Close Guantanamo NOW Global Rallies
New York City NY
World Can't Wait initiated the rally in which we gathered outside the main branch of the NY Public Library on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street on January 11. The open violations of human and legal rights of those detained – secret “renditions,” torture by third country allies, “enhanced interrogation" via the CIA – shocked the world. And yet, the U.S. has upgraded Guantanamo. The demands of the rally were:
- Close Guantanamo Now
- End indefinite detention without trial, allow prisoners to defend themselves
- Immediate release and repatriation to join their families for 21 men who have been “cleared” for years
- Health care and financial support for those men who have been “freed” but unjustly denied years of their lives through detention outside the law
Co-sponsoring with World Can't Wait were: Witness Against Torture, NYC War Resisters League, Peace Action NY State, Veterans for Peace NYC Chapter 34, Brooklyn For Peace, Pax Christi NYS, NYC Democratic Socialists of America (The Anti-War Working Group Organizing Committee), Veterans For Peace Chapter 113-Hawaii, World Beyond War, Raging Grannies, Granny Peace Brigade NYC, Veterans For Peace Chapter 90, Broome County Peace Action, September Eleventh Families For Peaceful Tomorrows, Uptown Progressive Action and Code Pink.
January 11, Protests to Close Guantanamo NOW!
The Bush regime set up a detention camp on Guantanamo in January 2002, designed deliberately to be out of reach of U.S. and international laws, as part of its “war on terror." 779 Muslim men were detained, almost all held for years with no charges. Nine died there; 735 have been released without apology or reparations. 21 of the remaining have been “cleared” for release, many of those when Obama was president. Three of the remaining are called “forever” prisoners whom the government will never charge nor release because to do so would reveal the torture methods the government developed on them. Very few were ever found guilty of a crime and none received legal due process.
The open violations of human and legal rights of those detained — secret “renditions,” torture by third country allies, “enhanced interrogation," via the CIA — shocked the world. And yet, the U.S. has upgraded Guantanamo.
Download: Poster and GITMO-Clock
We gather on the 21st anniversary of this torture camp to say:
Congress as a War Prop
Last week, Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies discussed their book, War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, here in NYC. This week, things further worsened as the U.S. moves more and more into direct conflict.
This past week, Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General of NATO (the U.S.-led military coalition) warned that the war in Ukraine could at any moment "become a full-fledged war that spreads into a major war between NATO and Russia."
From our roster to you
Debra Sweet | December, 19 2022
Read messages from the veterans who do We Are Not Your Soldiers presentations:John Burns
One of the most telling quotes I remember being told when I first joined was “You get to travel to distant and exotic places, meet interesting and exciting people, and then kill them.” It goes without saying this shouldn’t be something we aspire to. Since I have been alive, we have never not been in a war. Is this what progress looks like?
Our speakers have new published memoirs
The world still cannot wait for the United States to cease being the biggest danger to world peace. Please support the message from people living in this country that humanity and the planet come first with your year-end donation to World Can't Wait.
>> A generous supporter will MATCH the first $2500 in donations, so make yours count double.
Dangerous events in 2022 - the proxy war between the U.S./NATO and Russia fought at the risk of Ukraine’s people, and the U.S. provocations toward China – mean that the existential threat of nuclear war is now, horribly, not unthinkable. A mass rejection of wars of aggression and the system promoting it from people in the imperialist countries here, in Russia and Europe is how the interests of global humanity and the planet can be realized. World Can’t Wait’s mission of “humanity and the planet come first” is one of protest on the streets, such as this year’s No Nuclear War actions, and struggle with people living in the U.S. who have been led to think “America First.”
The U.S. wars we don't see
The U.S. war "of" terror laid bare the unlimited ambitions of the U.S. to wage war unlimited by national boundaries or time, going to the "dark side" per Dick Cheney. The world was outraged, and we should never forget.
But the U.S. empire is maintained on the backbone of the world's largest military, with truly a global imprint. This is what people living here largely don't see. The global system of production is protected by a network of 876 identified U.S. bases, by secret operations, by the new forms of warfare including drone and cyber.
This is all important to know.
7600 DAYS of Guantanamo
Say what? Two Republican presidents - and two Democrats - hold on to the U.S. torture camp into its third decade. Saifullah Paracha, cleared for release years ago, with no charges, was finally released last week at age 75. But 35 men are left, most "cleared" but still imprisoned.
Tuesday Nov. 1, marks 7,600 days of Guantanamo’s existence. Andy Worthington and CloseGuantanamo.org ask you to take a photo with the Close Guantanamo campaign’s poster. Send it to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . via the Gitmo Clock website or share on social media tagging with #CloseGuantanamo.
Beyond "America" to the world
It seems months of negotiations took place for 30 U.S. House members (not including Bernie Sanders) to produce and submit a very mild request to Biden to negotiate an end to the U.S. proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. But Democratic Party leaders weren't having it and, within hours, forced the House members to withdraw the letter, as if it never happened, and to back off and apologize.
It's outrageous that this very polite request got slapped down so harshly. But it's also frankly criminal that the "progressive" people in Congress took 8 months to even raise questions about - much less opposition to - the apparent determination of the U.S. to fund and instigate a long-term slaughter and apparently to block negotiations by Ukraine.
Emergency for Rights in Iran: Women-Life-Freedom
On Saturday evening, a massive fire broke out at Tehran’s Evin Prison. Videos posted on social media show flames and smoke shooting up, billowing in the air, punctuated by the sound of gunfire and explosions. The lying Islamic Regime of Iran (IRI) claims prisoners - many political including some recently arrested in this month's protests - set the fire. But shots were fired into the prison, with many prisoners injured and at least 8 killed.
“Families of inmates outside the prison were tear-gassed earlier in the day Saturday, and roads heading there were blocked by nightfall…. Videos posted online showed people in neighborhoods around Evin chanting ‘Death to the dictator,’ while others showed riot police on motorcycles heading to the prison,” the Washington Post reported.
Which "side" are we on?
Debra Sweet | October 20, 2022
I am deeply saddened by the new and ongoing challenges to humanity; I had hoped not to be passing on to my children/grandchildren such a desperate state of affairs. Here is my quick, not very well thought out response to your question. You may well be right that the U.S. should be a pariah. Despite having been disillusioned many times by the U.S.'s ill-informed and cynical, even criminal, approach to world problems, I still cling to hope. (That, despite its many original sins, beginning with annihilation of its first inhabitants, alas.) ...
A Question
The New York Times and people who speak in the interests of Western imperialism say Putin won't use nukes against Ukraine because "his country could become an international pariah."
The United States did use nukes on HIroshima & Nagasaki in 1945. Every major politician in the "Western" bloc has justified the unthinkable because it "saved lives" and "ended" World War II. This is not true: the Japanese were ready to surrender, but the U.S. wanted to project power at the Soviet Union and other rivals and sacrificed hundreds of thousands of humans for it.
QUESTION: Why isn't the U.S. a pariah? Biden, leader of what I like to call the War Party, claiming the banner of "democracy," is pouring tens of $billions into the U.S. arms industry to ship arms to Ukraine. Because he cares about people there? No. To strengthen the U.S./NATO interests for global exploitation against Russia and China, who have their own global empires.
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