en of eso es territorio de cuba ilegalmente ocupado. la inmensa mayoría de la población cubana están en contra de la perpetuación de la presencia de estados unidos en guantán. la hostilidad desde la base naval de guantánamo ha sido constante, llegó utilizarse como un posible pretexto para la intervención.

la idea de la anexión de cuba a los estados unidos del territorio de la isla de cuba estados unidos es una idea vieja en la el política de los gobiernos de los estados unidos. esta política la siguieron todos los presidentes norteamericanos del siglo xix y tuvieron siempre la ambición de apoderarse de cuba por lo que cuba representaba eh geopolíticamente en la estrategia que estados unidos, estrategia expansionista que estados unidos estaba trazando hacia el continente.

en 24 de febrero de 1895 está ya la guerra de de liberación de cuba, la guerra por la independencia, se desarrollaban de manera exitosa las operaciones militares favor de los cubanos contra españa a partir de ahí se empieza a mover maquinaria militar y política de estados unidos para crear las condiciones para intervenir en cuba. la decisión de estados unidos de intervenir en la guerra de cuba estaba ya decidido por el gobierno de los estados unidos, entonces hacía falta un pretexto. y ese pretexto fue la explosión del mine, los norteamericanos acusaron primero a los cuban de haber eh colocado una mina para explotar el barco, después acusaron a españa de haber sido la que había provocado la explosión del barco cuando el gobierno español en ese momento le estaba dando una recepción la oficialidad del propio barco, la historia lo que sí nos deja bien claro es que ese fue el pretexto que utilizó estados unidos para consumar. su ambición de

apoderarse de la isla de cuba. guantánamo es una de las cuatro bahías de bolsa más grandes que tiene cuba, una bahía eh con un gran espacio y con una entrada muy estrecha. esto tiene una eh ventaja no solamente para el of suministro de combustible, sino que la zona misma que está frente a guantánamo, frente la boca de la bahía se convirtió en un perfecto polígono para hacer ejercicios navales. las grandes eh potencias navales de del mundo, inglaterra, francia, españa, holanda, habían detectado que la bahía de guantánamo era una bahía eh privilegiada por sus condiciones eh físicas en el área del caribe y por eso, antes de desplegar sus tropas en cuba, lo primero que hicieron fue ocupar la bahía de guantánamo, sea, es importante que antes de que existiera la base ya había una una ocupación militar de ese territorio. days you

had lot lot of coal and oil burning ships, so it was primarily good coal state uh fueling station for the us navy, so that's what why we we wanted to keep it, los americanos amenazaron con que no retiraban su ejército de ocupación y por lo tanto no le daban, no le otorgaban la independencia a cuba si no se aprobaba la enmienda plaja, uno de los puntos de la enmienda plat es el la concesión de estaciones navales y bases para el suministro de carbón, en el momento que se firmó la base naval, hay una carta famosa de el gobernador of norteamericano de la isla, general leonard, en que decía o firman la base naval no nos vamos. uh exit clause or termination clause,

it only says that in order to terminate the treaty, both sides have to agree, so that means that even if qa wanted to eliminate the base, por consiguiente es un alquiler totalmente anómalo, es como tener a a alguien la casa con una habitación rentada y que esa persona pueda permanecer para siempre si quieres mientras quiera permanecer en ese lugar, y la enmienda establecía le concedía el... hecho al gobierno de los estados unidos a intervenir militarmente en cuba siempre que considerara que sus intereses estaban en peligro. cuando hablamos de la intervención

desde la base naval de guantánamo, hay intervenciones directas en las intervenciones militares de 1906, de 1912 y de 1917. o el pretexto de proteger los intereses económicos norteamericanos y proteger las vidas entre comillas de los ciudadanos norteamericanos que redeciden en cuba. de esta manera en 1906, cuando el presidente tralapalma quiere reelegirse y surge una situación convulsa nacional, el ejército eh norteamericano traspasa la frontera de la base naval. lo mismo pasó en 1912, cuando se produce en cuba movimiento de los independientes de color, un movimiento de hombres de la raza de color que se sintieron extraordinariamente marginados y se lanzaron buscar sus derechos por las armas, en el año 1917 ocurre, vuelve ocurrir un movimiento interno que pasa la historia como la chambelona, estados unidos interviene por tercera vez empleando territorio de la

