Begin Your Journey With Guantanamo Dagboek Created By Mohamedou Ould Slahi Ready In Physical Edition

mustread for every person of conscience, eloquently written in the author's fourth language, English, As I told my husband about Mohamedou Ould Slahi's continuing, more thanyear, incarceration at Guantanamo, and particularly about the abuse and torture, both physical and psychological, he has received at the hands or behest of the U.
S. government, he asked how I could stand to read about these things, The answer: To bear witness to Slahi's experience so that we can end, and in future prevent, such miscarriages of justice, In Mr. Slahi's own words redaction is the US government's, not mine:

"Human beings naturally hate to torture other human beings, and Americans are no different.
Many of the soldiers were doing the job reluctantly, and were very happy when they were ordered to stop, Of course there are sick people everywhere in the world who enjoy seeing other people suffering, but generally human beings make use of torture when they get chaotic and confused.
And Americans certainly got chaotic, vengeful, and confused, after the September,terrorist attacks,

"At the direction of President Bush, the U, S. began a campaign against the Taliban government in Afghanistan, On September,, a joint resolution of Congress authorized President Bush to use force against 'the nations, organizations, or persons' that 'planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks on September,, or harbored such organizations or persons.
' Then the U. S. government started a secret operation aimed at kidnapping, detaining, torturing, or killing terrorist suspects, an operation that has no legal basis,

"I was the victim of such an operation, though I had done no such thing and have never been a part of any such crimes.
On September,, I got a call on my cellphone in Mauritania in West Africa, Slahi's homeland, where he lived and worked and was asked to turn myself in, which I immediately did, sure I would be cleared.
Instead, Americans interrogated me in my home country, and then the U, S. reached a joint agreement with the Mauritanian government to send me to Jordan to squeeze the last bits of information out of me, I was incarcerated and interrogated under horrible conditions in Jordan for eight months, and then the Americans flew me to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan for two weeks of interrogation, and finally on to the Guantanamo Bay Base XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, where I still am today.
"

Throughout his captivity, Mr, Slahi has repeatedly asked his captors to tell him what the charges are against him, without success in fact, in all this time, the U.
S. government has never charged him with a crime, Nearly five years ago, a federal judge ordered Slahi's release, but the U, S. government fought that decision, and there is still no indication of when, if ever, the government plans to release him,

Please read and share this powerful book and insist that the U, S. government immediately charge or release Mohamedou Slahi, Let's be clear about a couple of things: this is not astar read in the way that War and Peace is astar read.
While this book is actually quite nicely constructed, it is in the author's fourth language and contains too many colloquialisms for my liking, In spite of that bit of prissiness on my part, I think it is one of the most important books of the past decade, Now I know that there are a lot of "my country, right or wrong" morons out there that will take me to task on this and claim that I am opposed to liberty and hate the military and so on and so on.
nothing could be further from the truth, I believe that the profession of arms should be an honorable undertaking and that the military should be the staunchest defender of the principles that democracies are supposed to be built on.


Guantanamo Diary is the heavily and clumsily censored account of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a man who was kidnapped in Mauritania at the request of the US government, exported from Mauritania to Jordan for some softeningup torture, and then on to Guantanamo for a good old longterm butt ramming American style.
I basically knew nothing about Mauritania before reading the book, The little bit of research I did on the topic makes it sound like some amazing Backward Land where women try to make themselves as fat as possible to attract a husband and men ask the fiancée's mother for her hand in marriage.
. . but I digress.

Now Slahi has been a prisoner of the US government sinceand is resident in Guantanamo since, He has claimed to be innocent throughout this ordeal, He readily admits to being a member of Al Qaeda back in the day when it was an organization that was funded and backed by the USA.
He claims to have split from the group when they started going goofy after the Russians were expelled from Afghanistan, Is he lying Is he guilty Does it matter The basic principles on which American justice is based state that he should be tried if evidence substantiates a charge.
Otherwise, he should be released, If found guilty of an offence, he should be humanely held in quarters that reflect well on the American public as befits a generous and just nation.
And that's without even going into the constitutionality and legality of Slahi's arrest in his own homeland, an apprehension that amounts to kidnapping, But as Slahi tells one of his interrogators: " You're holding me because your country is strong enough to be unjust, p.

