady legal status of the prison. Again for the
purposes of detainment, the US officially does not consider Ghetmo
(10:22):
us soil. And it's kind of an odd argument because
the Bush Junior. Again, for anybody outside of the U S.
It's it's often it feels weird to say, yes, this
is technically a meritocracy, but this guy's kid became president
because his dad was president. Whatever, just to say, we
(10:43):
understand how weird that can sound. Anyway, Then President Bush Jr.
Said that detainees in Ghetmo or his administration rather, it's
important that it was his administration. Administration, yes, right, right right,
the other president at the time of that administration. Uh,
(11:05):
this administration said detainees and Getmo are not entitled to
any of the rights or any of the protections guaranteed
under the Geneva Conventions or guaranteed to people in the
U S system of justice. But at the very same
time they said, the US government is still nonetheless treating
all detainees consistently with the principles of the Geneva Convention,
(11:30):
which is a weird thing to say. It really is.
If If anyone out there is interested in those legal
arguments and hearing from the horses mouths exactly why and
how those legal arguments were made, I would highly recommend
on Netflix. I believe it's called Turning point nine eleven.
(11:51):
It's a docuseries, multi part series that goes into that
in depth. And again you can hear you can hear
statement from the people who are making those legal arguments
um and and their reasoning behind it. Right. And there's
another controversy here, which is the cost From two thousand
(12:13):
and two, right when this started, to two thousand and twenty,
just last year, it has cost the United States government
and estimated six billion dollars and the yearly costs of
imprisoning each individual, just one at a time is thirteen
million dollars, says thirteen million dollars a year. According to
(12:36):
reporter Carol Rosenberg, who has been on this story since
all the way back in two thousand two, this almost
certainly makes Guantanamo quote the world's most expensive detention program,
which is saying a lot because the human species love
st incarceerate people. Why is it so much more expensive?
(12:56):
Is it because of its remoteness and kind of disconnect
nests from the rest of the country. Well, they they
can't trade with the country on the soil which they occupy.
So uh yeah, I'm sure it makes it a little weird,
a little tough to get stuff in when you need it.
And additionally, consider you know, we're talking about, um, a
(13:19):
unique situation where the military's administering the prison. We're also
talking about the legal proceedings that have been ongoing, right,
and the arguments. There are arguments, of course and support
of the camp. And the primary one hinges on the
idea that if these detainees are released, they will immediately
(13:43):
return to committing acts of terrorism. This is the argument
that one out when the Obama administration used an executive
order to call for the closure of the camp on
January twenty two, two thousand nine. Spoiler alert, it didn't happen.
Unless just talking about that, there were some detainees who
(14:04):
were sent away, right, they were transferred to other countries.
They were taken out of Guantana obey, but not all
of them because old Congress stepped in. So let's let's uh,
let's go through that. Yeah, let's see. So, um, the
closure of Guantanamo Bay was delayed, essentially blocked by opposition
from Republicans, and there were some Democrats as well that
(14:26):
were against closing it, and these are congress people. They
argued that the cost of housing the detainees was absolutely
worth it, because doing so in prisons on US soil
would be a threat to national security. So the isolation,
the fact that it occupied this weird kind of geographical
gray area, was a feature, not a bug for these folks.
(14:50):
So in more than half of the camps, one hundred
and sixty six detainees, some of whom had already been
cleared for release or transferred to other facilities, engaged in
a hunger strike to draw attention to the conditions there
and to their situation. And we know what happened in
response to that, right, the United States government began force
(15:12):
feeding the detainees, right exactly. And also, uh, there's there's
something I don't want us to lose here. The individuals
who were undergoing that hunger strike had been cleared, which
means that in the opinion of the US government, they
were free to go once there could be fat, once
(15:33):
the government could find a place for them to go.
And if you fast forward, then President Trump that administration
signs an executive order to keep the prison camp open.
So domestically, the US has been divided on this and
the the idea here is there's something about this idea
(15:55):
that I think we should mention, which is the US
prison system in general is not rehabilitated. There are no
shortages of stories about people becoming more well versed in
how to commit you know, insert crime here because of
(16:16):
their time in prison. Right, And there's a good question, Uh,
does the treatment that people undergo Quintanamo, especially if they're innocent,
does it run the risk of radicalizing these individuals? Uh?