base naval de guantana. es muy poco conocido que durante el año 1917 en cuba, estados unidos estableció un contingente militar de ocupación de 3500. 35 efectivos para una isla eh pequeña, aquella época la población cubana eh quizás rebasar a millón, un poco más de un millón de habitantes y 35, efectivos implica la presencia militar norteamericana en todo el país, a lo largo del siglo xx, el ejército norteamericano empleó ampliamente la base naval de guantánamo para intervenir países centroamericanos y pueblos del caribe y por

lo tanto presionar cualquier movimiento de liberación nacional que surgiera guantánamo era en ese momento una bahía que era esencial en su política geoestratégica junto con puerto rico. méxico de la base naval de guantánamo salieron contingentes militares a ocupar a haití, de la base naval de guantánamo salieron contingentes militares a luchar contra sandino en nicaragua, salieron contingentes militares a desembarcar en república dominicana. quizás habría que estudiar a profundidad qué papel han tenido

otras bases militares norteamericanas en el mundo, porque si bien las bases militares norteamericanas en europa durante la guerra fría tenían la idea de la. del comunismo, las bases norteamericanas en asia tenían la idea en japón, corea de contener al comunismo, como llamaban ellos el expansionismo chino, el expansionismo coreano, la base naval norteamericana en guantánamo ha sido generadora de precisamente de agresiones contra el resto del continente, no creo que haya otra base militar norteamericana en en el mundo que haya participado en tantas intervenciones militares en todos los países. cuando se produce el golpe de estado del general batista en marzo de 1952, fue reconocido rápidamente por los estados unidos, furgencio baptista era para los

norteamericanos su hombre en cuba, así lo habían ellos categorizado así lo habían evaluado siempre, era el mejor defensor de los intereses de estados unidos en cuba, eh pasa al país una situación eh de guerra. presionado por la opinión pública mundial, los estados unidos se ve obligado aplicar un embargo la entrega de materiales bélicos al ejército de batista. allí atarrizan los aviones de bombardero y otro tipo de aviones militares de batista que cargan. metrallas y bombas incluso el empleo de bomba napal se rebastecen de combustible y

posteriormente elevan vuelo para bombardear los poblados campesinos y los campamentos del ejército rebelde. yo viví un bombardeo de la aviación de batista en diciembre de 1958, el pueblo donde nací eh cabaihuan, bombardearon los alrededores de ese pueblo, ametrallaron poblaciones campesinas y aterrorizaron. la población porque no hay nada más terrorífico que sentir en el medio de la noche el el motor de un avión que viene bombardear. esto motivó que en una operación de propaganda armada, podemos llamarle así, el se preparara por el comandante raúl castro la llamada operación antiaérea. es el momento en que son detenidos 23 marines norteamericanos, al regreso son detenidos en la carretera que comunica con la base naval de guantana.

aquello fue una operación muy rápida eh de muy corto tiempo y fidel eh le dio la orden a raúl de que eh cerrara la operación para evitar darle un pretexto más al gobierno de los estados unidos para intervenir militarmente en cuba hasta dictadura de batista de 1952-1958, este fue parte de la colaboración militar entre cuba y los estados unidos, y estaban ahí cuando el ejército rebelde entró en la habana.

a partir del triunfo de la revolución cubana en enero de 1959, la base naval de guantánamo se convierte en un centro de compilación contra el joven estado revolucionario. en los alrededores de la base naval de guantánamo eh surgieron más de 20 bandas contrarrevolucionarias, desde la base naval de guantánamo se le daba el aseguramiento logístico, se le daba la preparación militar. por las fuerzas de la inteligencia naval, por otra parte, la base fue desde esos primeros años, un punto de enfrentamiento, eh, puesto que las fuerzas armadas de los estados unidos y las fuerzas armadas de cuba están frente a frente en este punto del territorio nacional y desde allí se produjeron a lo largo de los años 60, sobre todo, una numerosa cantidad de provocaciones que incluían desde lanzar piedras eh, hacer actos obscenos, provocar verbalmente o incluso llegar a disparar

contra eh soldados cubanos que montaban guardia del lado cubano y tenemos el ejemplo de ramón lópez peña y luis ramírez lópez, jóvenes de alrededor de 20 a 25 años que fueron asesinado mientras cumplían su servicio de guardia en la frontera con la base naval. también en el caso de trabajadores que fueron este torturados, un pescador también sufrió igual suerte, fue asesinado finalmente con el objetivo de provocar, porque lo que están buscando es un pretexto para la intervención de la fuerza armada de los estados unidos. entre los meses de marzo abril de 1961. la contrarrevolución interna y externa recibió un fuerte golpe por