So for over a decade Slahi has been beaten, insulted, humiliated, starved, hoodwinked, submitted to sensory deprivation and exposed to extremes of heat and cold.
Guards worked in shifts in order to deprive him of sleep, Female interrogators were used to humiliate him sexually by fondling and rubbing up against him, I wonder if this is what these women had in mind when they joined up, . . being a sexual foil for military interrogators You've come a long way, Baby!

On top of that, many of Slahi's interrogators were masked.
Who the hell is masked nowadays Looters rioters people in the witness protection program interrogators! CRIMINALS! You only need a mask if you intend on doing something criminal.


Eventually, of course, Slahi broke down under torture and started to admit to almost everything they wanted him to admit to, in the same way that people admitted that they were witches who copulated with Satan back in the days of the Inquisition.
torture anyone long enough and you will get the same result, . . give an interrogator a week in a cold dark room with Hillary Clinton and she will eventually admit to planning the attack on the WTC.
Information obtained under torture is meaningless,

Slahi is still under wraps in Guantanamo, despite an order issued by an American judge inthat dictated his immediate release, The American military no longer recognizes American law,

I was a little miffed that a couple of Canadian investigators also interrogated inmates in Guantanamo, . . horrified would be a better word, with the thought that anyone from my country would be even remotely associated with this Hell on earth, My faith in my country was restored when I read this excerpt of a Supreme Court decision regarding agents of CSIS and DFAIT interviewing Guantanamo inmates:

" The deprivation of Khadr's right to liberty and security of the person is not in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.
The interrogation of a youth detained without access to counsel, to elicit statements about serious criminal charges while knowing that the youth had been subjected to sleep deprivation and while knowing that the fruits of the interrogations would be shared with the prosecutors, offends the most basic Canadian standards about the treatment of detained youth suspects.
"P.

There are parts where Slahi lays it on a little too thick or gets a little whiny, but let's not forget that this is supposed to be a diary, and the writer will have his ups and downs.
One day he complains that he has no blankets, and later he complains that he has blankets but has to make his bed in a military fashion.
I would be more concerned about the masked man who was going to run in and boot me in the soft parts, In spite of it all, his faith seems to keep him amazingly upbeat and, more amazingly, he still has a lot of good things to say about Americans.


I heartily recommend this book, . . it will make your blood boil, You may come to the same conclusion I did, . . that the only modern industrialized nations capable of this type of excess are Russia and, sad to say, United States of America,

Αν ψάχνεις για ένα βιβλίο ώστε να περάσει ευχάριστα η ώρα σου, δεν είναι αυτό. Άλλωστε δεν γράφτηκε προς τέρψιν των αναγνωστών. Το ημερολόγιο αυτό θα σε ταράξει, θα σε σοκάρει, θα σου ανακατέψει το στομάχι με τη βιαιότητα, ίσως σε αφυπνίσει για τα πολιτικά συμφέροντα, μα πιο πολύ από όλα, α σε κάνει να υποκλιθείς μπροστά στο μεγαλείο και το σθένος της ανθρώπινης ψυχής. Αν τα έχει κάνει όλα αυτά, ωραία, έχει εκπληρώσει τον σκοπό του.
Χρειάστηκε αρκετές φορές να πείσω τον εαυτό μου να συνεχίσει να διαβάζει για την απανθρωπιά, την ωμότητα και τη βάρβαρη υπόσταση του κόσμου όπου ζούμε. Μια στάλα ενσυναίσθηση αν έχεις, σε συγκλονίζει με τα όσα περιγράφονται.
Και παρά το γεγονός ότι οι απαλοιφές του λογοκριμένου κειμένου ήταν κάπως άβολες και ενοχλητικές για την κατανόηση του τι διαβάζεις, ταυτόχρονα όμως αποδεικνύει το μέγεθος της φρικαλεότητας που αποκρύφτηκε και των ατόμων που τη διέπραξαν.
Μόνο σεβασμός για αυτόν τον άνθρωπο που υπέμεινε τα πάνδεινα χωρίς να επιλέξει την εύκολη διέξοδο.

