Elizabeth Ferrari: It has been confirmed recently<http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2010/01/blackwater-201001> that Erik Prince is or was a CIA asset and that Blackwater has been involved in a multinational assassination program -- in Germany, perhaps in Pakistan. To your knowledge, has the CIA used Blackwater operatives at Gitmo or at any of their other prisons, black sites or at Bagram, for example? Blackwater's impunity in daylight is terrible enough. It's very concerning to wonder what they do in secret and if they have been involved with detainees of the United States. Have you found any "fingerprints" to this effect?
Andy Worthington: In a word, no, but only, I'm sure, because I haven't had the time to look. "Contractors" are all over the torture, "extraordinary rendition" and secret prison stories, so I'd be very surprised if Blackwater wasn't involved somewhere along the line. I actually hope to do some more research into the secret prisons this year.
Elizabeth Ferrari: For those of us trying to follow these cases, what would you suggest tracking right now? What are you yourself looking out for?
Andy Worthington: Most of my time is still spent on the Guantà ¡namo story, trying to publicize the horrendous crimes of the Bush administration -- and to highlight the incompetence of senior officials, as much as their cruelty. If readers want a useful avenue to pursue, it would be to look at the cleared prisoners<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/12/07/116-guantanamo-prisoners-cleared-for-release-171-still-in-limbo/> who can't be repatriated because they face torture in their homelands -- dozens of prisoners from Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Tunisia and Uzbekistan, as well as the last seven Uighurs -- and to look at the work that Nancy Talanian is putting together at No More Guantà ¡namos<http://www.nogitmos.org/>, trying to persuade communities across the States to pass resolutions specifically adopting certain prisoners and asking Congress to overturn its ban on accepting cleared prisoners into the US, following the example of Amherst, Massachusetts<http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2009/1105/massachusetts-town-says-yes-to-guantanamo-detainees>.
Countries in Europe have taken a handful of these men, but they're finding little reason to do so when the US won't take any itself, and my fear is that cleared prisoners will remain in Guantà ¡namo -- or in some other hellhole in the States, if that project ever comes off -- for years, or for the rest of their lives, without concerted action to demand that the US government accepts responsibility for its own mistakes.
Otherwise, keep educated, spread the word, and keep an eye on the prison at Bagram airbase<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/09/15/is-bagram-obamas-new-secret-prison/>, which remains as much outside the law as Guantà ¡namo was back in 2004, before the Supreme Court got involved, and lawyers were able to meet with prisoners to begin filing their habeas petitions, and to bring their stories of torture and abuse to the world. That process was derailed by Congress<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2008/06/13/the-supreme-courts-guantanamo-ruling-what-does-it-mean/> for another four years (although the administration failed to keep the lawyers out), but no lawyer has set foot in Bagram, and, although a District Court judge ruled last March<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/04/06/justice-extends-to-bagram-guantanamos-dark-mirror/> that foreign prisoners rendered to Bagram and held for up to six years have the same habeas rights as the Guantà ¡namo prisoners, the Obama administration appealed, and the Court of Appeals is currently considering that appeal<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/07/AR2010010703205.html>.
Bagram's also important because it's where the war meets the detention policies, and I think we need to do all we can to bring together anti-war protestors, torture opponents, and opponents of the lawless detention polices of the last nine years, to try and get a new mass movement going at the start of this new decade.
Andy Worthington is a journalist and the author of The Guantà ¡namo Files <http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/the-guantanamo-files/> (Pluto Press), the first book to tell the stories of all the prisoners in Guantà ¡namo. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the new documentary, "Outside the Law: Stories from Guantà ¡namo,"< http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/outside-the-law-stories-from-guantanamo/> and maintains a blog here. <http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/
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