parte de la fuerza revolucionaria cubanas después de playa girón fue evidente que 1500 cubanos exiliados contrarios la revolución armados y entrenados por el gobierno de los estados unidos por la cia por las fuerzas armadas norteamericanas no eran suficientes para derrumbar al régimen de manera que estados unidos sabía que los los cubanos anticastristas no tenían capacidad militar para hacer colapsar al gobierno cubano, a las fuerzas armadas cubanas. por consiguiente, la concepción estratégica consistía en, lograr crear una situación dentro de la cual se justificara que los estados unidos pudieran mandar sus propias fuerzas armadas en las que sí confiaban como un medio para destruir la revolución, hay una operación que fue muy

famosa eh preparada por la cia. que tenía como objetivo provocar desde la base naval de guantánamo un incidente con el territorio eh que ocupaban las fuerzas cubanas, las fuerzas militares cubanas. la idea estaba conectada con un atentado para asesinar a raúl castro que iba a hablar en santiago de cuba. pretendían tirarle con basucas a raúl castro a la población que estaba concentrada en el acto del 26 de julio en santiago de cuba. incluso había una segunda variante de de asesinar. al ministro de la far que era raúl en si fallaba la primera operación en la carretera aeropuerto de santiago de cuba, esa operación se preparó por la cia, utilizando varios de los contrarrevolucionarios cubanos de estas bandas que operaban en los alrededores de la base naval de guantánamo, inmediatamente esos supuestos soldados cubanos lanzarían ataque contra la base naval

esto se presentaría como un arrebato, como una acción en lo que sí. la voladura de un buque norteamericano dentro la base naval de guantánamo o el derribo sobre territorio de la base naval de guantánamo de un avión de pasajeros norteamericano con estudiantes a bordo para que eso sirviera de justificación la intervención militar norteamericana. es algo

así como volver al mine al pretexto. el mine como justificación para una intervención militar en en los sucesos de cuba, hasta no hace mucho tiempo, muchos pocos años, pocos años atrás, habían provincias y personas y quizás hasta dirigente que le conocían de que aquí en guantánamo entraban y salían todavía trabajadores cubanos. desde que se estableció la base naval de guantánamo, el gobierno de los estados unidos para los trabajos de servicio, mantenimiento y los trabajos eh manuales de la instalación buscó manos de obra barata en cuba y en el resto de los países del área. he calculado que durante el siglo xx han trabajado en la base alrededor

de 50,000 cubanos, es decir, son varias generaciones de cubanos que buscando. con su sustento familiar han acudido las instalaciones y por lo tanto contribuir a resolver sus situaciones familiares, mi papá trabajaba 3 meses nada más en el central y después luchando, cuando caí allí es que pude ayudar mi familia. en un tiempo nos decían que éramos comunistas y cuando íbamos para allá nos decíamos que eran imperialistas, así que caíamos mal allá y caíamos mal aquí, entonces se fueron comprendiendo que no es allí, que somos neutrales, mi último día de trabajo en la base naval el 28 de diciembre

del 2012, claros y yo siempre estabamos comentando quién iba a pensar que íbamos hacer los dos? últimos en salir de aquí, entiendes, y más él y yo, porque él tiene su carácter y yo tengo el mío, no, no coinciden muchos, muchas cosas no coinciden, fue un momento histórico porque ya se cierra, la frontera automáticamente se cierra, porque al no entramos nosotros pues ya no hay obrero que entre allí, así que ya está cerrada. guantana, no sé. por qué todavía sigue la base naval ahí porque ya es momento de poder buscar un acuerdo entre entre los hombres entre las naciones que ellos entregan la base naval, eso debería de ser de nosotros, no de

ellos, ahí están oprimiendo y están saliendo informaciones que no deben de salir, ahí según la historia no existe playa que nos pues si la tuviésemos fuesemos una provincia bastante eh acceso a a esa playa no, es decir, muchas veces se habla del aspecto eh político, el aspecto militar, pero no hablamos del aspecto económico, el imaginémonos eh, digamos san francisco o imaginemos california sin sin la bahía de san francisco, bueno eso es lo que pasa con guadano, finalmente, en este momento no es una base naval. es territorio donde estados unidos ha puesto una cárcel que le permite tener prisioneros al margen de la propia ley norteamericana. desde el punto de vista

