Surely no readers of this newsletter are celebrating the endorsement of Harris by “Dick” Cheney and Alberto Gonzales, the torture memo guy. Shayana Kadidal, attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights, who has defended multiple men imprisoned unjustly in Guantanamo, in a Nation article, Torturers for Harris, writes that one
suspects that the Cheney types—the crew who brought you the Iraq war, and wholeheartedly support the genocidal war in Gaza—find Trump poses a grave threat to their vision of “national security.” Again, the irony is rich—but perhaps the more important point is that Harris doesn’t pose a fundamental threat to their vision for projecting American power in the world…
In case you missed it, you can still view the virtual program, Until Justice: Forging New Life After Guantanamo.
Global Vigils to CLOSE GUANTANAMO NOW ― Wednesday October 2 and November 6
From journalist Andy Worthington in London:
I initiated the vigils in February last year, on the first Wednesday of every month, in recognition of the need for the plight of the men still held at Guantánamo to be highlighted on a more regular basis than the annual vigils that take place on January 11 every year, marking the anniversary of the prison’s opening, and I’m delighted that, after the first coordinated vigils involving campaigners in Washington, D.C. and London (where monthly vigils had resumed in September 2022 after a long hiatus), other friends and colleagues came on board in the months that followed, including New York City and Mexico City, Brussels, Cobleskill NY and Los Angeles, Detroit, Minneapolis and San Francisco, from organizations including Amnesty International, Witness Against Torture, the World Can’t Wait, NRCAT (the National Religious Campaign Against Torture), and the UK Guantánamo Network.
This month, we were delighted to welcome Portland, Oregon to our global family of peaceful warriors against the ongoing and largely ignored injustices of Guantánamo, with Dan Shea of Veterans for Peace Chapter 72 organizing the first vigil in the US Northwest.