This review is not about how the book is good or bad, This review is about how a man can have the energy and the patience to learn and write his diary using a language that he barely knew.
This review is about how a man can have the courage to stand up and start writing, after all, the torture, humiliation and agony, This review is about how a man can write with so much love and fun about his torturers and guards, I had known some Mauritanian people and I discovered how they are generous and lovely but Mohamed is beyond that he is a Mauritanian Gandhi or Dalai Lama who is trying to face his enemy with love, understanding and empathy.
I liked the MOHAMADOU OULD SLAHI BOOK, but I liked much more MOHAMADOU OULD SLAHI the person, I'm recommending this to

everyone Slahi is the first and so far only person to have been held in Guantánamo and tortured by the US to have written about and published a memoir.
Mark Danner in the New York Times wrote that the diary "is the most profound account yet written of what it is like to be that collateral damage" mentioned by our torturer in chief Dick Cheney.
This harrowing tale is but one of what will someday be many direct accounts by victims,
Originally from Mauritius, Slahi,, was detained on a journey home in Januaryand questioned about the socalled Millennium plot to bomb the Los Angeles airport.
Slahi admitted that he'd fought against Afghanistan's communist government with the mujahedin, at that time supported by the US, But he never opposed the United States, Authorities released him. A year later, the young engineer was again detained and again released, Months later, Slahi drove himself to a local police station to answer questions, This time, Americans forced him onto a CIA plane bound for Jordan, where he claims he was tortured, On August,, Americans brought him to Guantánamo, Slahi is among the detainees whose horrific torture there is the centerpiece of the Senate report, None other than thenSecretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld signed the "special interrogation plan" authorizing his brutal ordeal, Slahi divides his imprisonment into pretorture, when he truthfully denied any involvement in terrorism and posttorture, "where my brake broke loose, I yessed every accusation my interrogators made, I even wrote the infamous confession about me planning to hit the CN tower in Toronto, based on SSG redacted advice, I just wanted to get the monkeys off my back, "
His captors beat and threatened him, subjected him to bitter cold and sleep deprivation, stress positions and repulsive sexual abuse by female interrogators, Yet with astonishing grace, Slahi seems more traumatized by the torture he witnessed, He saw teenagers who could barely lift their heads, confused old men and others like him who said anything to get the pain to stop.
Slahi taught himself English so he could write hispage memoir, long kept secret, Once his lawyers got his manuscript released, authorities refused to let Slahis editor, journalist Larry Siems, meet him, Siems calls the memoir "a journey through the darkest regions of the United States' post/detention and interrogation program, " Not Redacted

"The Law of war is Harsh, If there's anything good at all on a war, it's that it brings the best and the worst out of people: some people try to use the lawlessness to hurt others, and some try to reduce the suffering to the minimum.
"

Putting aside political, cultural and spiritual preferences I personally found this book to be thought provoking, eyeopening, candid read, filled with humor.
I'm always skeptical about autobiographies as I find them firstly Boring and Unnecessary, This book broke all my preconceived prejudices and I am extremely please that I picked it up, I'm not going summarize what this book is about because you can do so from it's Goodreads Page but what I will say is this.
While reading this book about Mohamedou Ould Slahi experiences and the things that he pass through, ie, from the perspective of who he is and what religious faith he ascribed too it has me firstly examining myself, Whether I too hold knowingly or unknowingly prejudices and or fixed thought patterns that I don't even question if they are right or wrong about people, cultures and religion that I have never taken the time to really know.
This book left me asking myself a lot of hard questions, Oh Boy That's always a good think,

Still Thinking, but here's some quotes that are on replay in my head from the book

"All of this shit happens because of hatred, Hatred is the reason for all Disasters.
"

Dictatorship is governed Chaos

Read This Book ,