estrictamente jurídico, lo que pasa allí está pasando en territorio extranjero, puesto que técnicamente cuba sigue teniendo. sus nobles ciudadanos, precisamente con la cárcel internacional imperialista que tienen establecida en la base naval de guantán. el

problema con la base no es un problema ideológico, el problema con la base es un problema que tiene que ver con la soberanía, que es otro problema, con el derecho internacional que es otro campo. y con la necesidad y la facultad de cuba como país para recuperar su territorio soberano contra cuba persiste y mucho más que eso, el gobierno de los estados unidos insiste en mantener a cuba en la lista de países que patrocinan el terrorismo, entonces si insiste en esta política de hostilidad, nosotros no podemos pensar que la base naval de guantánamo, la presencia de la base naval de guantánamo sea eh una

when i was much much younger i used to hear this song called guantana and didn't know

because of its cadence that it was actually i thought it was just $1 mirror and as time went on and i eventually got to guantanamo and i heard some of the gods singing the song i realized that this is the song that i used to hear as a child guantana is the woman the girl from guantanamo and uh so i i i guess that that was my first ever um subconscious knowledge of guantanamo welcome. camp 6, it was originally constructed in 2006 a cost of $37 million. coming off of it, there are four blocks, each block has both an upper and lower tier, and each tier has between 12 and 14 cells. if you follow me this way, i'll show you a standard cell. every individual in the facility is on either a one or a three-minute check. every compliant individual in the facility is offered a minimum of four hours of media time per week.

ill treatment. this is something that i think everybody in guantanamo has suffered, there's not anybody who's been held in guantanamo would say that i was treated very, very nicely in the way i should have been. in addition to that, religious abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, being held in solitary confinement for extendedly long periods, two, three years a time. this is a standard selling camp five, it be sold the american correctional association standards, the top display or basic issued items for compliant detaining and bottom display or for non compliant. the people who kidnapped me, they would... use and i have to say kidnap because there was no police present, there was this was not a legal operation, this was very much kidnap. these people were pakistanis, but they were also americans present physically, and i believe that they were the ones who were ordering, orchestrating everything that was going on. we do offer them laundry services twice a week, however some of them will like to do their own laundry, so we've installed these drying hooks, which are designed to give away 40 pounds of pressure, that reduces the possibility of any

unintentended consequence. "first i was held in pakistan and then i was sent to kandahar um and the process of being handed over by the pakistanis to the americans meant being beaten and and put into a bowing position, stripped naked, i was being dragged through the mud by american soldiers and being punched and kicked and stripped naked again and photographed and shackled and spat on and shaved forcibly. um, that was my introduction to america." what the united states did after 9/11 when it

began capturing prisoners was that it's was determined not to give them uh rights under the geneva conventions as prisoners of war um and and also was not interested in um pursuing a traditional criminal complaint against people that it captured who were who were allegedly involved in terrorism um so you know the united states wanted to hold people as enemy combatants, people who had no rights so that they could do whatever they felt was appropriate. the purpose of guantanamo primarily is law of war detention, the... containes here are removed from the battlefield, removed from the fight, they're not here to be charged, they're not here in anticipation of charge, they're not here because they're accused of criminal wrong doing, they're accused and uh maintained here as unprivileged belligerants kept off the battlefield as prisoners of war. the bottom line when you ask what legal arguments are made for justifying the prisoner's detention in guantanamo is actually that's coming from

the wrong end, they just say they don't have any rights, so one of the problems with guantanamo bay from the very beginning is bush administration argued the us constitution doesn't apply there, that's why we put these people on this island, it's not america. and by the way, we as america have never signed any international convention that's enforceable against us, so these people have no legal rights and you tell me which court the geneva convention is applicable in and you've got to have a place to enforce it, so the us hasn't signed up to the icc, the international criminal court, so you can't sure them there, they haven't signed up to anything that you can enforce in the international court of justice, the american courts said they don't have jurisdiction, are we in cuba at the moment or the u.s. "we we are in, we are in cuba, it's a us navy base, but it's in cuba in a leased piece of land, it's not part of the united states in so many terms, as far as uh, we don't own the land, let's put it that way, so it's very, very hard and all but the most

