(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
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The Legacy of America’s Post-9/11 Turn to Torture [1]
['Carol Rosenberg']
Date: 2021-09-12
“The fact that my country could do that is so barbaric. It really bothers me,” she said. “What kind of people are we that we could do that to other human beings, and did we really believe that what they were saying in response to the torture was real, or were they just saying it to stop the torture?”
Stuart Couch, a former Marine prosecutor whose job was to put Mr. Slahi on trial at Guantánamo Bay — but who refused once he learned what the military had done to him — said the United States still suffered from what he called the “Jack Bauer effect”: the belief that you could beat a confession out of a suspect, save the day and emerge heroic, like the star of the TV thriller “24,” which aired on Fox from 2001 to 2010.
Mr. Slahi lived that misconception.
He now has a measure of fame. His best-selling memoir, “Guantánamo Diary,” was released in a film version, “The Mauritanian.” While he is often denied visas for travel, he recently made a trip to London, where he took part in a literary reading and was hosted at a party by Kevin Macdonald, the director of the movie.
A software engineer, Mr. Slahi has two phones, a laptop and Wi-Fi in the home he built since his release. Isolated for long stretches during his imprisonment, he carries on multiple conversations across the world these days through texts, video chats and phone calls.
On one level, his is a hopeful story.
“I wholeheartedly forgive everyone who wronged me during my detention,” he said in a YouTube message to the world soon after his release. “I forgive, because forgiveness is my inexhaustible resource.”
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[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/12/us/politics/torture-post-9-11.html
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