This is this is an open question. But another open question,
one that is in the news a lot frequently, is Okay,
(16:38):
these people are held for years without trial in some cases,
when will there be a trial? If you if you
go back to the origin story from episode one, this
camp was built as a direct response to the attacks
on September eleven, and the initial concept was straightforward. The
(16:58):
initial concept that just of it is the people responsible
for these and other terrorist attacks will be found, apprehended,
and undergo a trial, meaning that justice would prevail over
chaos and acts of terrorism. But now we see that
the detainees in guantanamobey whatever your whatever your stance in
(17:21):
regards to this is, they do not legally have the
rights that a prisoner in the US justice system would
in theory have. I had to put in theory there,
because a lot of those rights for prisoners or people
who have been incarcerated on paper don't end up being
implemented in practice. Sure, And I mean, Ben, you say,
(17:41):
the idea or the question of whether or not prisoners
in this situation are further radicalize or hell, even how
prisoners here in the United States prison system are when
they leave, whether they're rehabilitated or further radicalized. Uh, maybe
not radicalized in the case of prison, but definitely like
to be difficult for them to be reintegrated. Let's just say.
(18:02):
But I would say, you know, the question around Guetanamo
whether radicalizing folks is sort of a open and shut question.
I feel like it's very clearly doing that, especially when
you're taking someone under false pretenses oftentimes, or you know,
maybe it's a good faith attempt to solve a problem,
but oftentimes people get lost in the shuffle, and then
(18:23):
you end up with folks, generations of folks who are
radicalized if that happens to their parents or their family,
or their brother, sister, or whomever. And in the case
of Guantanamo, US constitutional protections things like do process or
habeas corpus do not apply. So, for a quick and
(18:45):
dirty explanation, habeas corpus literally translates to have a body
of and this means that if you have someone under arrest,
they should be brought before a judge or into court
unless they are lawful grounds shown for their detention. So
(19:08):
this does that make sense? The purpose of it is
to give someone who has been detained a chance to
challenge the legality of their detention. Charge me for something,
you know, officer, have I been detained? Okay? Why? Okay,
I need an attorney because I'm going to get a trial.
Well yeah, but it's I mean, that's what that is, right,
(19:31):
and that's that's what an individual should have. It is
definitely it would be very weird if someone, you know,
a police officer or anyone else just stopped you and
made you not go anywhere. You know, there's threat of
gun violence if you defy them. Uh, and they won't
tell you why you're being stopped. I don't know if
that's just a not a good it's a bare minimum
(19:51):
for human rights. And the argument is the ends justify
the means and all of that good stuff. But it's
pretty clear that its people are getting lost in the shuffle,
and that in a sense are absolutely being scooped up
and kept without due process, you know, under pretty nasty conditions,
which again I would argue, could actually make a non
(20:14):
radical person into a radical person. It could make the
United States a real quick enemy if they didn't feel
that way to start. Yeah, that's the point is making
earlier exactly, because how would It's it's a good question
to ask. So what does it mean if you don't
have these protections, Well, it means that the government can
do things like keep evidence against you secret, or evidence
(20:40):
just involved in your case secret, and it could take
evidence derived from torture, and it could hold you if
you are a detainee indefinitely, there is no end date
to your sentences, there could be no evidence against that's
just because it's a secret. It's a black box. So
critics of this arrangement, or critics of the way it's
(21:01):
organized currently maintain you'll you'll hear them argue that these
military commissions, military commissions, sidebar or tribunals organized outside of
US and international law by the d D by the
Department of Defense. So critics are saying that these military
commissions are explicitly created to evade those normal rules of
(21:25):
not just civilian but military courts. And it may surprise
some of our fellow conspiracy realists today to learn that,
almost two decades later, some of these people in Guantanamo
right now have never even had a trial. What are
we talking about? Will tell you after a word from
our sponsor, here's where it gets crazy. You know what,
(21:52):
As a matter of fact, Matt Noel, before we get
to the trial, I think it's important to note that,
regardless again if your stance on prisons in general or
on Guantanamo Obey detention camp in particular, it's not just
human rights groups, it's not just journalists talking about torture
at this facility. People who worked there have come forward
(22:14):
with this same claims. Uh. This this is something that
you know, for administrations that were very supportive of Bontanamo. Uh. This,
this is at the very least not a good look
in some cases. It's uh, these are damning accusations. Uh.
