and this obviously did not raise the morality any one. the situation is galling for ukraine's troops here and on other parts of the front. even president zalinski, normally oblivious to cray seas has admitted to this. does resorts on us woodyear lucia? very tough in the east, very painful. it is necessary to destroy the military power of the enemy. the enemy will destroy villa gore of her and marina glen cove. jeffcoat and buck. most glitter and cameras and all other places were future is now being decided over a newsletter, a small set of soviet era apartment blocks just south side. the next key of force is effected local residence to town. the place into a citadel military experts have been a buzz over ukraine's planned spring counter offensive, and indeed key of troops have already begun to pro brushes defenses in the south. yet with mounting pressure of the russian army elsewhere, ukraine's capacity to attack is bleeding badly. i'm

a get done of reporting from the dumbass. artsy allows all for now be sure to check out our t. v dot com for all the latest breaking news and updates. we'll see you next time . ah ah ah

oh no no. when i was showing ra, a shape out disdain becomes the advocate, an engagement. it was the trail. when so many find themselves worlds apart, we choose to look so common ground. ah, st. 2 2 ah, reporting on and investigating the lawless

u. s. military prison at guantanamo bay. cuba is an important endeavor. thanks to a number of whistleblowers. we know what has happened at guantanamo, and we have a feel for the war, crimes and crimes against humanity that have taken place there. but what the human rights community, and indeed the public in general, really need, is a historian to lay out all the details for future generations. and to make sure that revisionists don't try to change the truth of that history. i'm john kerry. aku welcome to the whistleblowers. ah. 2 2 we're all aware of whistleblowers who have served at the u. s. military prison at guantanamo, thanks to people like joseph hickman and brandon neely. we know of some of the atrocities that have taken place there in the name of us security policy. thanks to the attorneys representing guantanamo detainees. we know about the utter lack of

due process, about torture and degrading an inhumane treatment that continues to take place there. but much of what we knew in the earlier part of guantanamo was, existence was fragmentary. our next guest changed all that using his background as a researcher and an investigative journalist, he sought to document what happened to every single prisoner who passed through guantanamo, as well as those who will likely spend the rest of their lives there. and beyond that, he has cultivated sources outside of guantanamo that have allowed him to report on us covert action operations and capture and render people around the world who in the end have never been charged with a crime. andy worthington joins us today. andy is a british historian, author investigative journalist and filmmaker, he's the author of the book, the guantanamo files, the stories of the 774 detainees in america's illegal prison. he's also published a myriad of articles about one ton of mo,

and he's the director of the documentary film outside the law. stories from guantanamo, and the welcome to the show. it's great to have you. thank you, joe, and thank you for inviting me to our pleasure. any. let's start with how you got involved in guantanamo and in human rights. you already had of sterling reputation as the author of 2 fascinating historical nonfiction books, one on modern celebrations at the stonehenge archaeological site, and the other on a confrontation between police and new age celebrants at stone end on june, 1st 1985. i remember that i was actually living in the u. k at the time. how did you know? it was a lot of fun kind of a strange event. how did you make that transition to guantanamo and to human rights? and when did that happen for you? well, you know, the civil liberties in human rights are very closely connected. i'm sure i've always interested in the oppression of and adults. so i think you know,

the grand panama was kind of a classic case. really, you know, and if you look at grand panama history, the 1st lawyer that became involved when michael ran the senate right to human rights lawyer. and then to death penalty. lawyers who were immediately on the story of guantanamo because they represented people who were particularly treated as none the big tomorrow. so you know, several that the human rights issue, they're always been important to me that most story i think was probably more pulling through lots of non americans from the beginning. but i was to people in the us to were encouraged to be in this this the state of vengeance towards the people who caused the 911 attacks. whereas around the world, people will looking at these parameters. furniture is when the people in the orange jumpsuits with them the ears covered and kneeling in the gravel and shouted at the

god, david that was, that was shocking for people around the world. and in britain, the right wing daily newspaper ran and ran a headline of torture when, when the prism opened. but it took me when it took most people time to be able to really delve into the grand panama story because of the secrecy. and in fact, i started looking into, tried to find out who's at the prison in the fall of 2005. and that was when a couple of speculative lists to put together by writing composed and by the case prisoners there in the u. k. but nobody really knew who was there because the u. s . government hasn't told the world who they were and that didn't happen until the spring of 2006 by law, freedom of information lawsuits and were required to tell the world who they were holding their as well as to release thousands of pages of documentation,