limited cases to get any legal rights for the prisoners, and that's why the law has played such a small role in guantanamo bay, oh, well, it was chosen so that it would be beyond the reach of the united states courts." and you now and when you realize that it was cynically chosen for that purpose, you have to say, well, if that was the purpose, then what was the united states trying to do, holding people where lawyers and judges wouldn't be able to have any jurisdiction? so right here, these are the older cell blocks, so these were the original cell blocks that were here, they're basically eight by eight cell cage all the way around it. these showers were used when the detainies were first brought in as delous. station, so they would come in here and they would cleanse the detainees, so in this area and these two guard shacks were used to let the the guards have a place to hang out before they had to go on their tours and they would walk the camps and do their patrols and also was used as the the internal security

force in case something bad were to happen, well i would say there are three categories of prisoner in guantanamo essentially there are 'a very small number of people who allegedly involved in in in acts of international terrorism, and honestly that seems to be no more than few dozen at the most of the people who've been held. there are many hundreds of other prisoners who were involved in military activity, to so to some extent they were either fighting with the taliban or they were in a support position for the taliban in their struggle against the northern alliance before the 9/11 attacks, and this is obviously muslims against muslims, what the hell does that have to do with 9/11?' and international terrorism and al-qaeda and it basically has nothing to do with it. the rest of the people are either people who are in afghanistan or pakistan for reasons completely unconnected to any kind of

militant activity. people who were in the area for reasons of humanitarian aid or as missionaries or as economic migrants, but i would say that you the main things of the humanitarian aid workers and charity workers who made up, i would say hundreds of the prisoners who were captured. do you think it's just that there are prisoners here who after having been kidnapped have been imprisoned here for over decade without ever having been charged or facing trial? yeah, i think that the the given how those detainees have been classified and how and and how we view them as those facing prosecutions, some law war detainees, and then some that are actually prisoners, then it's absolutely appropriate for them to be down here in this facility. what is indefinite detention? does evident detention would be like you're not charged with anything, you are um not accused, well you're not charged with anything and just you're just detained

somewhere, but it's like nothing's going on, you're just going to stay there. is that taking place at quantanama? oh no, mean it definitely it's only been 12 years um so and definite like if it's generation after generation after generation and my kid's kids and kids kids and you ask them the same question then it'd probably be lot easier to answer um other than hey it's been 12 years and there's still legal battles going on are they detained to definitely i'd have to say now president obama designated 46 of them for indefinite detention without charge or trial he did that himself an executive order in march. 2011, now everybody else is accidentally detained indefinitely without charge or trial, but the only people that he is personally responsible for having designated for indefinite detention without charge or trial, those 46 men. now the fact that it's only 46 men is supposed to, you

know, amongst reasonable people we're supposed to say yeah, but it's hardly anybody, and it's part of the problem of the inherited from bush of these, i'm sure they're all dangerous, he says they are, and we we know terrible things. happening under any circumstances, 86 of them were approved for transfer out of guantanamo. that's 52% of the prisoners there have been told they're cleared for release. sometimes the us has got upset when we've referred to it as the guantanamo gulag, but frank. there was never a golag in soviet russia where 52%

the prisoners had been told they were cleared for release but they couldn't go home. are there innocent people who are imprisoned here at guantanamo? yeah, once again, i'm going to leave that up to the uh, the process. once again, we we've got a lot of people working that, we've got processes in place to determine that. as long as, we are told to keep them here, then um, i'm quite confident uh, we can we can do that well. i don't know what the reason for my release was. from guantanamo to this day other than the fact that um there were no charges after three years of interrogations and torture, there's never been an apology or acknowledgement that a crime was committed against me or any of the prisoners, no, they've never acknowledged that we were tortured or beaten or abused uh and that a crime was committed against us by the governments. the only thing that's happened so far is former us ministers and former us soldiers and former us generals have... have offered apologies, we both know there are prisoners that are being held here,

some of which have been held for over decade, which the us government themselves have admitted, they don't have a shred of evidence against, and also the have been cleared for release, why are those prisoners still being held here? well uh to to your point about cleared for release, it's it's it's not really the exact term we use, we we use clear for transfer, they use the words approved for transfer rather than cleared for release um because obviously 'there are lawyers telling them cleared for release, makes it sound like they might have case against us, um, it's all very carefully worded, a proof of transfer meant that they weren't saying that these were innocent people, they weren't accepting any responsibility for capturing people by mistake, and they weren't even necessarily saying that they were going to be released out right, so they're cleared cleared for a transfer to uh specific or already determined specific country'. or you know in the future will be determined what country they go to uh