Just last year. January two, guy named James Mitchell, psychologist
(22:36):
and interrogator of prisons at Guantanamo Obey Detention Center, testified
about horrific human rights violations that occurred at this at
this facility. It's why is Mitchell important because he didn't
just interrogate prisoners himself. He also created the CIA's post
(22:58):
September eleven and Terry Asian program. And the stuff that
he talks about is pretty gruesome, that's right. He described
in graphic detail how detainees were tortured while still not
being charged with a crime or afforded the you know,
the kind of treatment that even the most heinous criminal
would get, you know, on US soil. Torture included the
(23:20):
use of tactics like waterboarding, which we know if anyone's
seen Zero Dark thirty or any of these you know
films that came out around the War on Terror, probably
seen depictions of that, uh mock burials, um stress positions.
That's we've seen that. I believe there are photographs of
that from the Abu Gray prison scandal as well. Folks
(23:42):
like you know, in these kind of being forced to
stand on a very narrow bucket for a very long
time or being forced into these very uncomfortable poses, all
kinds of like deprivation, torture in terms of sonic torture,
all of that kind of stuff. And since many of
the detainees at Guantanamo were first held in these black sites,
which we've got a whole episode or or maybe multiple
(24:03):
ones about UM that are created by the CIA that
don't officially exist, or they might have been held elsewhere
by the military UH, and they were also tortured before
being transferred to Guantanamo Bay. There's no official chain of
custody right or records showing where what happened to them,
(24:25):
and they're able to use that legal loophole of Guantanamo
not officially being on US soil to justify that even
if that stuff happened elsewhere. It's all very very slippery. UM.
The lawyers involved are all required to sign in DA's
nondisclosure agreements that prevent them from talking about any UH
claimed act of torture. I go back to the Netflix
(24:47):
documentary just because it shows you the exact wording of
the these types of enhanced interrogation that they were using
and why they were using them, how they got the
government to sign off on it, and uh, I can't
just watch it if you can, what was that one
famous line like, I see no problem with this. I
(25:10):
regularly stand at my desk for hours at a time. Sure,
that's one you might remember. Um, but you've also got
the architects the attorneys saying, you know, well, there's a
very big difference between attaching electrodes to someone's testicles and
shocking someone like that or just you know, slapping someone
really hard in the face. It wasn't that bad, you know,
(25:30):
it had to be an open palm. You can only
be certain a certain number of inches away when you
slapped them, you know, And just like whoa the finality
of evil? Right, And then the idea that overall, in
the in the scheme of the greater good, doing these
things while u unethical in the moment, will result in
(25:53):
saving people's lives. That's the argument, and that's something that
a lot of people has been a lot of time debate. Again,
I think we mentioned this in our first part of
this series. Please do check out the episode on whether
or not torture works. It's an important question and uh,
you may be surprised by the dilemmas involved. The ticking
(26:16):
time bomb scenario that is so often um glorified in
popular film and fiction doesn't occur as as often as
maybe screenwriters would like you to believe. Please remember a
lot of those folks are just trying to sell a film,
not to tell you the truth. So these black sites,
(26:39):
we did a previous episode on black sites, they have
a similar list of advantages right because they are not again,
they're not on US soil, they're not officially acknowledged, they
don't have oversight from the usual institutions that would be
responsible for those oversights. So it may interest some our
fellow conspiracy realists to know that the U. S Government
(27:01):
has in some cases acknowledged that what took place was torture.
One example would be Abu Zubadaya, who is a Palestinian
man who was captured by US forces in Pakistan and
then he was tortured in multiple times in a series
of CIA black sites. And this is before black sites
(27:24):
republic knowledge, by the way, or confirmed. Another example is
Mohammed al Khatani, was a Saudi national. His military charges
were actually dismissed because he and his legal team and
made the case he had been tortured at Guantanamo. So
as military charges they're dismissed, you might say, where is
(27:44):
he now? He is still in prison. Uh, And like
al Khatani in a very real way, the world is
still waiting to see what happens next. Just a few
days ago on September US here the current judge in
the trial of the five men detained who are accused
(28:06):
of plotting the attacks. On September eleven, this judge said
that the actual trial was at least another year away,
at least that's if everything works out, which historically it
never has. In this case, the judges won Colonel matthew
in McCall and he took over this case just a
(28:26):
month ago, just as past August. Right now he's in
the midst of pre trial hearings and in it is
important to note that the coronavirus caused a delay of
more than a year and a half, so they're trying
to pick up where they left off. But this he
makes a point when he says it's going to take
(28:47):
a while to get here, because again, these are not
the types of trials you would expect to see if
you were in any US court. Detainees do not have
a choice of lawyer. They are required to use the
lawyers assigned to them. They are not allowed, to your point, Matt,
to see the evidence against them, not all of it.