supposedly about who these people were and that's what i began analyzing. and he turned to no one else attempted to construct a coherent narrative. so ready in the process of researching and writing my book, panama, i kind of became the custodian of the men stories that lots of people have written about one time over the years. but nobody has done as thoroughly and deliberately as you have. what made you write a record of every person who's been through guantanamo, what was your ultimate goal in taking on that job, which is a huge task? well, you know, there's a, there's a point of kind of statistical analysis that you can do with the grand panama, establish as the whole low school day that very few of the people who because there

was to the, was at guantanamo, were actually in the west, west and you know, they, they managed to get a lot of media interests which, you know, as they please. and i, you know, my research is that the same thing, very few, very few percent of the people that have been held at guantanamo 779 men held by the us military for when the prison opened nearly 21 years ago. you know, a few percent of those who are accused of having any significant involvement without kite or other talent. but statistics is one thing. another thing is, is who all these people and actually you know, what i found in my and that was based all the documentation that was made publicly available by the transcripts of basically these mickey mouse tribunals that they'd hold one moment in attempt basically as a way of insulting the supreme court africa assuming codes,

granted the prisoners have this corpus rights. they held the combat and status review tribunal and panama, where they went a lot of legal representation where they threw a whole lot of allegations that people with no, you know, not saying where that, where these allegations came from, very vague. so many of them and then the men had to try and you know, i'm sounds of these. and what happened was that you could, i could see through looking at the transcript, quite often translated from arabic. even with all the obstacles that were in the way, the personalities of some of these people. and actually, you know, one of the crucial things that the us government did it went from the beginning was to be humanized. the man held. that's what i say to the people was the worst. doesn't bother thinking about who they are. we're looking at the sleep sans at night. and actually, these are all individuals, even if some of them

a small number of these people, maybe what you would like to call the bad guys. they have stories, but you know, my sympathies lay in particular with the many, many hundreds of people. how clearly were not terrorists actual, you know, what my research indicated was that a large number of people were stake quite often through intelligence failures. and sometimes the u. s. was paying bank payments to the allies. but also, you know, many of the hundreds of men held at one time with soldiers. they had many of them come from the gulf or other countries to help the taliban to establish appeal was landing state by fighting an ancient muslim civil law against the northern alliance before 911. and these people who were all branded as terrorists. but again, these are people who have their own individualized,

their own individual stories. and so i've, over the years, you know, try and trying to tell the stories of the people how these are human being. and i hope i hope i've been able to do medicaid. i'm very interested also to know what kind of pushback you faced as you were doing this work. certainly the american government couldn't have liked what you were researching or that you were talking to former guantanamo detainees. we know from other whistleblowers that the u. s. government is not friendly to freedom of information, act requests related to guantanamo. so what was the american government's reaction? like, did the government try to stop you or to impede your, your research, your writing, your filmmaking? and what about the british? it's interesting, actually. i mean, the only anytime i got any sign that they were paying any attention really was when there was a story about 2 more retains being really. so i'm going back years news report to

the various of media outlets picked up on and, and i reported that as well. and it turned out that it was completely untrue. and then somebody who worked in publicity sent me emails attacking me for not being a proper journalist at which i started to makes jamie about all the ways in which the pentagon had lied back. and you know, and that was the end of that story. but it made me aware that they were paying attention and certainly some people somewhere when needed by what i was doing. the thing with the grand panama is that you can argue with how i have piece together. what looks like a credible narrative about the people who are held it, but i have used information that was made publicly available by the authorities for so much of that. so it's an interpretation. you know, i, in that sense,

i haven't cross the line where what i was guessing was information that they didn't want to be available. what i've done is that i've analyzed and given an application of their own information. they may not like we are speaking with author, journalist and filmmaker, andy worthington, about the u. s. military prison at one time of a cuba. we're gonna take a short break and come right back. so stay tuned. 2 2 ah, look forward to talking to you all. that technology should work for people. a robot must obey the orders given by human beings, except where such order that conflict with the 1st law show your identification. we should be very careful about personal intelligence at that point. obviously is too late trust,

rather than fear with take on various jobs with artificial intelligence. real, somebody with a robot must protect its own existence with for this is the ancient lake by called more specifically, the island of fallen, also known as the heart of by called straight away. you can feel something mystical to your place of traditions. an amazing mix of cultures and peoples. but what makes this place so appealing? we're going to speak to some of the most prominent locals of all home and uncover some of the secrets. oh, well come back to the whistle blowers, i'm john kerry. aku,

