Review: "Guantanamo: What the World Should Know"

In the coming weeks, narconews.com will be publishing the book ''Guantánamo: What the World Should Know'' serially on The Narco News Bulletin. An extended interview of human rights attorney Michael Ratner by Authentic Journalist Ellen Ray, the book provides an in-depth look at one of the great human rights travesties of the Bush administration: the horrific prison camp for suspected "terrorists" in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The book is a tour de force of analysis and criticism from Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Ray, president of the Institute for Media Analysis and co-founder of the groundbreaking magazine Covert Action Quarterly.

Today, we publish Narco News Authentic Journalism Professor Jules Siegel's review of the book. Siegel, a widely published author and himself a veteran of the U.S. Army 4th Military Intelligence Unit, wonders upon reading the book if the "war on terrorism" represents the end of democracy in the United States:

"Ratner notes that 134 of the 147 prisoners later released from Guantánamo were guilty of absolutely nothing. Only thirteen were sent on to jail. He believes it is possible that a substantial majority of the Guantánamo prisoners had nothing to do with any kind of terrorism. One prisoner released after a year claimed he was somewhere between ninety and one hundred years old, according to Ratner. Old, frail and incontinent, he wept constantly, shackled to a walker.

"So what did the authorities get from those who survived? We will never know, but we can guess from at least one incident in this book. Ratner reports that the Guantánamo interrogators showed some of his clients videotapes supposedly depicting them with Osama bin Laden. At first they denied being in the videos, but they confessed after prolonged interrogation under harsh conditions. Yet British intelligence proved to the American government that the men were actually in the United Kingdom when the tapes were made."

Siegel continues:

"We have seen how the drug exception to the Constitution has nullified basic American rights such a freedom from illegal search and seizure. But the war on drugs was merely a test run. Some rights remained intact. Now comes the permanent war against terrorism in which all human rights are annihilated."

Read the whole review, at:

http://www.narconews.com/Issue35/article1157.html

Copies of Ratner and Ray's book can now be purchased from Salón Chingón. These books were generously donated by Chelsea Green Publishing, and are available to our readers at the discount price of $10.00 dollars, shipping included. All proceeds go to the Fund for Authentic Journalism.

Buy the book online, at:

http://www.salonchingon.com/giftshop/

And stay tuned for each installment as we publish the book online.

http://www.narconews.com

From somewhere in a country called América,

Dan Feder Managing Editor, Narco News http://www.narconews.com

ENDS

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