based on the conditions of those country. this is not who america likes to think it is. this is not who america pretends it is or likes to think it is. holding people indefinitely without charger trial is something that totalitarian regimes do and america doesn't like to think that it's like that. i've said this before and and i really mean it that when 'i was spending 25 years in america, i represented lot of people on death row, and i went to most of the deathrows in the deep south of the united states. guantanamo bay is worse than any death row in america, and it's worse for two reasons. one is because frankly the prisoners are physically abused in guantanamo in ways that would be unthinkable on the american mainland. but the second, which actually has the greater impact is that the psychological abuse of telling a prisoner, you're clear'. for release, but you can't go, and we're not

going to tell you when you can go, and you might stay here forever, is traumatic in the extreme to prisoners. the hunger strikes have been taking place in guantanamo from right from the beginning, and the prisoners use it as a a weapon or as a tool in order to get some of their rights. primarily uh hunger strikes took place because of the detention without trial, that's the real reason why anybody's doing it, would take the patient to the restraint chair, then restrain the patient, once uh the patients restrained for safety uh then the medical group would take over and then proceed with the interal feeding process. the present one that's taking place now is is one of the longest and it's also the largest number of prisoners under striking. what was underlying that was the very understandable despare actually that many of these men. were were feeling after 11 years that that they weren't getting out of

guantanamo, there was no way they were getting out of guantanamo unless they were dead. sometimes they will put up a little bit of resistance for the guards for movement, but most of them, and that's very rare itself, once they get into the chair, they're very compliant. uh, it's measured from the nose to the ear down to about the zyphoid process, uh, roughly 40 centimeters or so, depending on the datiny. the the whole force feeding thing is now. anathma to me, i mean, look, first you've got the issue of whether you should force feed a competent person at all, and for years we've respected people who go a hunger strike for a protest, a non-violent, peaceful. protest is really all the prisoners can do and uh the world medical association said in 1975 it's unethical for doctors to be involved in force feeding someone who competently doesn't want to be force fed, didn't understand whether it was force feeding or not negative interal feeding, it's not force feeding correct, we're going to use the term interal feeding

and that's it, most of the detainees will let us know which side to put it in uh, and they'll they'll direct the whole process. so that's why it's not force feeding correct, the the that's a choice that they're making. we're on firm legal and medical grounds, we when we do the procedure down here, we are we're doing a procedure that we did not, you know uh invent down here at guantanamo bay. the military is very good at keeping hunger strikers alive at guantanamo. there is one man who's been in a hunger strike since 2005, he's certainly been force faired daily. since january 2006 with tube up his nose twice a day, he's still alive, somehow this man's body is held out, like it or not, the our mission is safeguard these detainees, keep them, keep them alive, keep them uh medically healthy, and that's helping the uh global warming terrorism, that's what we're here

for, so yes, we we are honored bound to defend freedom, and we do do that every day, depending on the patient. one or two cans of a various feed solution, again depending on doctor's prescription, buyer sop or standard operating procedure, the detaines in the restraint chair for no longer than two-hour block of time, average feed again depends on the detain is roughly a half an hour of actually flow rate of the anal feed solution at the completion of the feed, the prisoners that i met uh clearly evidently most of them "i say 99% of them had never been to america, they had no idea what america was, but america had come to them, and it had showed them a face that they didn't know existed, because as far as they were concerned, america was this great superpower um with freedom, democracy, human rights and all these sorts of things, but the reality was as far as they were concerned and their

experience in life was going to be that america is an oppressor, it is an abuser, it is a torturer, it is a in a in some cases murderer uh a brand scale at an international level. what does freedom mean to you? what it means to me, it means uh, you know, as long as it's not hurting or taking away from someone else. that's an awesome definition. i have to agree with that one. the safety of yourself, safety of your family, safety of your loved ones, but at the same time it also means that every other individual has those same rights and that my... quote unquote freedom cannot imping upon theirs and theirs isn't dipinge upon me. i think freedom is uh uh probably the highest organizing principle the american society, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, freedom to uh choose your leaders, democratic uh society. so uh, i