were speaking with british author, journalist and filmmaker, andy worthington, about the u. s. military prison at guantanamo. andy, welcome back. thanks again for being with us. nice to be here. i wanted to talk about the kinds of people who have been held at guantanamo and who have undergone, in some cases unspeakable torture. i've developed a friendship with mohammed, wood sly, he known as the more attaining and the subject of the award winning film of the same name mohammed like so many other people. hundreds of them held at guantanamo was never guilty of any crime, but he was held there for well over a decade. he was one of the lucky ones. he was released, he wrote a best selling book. his experience was made into a movie and he was re settled finally in the netherlands. but what about other innocent people? how have their lives been impacted by their kidnappings and incarceration at

guantanamo? well i think, you know, it's, it's difficult to know in so many cases because, you know, most of the people at guantanamo have been read, been sent back to their home countries. and then it becomes a matter of what kind of home governments they have. and clearly, you know, i would say that, you know, people who are returned to western european countries have generally fed quite well not, not necessarily in terms of a certain amount of harassment and surveillance, but in terms of being able to go on with their lives and having access to that to support that is not available to people in so many other countries. so much of it is down to the kind of governments that people have. i don't, i don't generally think that it's been very good from a human rights point to be to been a savvy citizen in grand panama, for example, and being sent back right aside here a bit. i think that's been a lot of harassment bullying prisoners. i think one of the more difficult aspect of

this story is people who, for one reason or another, couldn't be sent back to their home country. this is primarily involved geminus because there's a ban in post by congress on releasing any em. and he's back to their home country because of the war and the security situation. and for these prisoners, 3rd countries had to be found that were prepared to resettle them. and again, in some cases, this has been successful, i would say in western european countries, in particular, there was a resettlement program under obama, where people were sent to oman, which i think has been very successful and was in the country. and they've been able to rebuild their lives. there are other cases where it is when shockingly wrong. the most extreme example is that, you know, 2 dozen men was sent to the united arab emirates where they were promised

rehabilitation. and then being had to rebuild their lives. next, i ended up in prison arbitrarily under circumstances at least as bad as 10 am. and that was never adequately result. i mean most of this was taking place on trumps. and i was literally no one in the u. s. government dealing with grand panama issues like this, but the yemen is all forcibly repatriated to yemen in the end. some of them subsequently disappeared. i'm not sure if they are still safe and that was an absolute disaster. and, you know, there have been other cases where the, the resettlement just has not been helpful. it has not worked out well for the men who were settled in countries where for example, the governments may not not have been sympathetic until where there is no little knowing muslim presence. and. ready what i find particularly shocking, john,

is that all of these arrangements that were made between the united states government and these host nations are a secret and be not something that is, that conforms to any recognizable standards of rights and of human rights, arbitrary secret decisions taken by the us about expenses of these people. and i think they really, fundamentally, you know, haven't escaped from the situation that has always apply to them since they request these incent grand panama, which is the, you know, the united states determined at the beginning that they were holding people without any rights whatsoever, as human beings, and i think that's something that needs to be resolved when we hopefully get the position where, where one day, one ton of most close that needs to be accountability and redress for the situation that these people have been put. i think you're exactly right we, we don't know thanks to the freedom of information act, for example that,

that bradley berkin failed the u. b. s. whistleblower was arrested in exchange for the government of switzerland agreeing to take 2 weaker detainees from guantanamo for example. we only know that things to wiki leaks. so i think you're exactly right that we really don't know much of what the, what the u. s. government has negotiated with other governments. it's still secret . what do you eventually? i'm sorry, go read. just quite fun. mental that they, that they literally don't have any rights. literally, they are the whim of the united states government, all the house, government, cold jurisdiction, making go to clarify what their rights you know, and you see everywhere else around the world as well. john, when, when you government either under the pressure of the us government or from their own governments, come on the any kind of suspicion they can be harassed,

they can be arbitrarily detain. i mean, most i'm bank for example, the british citizen. how does the possible take him off him was imprisoned for a while. and then you know, when it came to putting him on trial, they miraculously didn't have any charges. that's run that it needs to be given as possible. back on what basis. this is a matter that was held at guantanamo with add charge of trial. it's extraordinary. we're going to get to that in a minute. i have a personal connect bag that i'm excited to talk to you about. first, i want to ask you, what do you see eventually happening to those few dozen prisoners who are still at one cano. my own personal position is that they have a constitutional right to face their accusers in a court of law and to be judged by a jury of their peers. if they've committed a crime, then they should be tried for it and have the opportunity to defend themselves. that has never happened. it likely never will happen. in the case of, i was

