MERIP updates

Dick Cheney Dead

An Archival Remix on the Neoconservative Legacy

James Ryan • 3 min read

Current Analysis

The Battle for Truth about CIA Torture

The 9/11 case at Guantanamo is the last active front in the battle for truth about US torture. Official secrets, lies and myths are exposed and challenged, motion by motion, witness by witness.

Lisa Hajjar • 14 min read

Current Analysis

Postcard from Guantánamo

On June 14, 123 people -- including a military judge, teams of civilian and military defense lawyers and prosecutors, eight courtroom observers, and 15 journalists -- flew on a C-17 from Andrews Air Force Base to Guantánamo Bay for military commission proceedings. It is my fifth trip to Guantánamo,

Lisa Hajjar • 4 min read

Current Analysis

Seven Places You Didn't Know Were Part of the Middle East

1) Guantánamo

George R. Trumbull • 4 min read

Current Analysis

In Guantanamo, Offshoring Prisoners and Workers Alike

When I traveled to the US military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba in 2009 to visit a client imprisoned there, the daily routine was straightforward: Every morning, legal teams representing detainees would leave the Combined Bachelor Quarters that also housed civilian guests on the base and meet our mi

• 3 min read

Current Analysis

What the Guantánamo Leaks Won't Reveal

In the coming days, many will pore over the Guantánamo files released by Wikileaks to find startling revelations or to justify pre-existing positions. But before diving in, it may help to reflect on a few things that may not be explicit in the documents but are crucial to understanding their signifi

Darryl Li • 5 min read

Current Analysis

Getting It Wrong in Guantánamo

I was at Guantánamo Bay prison on Halloween. In a ghoulishly fitting coincidence, that was the same day a former child solider was convicted for war crimes for the first time since the end of World War II. Eight years and one day after Omar Khadr arrived at Guantánamo, his military commission case c

Lisa Hajjar • 2 min read

MER Article

American Torture

Starting with the publication of the Abu Ghraib photos in April 2004, [1] there has been a steady cascade of revelations about the Bush administration’s brutal and dehumanizing interrogation and detention policies. These days, the last refuge for die-hard deniers is the euphemization that “enhanced interrogation” is not “torture.

Lisa Hajjar • 15 min read

MER Article

On Torture

BOOKS REVIEWED: Darius Rejali, Torture and Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007). Marnia Lazreg, Torture and the Twilight of Empire: From Algiers to Baghdad (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008).

Laleh Khalili • 18 min read

Current Analysis

The Power of The Guantánamo Bar Association

If you doubt that we are still “a nation of laws,” you haven’t visited the American Civil Liberties Union web site to peruse the thousands of pages of government documents concerning the “war on terror” made available through Freedom of Information Act litigation. While Bush administration policy ma

Lisa Hajjar • 4 min read

Current Analysis

Torture and the Lawless “New Paradigm”

The president who campaigned on a pledge to “restore honor and dignity to the White House” has now been compelled to declaim: “We abide by the law of the United States, and we do not torture.” In the closing months of 2005, President George W. Bush has been forced to repeat this undignified denial s

Lisa Hajjar • 14 min read

MER Article

A Bloody Stupid War

When a war breaks out people say, “It’s too stupid; it can’t last long.” But though a war may well be “too stupid,” that doesn’t prevent its lasting. Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves.  -- Albert Camus, The Plague

Moustafa Bayoumi • 27 min read