And when it comes to a conviction, you only need
(29:08):
two thirds of the jury for the conviction. That's not
the way that you as courts typically work. Even if
you were acquitted, even if you are found not guilty
or innocent, your release is still not guaranteed. Well, even
you know, in the US, I mean, we hear about
people getting public defenders and how that can take a
little time, and how maybe it's a false equivalency of
(29:30):
the idea of everyone gets you know, the same treatment
under the rule of law. Um, that's clearly not the case.
There are people that can afford attorneys that are you know,
much more likely to get them off for something. But
in a situation like this, when you're a detaining not
only do you not have the choice of an attorney,
the option to hire your own attorney, the backlog of
(29:52):
the attorneys that you do do have access to it
can be years. Right to even get like your case hurt,
I mean, the people don't talk to anybody for years.
Sometimes well it can be, but it generally doesn't take
two decades after you know a crime. But but, but,
but it can be years without having any kind of
(30:15):
resolution or any kind of forward movement in someone's case.
We've here all the time about people that have been
detained for years without you know, any kind of hope
for exoneration. Well, yeah, but the biggest thing here is
what Ben said. Yeah, I think the one that's couched
in the middle. When you have a trial, your attorney
(30:36):
gets to argue against the evidence and the points that
the opposing attorney the prosecution makes if you're on the defense, Yeah,
and then the concept of discovery, which means that you
are able to see that evidence. So imagine getting imagined
like worst case scenario and we're just going with hypotheticals here.
Imagine you're innocent and you happen to have a name
(30:58):
that is very similar to something like from the perspective
of someone who does not speak your native language, you
have a name that looks to them very similar to
the name of a known terrorist. You get scooped up
and you're like, what did I do? And they say
you know what you did? No, really tell me, and
they say, oh, no, I'm not going to But you're
(31:20):
going to tell us what you did. And maybe you're
a random taxi driver and you don't know, and maybe
you speak to the lawyer and they say, well, I'm
not I can't tell you the evidence they have against you.
You know what I mean. And the taxi driver example,
by the way, folks, is a real example that match
us reference. So I would also like to say this
(31:41):
is a little bit of a tangent. But there's a
question I've been I've been mulling over recently. If the
law is indeed like Guantanamo aside, put that aside for
a second. If the law in the US is indeed equal,
then why are some lawyers pay more than others. Why
are there really expensive lawyers that seem to get even
(32:05):
the most you know, even the people who have all
the evidence stacked against them. Why are those very highly
paid lawyers able to get someone off whereas less expensive
lawyer wouldn't. I think it's a good question. I'd love
to hear uh your perspective, especially if you work in
the legal system, or if you work as a lawyer,
or you work in litigation where you work in the
(32:25):
criminal justice system. But just really quickly put a pin
in my point that I was trying to make. Um,
there are classes of detainees that are referred to as
forever prisoners. Uh, some of which have never been charged
and have been there since nine eleven, which has been
twenty years now. So uh, it's it's not uncommon. And um,
(32:48):
it's a little bit troubling. It's more than a little
bit troubling. Yeah, and we'll we'll talk about let's talk
about that right now. As a matter of fact, I'd
like to look into the fate of the detainees. So
there are the reports of torture. This may need to
be its own episode. Again. In the meantime, do check
out that very important question whether or not torture actually
(33:10):
quote unquote works. Uh. Part of the hold up on
the trial is due to objections by lawyers defending two
individuals while he'd been Natasha and Ramsey bin alashiep Uh.
There these lawyers are challenging the current judge McCall and
they're saying, hey, are you qualified to reside over these cases?