think freedom is is probably the one thing that most us service members can agree on that's important to them. this first executive order that we are signing. uh by the authority vested in me as president uh president by the constitution and the laws of the united states of america, in order to affect the appropriate disposition of individuals currently detained by the department of defense at guantonimo, and promptly to close the detention facility at guantonamo consistent with the national security and foreign policy interests of the united states and the interests of justice i here by order. president obama promised he took office in january 2009 to close guantanamo within a year and then failed to fulfill that promise. one of his plans for closing the prison was to move prisoners from guantanamo to a prison that he was hoping to buy in illinois, but it didn't happen. the congress blocked president obama from buying

a prison, they blocked his ability to move prisoners to the us mainland to face trials. they then imposed bans in legislation preventing him from bringing. prisoners to the united states for any reason, and then in the last couple of years they imposed restrictions on the release of prisoners to anywhere. these are serious obstructions, but to to let president obama off the hook is not really acceptable, because he was president the united states. i think it is critical for us to understand that guantanamo is not necessary to keep america safe, it is expensive. it is inefficient, it uh hurts us in terms of our international standing, it lessens cooperation with our allies on counter-terrorism efforts. it is a recruitment tool for extremists. it needs to be closed. now uh, congress determined that

they would not let us close it. there was a waver in this terrible legislation passed by congress, which enables him to release prisoners without consulting congress, if he believes that it's in the national security interest of the united states to do so. when he's spoken about guantanamo. "he always fails to mention that he has this magic card that he can play. he has been saying how the continued existence of guantanamo and indefinite detention is a shame for the united states, but he won't act, but without him doing it, we will end up with the uh widespread presumption and accurate presumption that he doesn't mean what he says, that he says great things um, but that he has no intention of actually fulfilling them." it's not that difficult to close guantanamo bay: first you take the 86 people

who we agree should be released and we release them, then you've got the other prisoners and other 80 people, now you've either got to try them or you got to set them free, and you got to give them a proper trial, and there is nothing that prevents the us from giving them proper civil american trials, either in america or in guantanamo bay where they have real trials and not these military. commissions, that could be done, and then if you convict them, you convict them, and you put them in a prison, but if you don't convict them, you got to set them free, that's all there is to it, if they don't do something, this will go on forever, and that's the problem, guantanamo doesn't have a time limit on it, these guys don't have sentence that they finish, the war doesn't end without something happening, in 10 years time it's going to be there, in 20 years time, in 30 years time, it's going to be there, and one by one 'these guys who were you know what the average age of them when they arrived was what their early 20s they're going to die they're going to die decades

from now some of them but they will when you stand back and look at it the longer this prison goes on the worse it is for their long-term reputation so i hope that that will lead to something but i can see that the the impulse of american political life is is to do nothing'. how do you feel when you hear that music? patriotic, you're not going to get much more out of me off that, gives you a little remind you. of uh what you're fighting for? it reminds me of playing sports, being a ball game, it reminds me of serving my country,

freedom, and it reminds me of freedom, absolutely. nowadays, workplaces are designed to look less formal and feel more comfortable, so staff can spend longer hours there. people are encouraged to look for jobs they love, but it isn't meant to reduce the burden on the staff. the ulterior motive is to make workers work harder for longer hours and make more money, but for the business owners.

off the night hear the cries of the small tiny voices whispering through the darkness they're cold where is the world and its grandure and might what guys's children tremble in fright no food on the table no medicine in sight bombs raining down turning day into night mother's last breath father's dying please before the eyes of a child what a tragedy to see oh humanity where have you gone in this theater of clothing, what role have we talked? we are the silence, we are the shame, witness is to the horror, yeah we

play the sing right? rise from your sleep, do you not hear the children weep, if this was your home, your blood, your kin, would you not fight, but get this sin, empty cradles, broken toys on the floor, the laughter is gone, they laugh no more, each day is a battle, each night tear, living in a world where hope disappears, the screams of baby to weak to cry. as the bones fall they ask why must we die and yet we sit in our comfort in our eas or the world burns and their cries be a peace oh humanity where have you gone in the theater of cruelty what rule have we done we are the silence we are the shame witness to the horror yeah we play the singing rise

from your sleep do you not here my children we if this was your home, your blood, your kin, would you not fight, but against this sin, shame on the leaders who turn away, who watch as the innocent fall pray, but shame too on us, for we do the same, silent accomplices in this bloody game, so rise, oh hearts from the depths of your night, stand up, speak out. for what is right, for the children of gaza, for the pain they bear, silence and let the world be fair, we are humanity, we must reclaim the soul of the world, the forest to late.

on the first day of september, the united nations, in partnership with palestinian health authorities rolled out a campaign to vaccinate.