a beta whom i was responsible for capturing. if we're not going to charge him with a crime, then he must be released in the case of khalid shaikh mohammed. for example, if he truly was the mastermind of the $911.00 attacks, then charge him with that crime and put him on trial. how do you see all of this playing out in the end? well, you know, this again is quite a long story. the prison that is in 2008, the 2nd time secure would have is corpus right. that led to the own only time in guantanamo history, where the little actually applied and in a number of coal herrings over 3 dozen of these men, had their release ordered by judge rule that the u. s. government had failed to demonstrate that these people were involved in any meaningful sense without height or tell whether or not i groups and then the appeals court got hold all the

decisions and then they started making life difficult. and eventually they, they passed a number of rulings reducing the prison as ability to successfully secure what we have. yes, rulings. and eventually, you know, came to the ruling where they said everything that the u. s. government says must be treated as present to be accurate unless men who held with that right place can somehow demonstrate the bet, spoke to it. you know, we should have that. but the supreme court then failed to, to take arm the culture of appeal. so the culture appeals, we wrote that have a decision that was taken by the supreme court. and since then only one prison that i have is petition. granted. so the little failed part. the bio bama came up with the administrative process. but as i was saying that missed your process and

the legal weight and the government can say that they are going to release someone from grandchild. and if they've been done, there is no legal avenue that right a or their lawyers can use to to force them to be released. what i think will happen, and i think the pressure will eventually be effective. if the men who have been approved for release will end up being released, you know, because although it doesn't have a legal right, legal weight, it absolutely has a moral and ethical way. and i would say that the difference that we've had over the years between republican and democratic governments is that there are always people within the democratic government understand fundamentally some nation of right and wrong when it comes to panama. the sonia issue, john, these are basically the men who have been charged crime. right. and they are of course, cool up in this terrible groundhog day of the military commissions,

which simply are not fit for purpose. and the problem, of course, with that is that these member told you what the united states government should in the beginning, the bush administration is that if you torture people, you basically inextricably separate them from the ability for justice to be in, in a recognizable court. what's gonna happen? i don't know. i mean, i think what's been encouraging you lately is clea dale's being under way to attend, to negotiate that way at this with the men who are charged with the 911 attacks and various other crimes. because the united states further complicated the fact that it had told you these people by insisting i'm having these cases be capital cases. and as you will know, john leo, your people who are watching will know as well the, the level of defense that is required for a system or

a death penalty is much higher than if you were not taking the death penalty off the table. trying to negotiate some kind of plea deal with these men. i mean that they're not going free. no, but to, to, you know, to bring in some kind of conclusion, things would be b the way that it can end. but i don't know this gonna happen. well, i'd like to thank our guest today, author, journalist, and filmmaker, andy worthington, and thanks to our viewers for joining us, today's. well, remember the words of the great american thinker, howard zinn, who said imprisonment is a way of pretending to solve a problem. it does nothing for the victims of crime, but perpetuate the idea of retribution, thus maintaining the endless cycle of violence in our culture. it is a cruel and useless substitute for the elimination of the conditions that caused crime in the 1st place. poverty, unemployment, homelessness, desperation, racism,

and greed which are at the root of most punished crimes. while the crimes of the rich and powerful go mostly unpunished. thanks for joining us for another episode of the whistle blowers i'm john kerry. aku, we'll see you next time. ah. 2 ah, ah, and government has been killing his own people and on boss ideas. it's amazing that this is not to be covered in western media and hasn't been covered for the last 8 years. i'm here for 5 minutes and then i'm told the 1st 5 people they found it was 5 decapitated heads up in a quarterly request on demand employee, fos. cathartic to determine can use me no fight, but to say, keep doing your follow kid. the v v information will almost all the

independent journalists pointed out that nato and the u. s. were directly responsible for initiating the military conflict in ukraine, our casualties of it as long as we want the war to continue. we will fight that war using ukrainians as proxies and we will fight it to the last ukrainian death. that's what's happened in done boss this whole time. this is, these aren't objects, these are people. and so that's why i do what i do. that's why i'm here with the chinese president's visit to russia is historic for a number of reasons. first to accent, the growing russia, china strategic partnership, and 2nd, to demonstrate what both countries publicly advocate the transition to

a multi whole the world beyond american hegemony. ah ah moscow says the u. k. is escalating the conflict by promising to send depleted uranium ammunition to pray. russia highlighted the devastating health consequences for civilians and military after they've been used by the rock with a trip to russia. territory at foreign minister says western partners are pitting states against each other with the war and ukraine and changes in taiwan as clear example with freedom. and it just brings to people's issues on the ukraine picks. it predicts.