(33:34):
These are death penalty cases maybe, and we need you
to suspend the proceedings until you're familiar with all the precedent,
all the legal proceedings leading up to the time you
we're given the case in August. Uh. And this includes
they argue the rulings of the three other judges previously
(33:54):
involved in the same case. Wait, record, scratch, you heard
that right. There have been three other judges before Colonel McCall,
none of which actually brought this to trial. None. Colonel
McCall is the fourth judge to preside at the Guantanamo
Court in the conspiracy case against khalege Sheik Mohammed, who
(34:15):
was the alleged mastermind of the nine eleven attacks, and
the four other men who were accused of helping plot
those hijackings. And again those attacks resulted in almost three
thousand people dead in New York and Pennsylvania and at
the Pentagon. The most recent detainee to leave got out
quite recently in July of this year. His name, Abdul
(34:38):
Latif Nazer is a Moroccan national, and he had been
he was finally he was released this year. He had
been cleared to be released four years ago, in two
six he was held for nineteen years. He was not
and now never will be uh charged with a crime.
(34:59):
So what does this mean for the future of Guantanamo
obey and a pause for word from our sponsors, and
we'll be back. And we've returned. So several times in
these episodes you've heard us talk about people like Abdul
(35:20):
Latif Nasa who were who were cleared for release. Uncle
Sam was ready to let them leave Guantanamo obey. So
why did they end up staying there for years? If
that is indeed a case, if the government that apprehended
you says you're good to go, why are you still
stuck there? It's because the U s authorities have struggled
(35:42):
to figure out how to transfer detainees from the base,
even when they wanted them to get out. The big
stumbling block, it's two big stumbling blocks here. First, there's
the problem of getting other countries to guarantee humane treatment.
So like if you are, for example, if you have
(36:03):
been apprehended in your an Albanian national and the US
government says, okay, this person has not committed a crime.
We are going to uh send them away to freedom.
We want to send them to Albania. They can't send
them to Albania unless there's an agreement saying we're going
to treat them humanely. And then if they try to
(36:23):
get a third country to agree to resettle these folks,
they have to say that that third country that agrees says,
not only will we allow them in this country, we
will also prevent them from returning to hostile activities against
the United States. So you can't just say, you know,
here's a plane ticket, go nuts. You have to they
(36:43):
have to have a place to go. And so these
negotiations can go out and for years and years and years.
After everybody agrees, this person could leave. And compounding these complications,
let's consider the case of the five Taliban prisoners who
are transferred to Cutter. This was an exchange deal, and
(37:05):
these happened a lot. They don't always make the news,
but they you'd be surprised how often this happens. Uh.
Five Taliban associated prisoners transferred to Cutter in exchange for
the release of a US soldier, bo Bergdahl, and he
was held captive in Afghanistan and Pakistan for five years
after he deserted the army. So four of those five
(37:29):
prisoners who got sent to Cutter have new jobs. They're
members of the new Taliban government in Afghanistan and justice. February,
the White House announced it's conducting a what they call
an internal review of how to close Quantanamo, not whether
to keep it open, but how to close it. And
(37:50):
one of the big steps that you know people want
this close, one of the big steps they advise taking
first is to get rid of the military tribunals and
allow the d o J, the U. S. Department of Justice,
to reach plea deals with people have been accused of crimes,
including the men suspected of masterminding nine eleven. So how
(38:13):
do you how do you all think that the American
public would react to that idea of a plea deal.
I would say not, Well, it would feel that way
to me as well. It's just weird because when you
make a plea deal, you know that there's evidence against you.
Generally that's not always, but the reason a plea deal
happens is because you know it looks really bad. You're
(38:34):
probably going to get a super intense sentence, so you
take a plea deal in order to lessen that sentence.
That's what a plea plea deal is, right, right. You
agree to plead guilty to some or all of the
charges against you in exchange for some leniency and sentencing
or a series of concessions. Yeah, so like so like
(38:58):
one example would be, um, this is just a very
general example. One example would be, UM, if you are
already in prison for several heinous crimes, right and you
and then you know you're attached to maybe another murder
or something like that, let's see multiple murder, multiple people,
(39:18):
then you could make a plea deal to assist in
in solving further murders in exchange for life in prison
instead of execution. Like that's a that's a very extreme
case of a plea deal. A lot of other plea
deals are just with fairly petty crime or smaller, much
smaller felonies, where it's much it's more effective in getting
(39:43):
a case through the system to get to have someone
accused of something take a plea deal rather than having
to go through a full trial, right, so you can
get you can. It's in this case it's like, okay,
we've done all of this, has been all this time.
Rather than do a full trial, we'll just do plea deals. Well,
what doesn't apple deal often involve giving somebody else up
(40:04):
or providing useful information. Not necessarily, not necessarily it can,
but sometimes it's just to move the case through record,
especially in like a petty crime, like the implication being
that if you take this to a jury, then these
sentence will reflect that you have inconvenienced the system. And
(40:25):
that's like, that's you don't have sufficient evidence, right right,
something like that. And that's again that we're not saying
that happens all the time, but these are not. This
wouldn't be new for these to happen. And so the
idea of a of a plea deal on the part
of people associated with the September eleventh attacks, you can
see how that seems, how that can seem fundamentally deeply
(40:48):
offensive to you know, people whose loved ones died in
those attacks, or people whose loved ones died as a
result of the ensuing wars that followed in the wake
of those attacks. And then to get a plea deal
from someone who was tortured, and then to get a
plea deal from someone who was tortured. So this is
just scratching the surface of the current situation, and it
(41:11):
remains intensely controversial either way you look at it. It
remains disturbing for the people, for the survivors of the
September eleventh attacks, and of other terrorist attacks. You can
understand how justice such as it is seems often to
be an ever moving goalpost. And for critics of the
(41:31):
prison and for relatives of detainees who were held there
for years without being found, in fact, guilty of any crime,
in some cases without ever being charged for a crime,
you can see there's no way to recover the time
that was lost. And you know, don't make any mistake
about this, there were innocent people subjected to this treatment.
(41:52):
How do we know. We know because of the statements
of multiple government officials. In two thousand and nine, In fact,
a former administration official explicitly publicly said this is the case.
His name Lawrence Wilkerson, former CEOs chief of staff to
Secretary of State Colin Powell, and he said way back
(42:15):
in two thousand nine that he believed most detainees in
Guantanamo Bay should have been released. And when he said this,
he noted that he believed it happened, um not by design,
but because US forces were unable to and his words,
distinguish enemies from non combatants. So now that's where we are.
(42:40):
The world weights parts of Guantanamo, both the facility and
the legal processing. It's the legal processes it's pursuing. They
remain hidden from the public eye. And for some this
is just a necessary evil and it's committed for the
greater good of national security. But for others it is
solid proof that when it comes to Guantanamo Bay, there's
(43:04):
something the US doesn't want you to know. So what
do you think about this? I mean, it's obviously a
very sticky discussion. I mean there's a lot wrapped up,
and in terms of human rights violations, in terms of
what does it even mean to have a prison located
somewhere outside of the jurisdiction of our own countries government
(43:27):
when it's convenient exactly, and do as I say, not
as I do when I when I feel like it. Uh,
please let us know. You can write to us on
the internet. We are in all of the usual places. Yes,
you can find us on Instagram, you can find us
on Facebook, you can find us on Twitter. We would
like to recommend our Facebook community page. Here's where it
gets crazy. But wait then, Matt, you might be saying,
(43:51):
I hate sipping the social needs. I'm a social platform teetotaler.
Wherever will I go to reach you? Well, you can
give us a good old phone call. That's right. You
can talk to us UH directly from your mouth to
our ears via the digital magic, well, the telephonic magic
of technology. We have a phone number and everything. Yeah,
(44:13):
our number is one eight three three st d w
y t K. You have three minutes to leave a message.
Say whatever you'd like. Give yourself a cool nickname, hopefully
not your actual name. That'll keep the anonymity a little higher.
The levels of anonymity higher, just in case you know,
somebody wants to pick you up and put you in Guantanamo. Ha.
That's not gonna happen. By the way, One more recommendation,
(44:35):
if you're still listening, check out the Guardians video My
Brother's Keeper, a former Guantanamo detainee, his guard and their
unlikely friendship. It is a horrifying and heartwarming story about
two men that UH share had some shared experience in bond.
It's really great. So leave that message at one three
(44:57):
three std w y t K. Tell us all your stuff,
But if you've got too much to say, you can't
fit in that three minutes. Instead, send us a good
old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com.
(45:28):
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