THOM HARTMANN'S "INDEPENDENT THINKER" BOOK OF THE MONTH REVIEW

Eight O'Clock Ferry to the Windward Side
[0]By Clive Stafford Smith
Reviewed by Thom Hartmann

If you were to ask the average American where the people currently being held in the US-run Guantanamo Bay concentration camps came from, most would tell you that they were Al Qaeda "fighters" who had been "captured on the battlefield." This myth has been repeated over and over again during the past six years -- and it's just that, a myth.

Fact is, 95 percent were not even taken into custody by US troops, but instead were turned over to US troops by people being paid the equivalent of about a quarter-million dollars "bounty." Right after our invasion of Afghanistan, US planes flew over impoverished regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan dropping leaflets offering US$ 5000 -- more than 7 years average salary in those regions -- to anybody turning in a "terrorist." People saw opportunities to settle old scores, turning in neighbors they'd been feuding with, literally kidnapping strangers just to get the bounty, and using the US to dispose of troublesome members of rival tribes, clans, or sects.

As a result, 92 percent of the people held at Guantanamo are not even accused of being fighters for Al Qaeda.

Clive Stafford Smith is a British-born US citizen and attorney who has defended roughly 50 of the Guantanamo detainees over the past few years. His book -- brilliantly written in first-person narrative and an evocative, almost novel-like style -- lays bare the horrors of the most prominent of a worldwide chain of US-run torture centers and concentration camps.

The main reason most of them have not been released, it appears to this reader of Smith's book, is because to do so would expose crimes of torture, illegal detention, and human rights violations so severe that they could lead to international criminal prosecutions of senior Bush (and, possibly, Blair) administration officials.

Twice the US Supreme Court -- stacked with so many Bush family toadies that they even stopped the vote count in the 2000 election in Florida because to count every vote in the state could lead to "irreparable harm" to plaintiff "Bush" -- has ruled that these concentration camps are illegal. Twice the Bush administration has had its handmaidens in the then-Republican-controlled Congress pass laws seemingly making them legal (the most recent being the horrific Military Commissions Act).

But the heart of Smith's book [0] is more of a journey through the Alice In Wonderland world of twisted logic, broken laws, and kangaroo courts that front for and interpenetrate the US system of concentration camps. This book offers the best glimpse I've ever seen, tells the most horrifying story, fully gets you into the horrors perpetrated by the disturbed, frightened little men of the Bush administration.

As Smith points out in the book, ultimately this isn't just about Guantanamo. "Guantanamo is a diversionary tactic," he writes in the preface, "the lightning rod not only for criticism but also for global attention. The world has largely ignored the other secret prisons where many more prisoners are being held in even greater isolation. These other detention centers are flourishing. The U.S. takes prisoners daily in the 'War on Terror' -- in Afghanistan, in Iraq and the Middle East, in the Horn of Africa, and beyond -- and something must be done with them. There is, therefore, not the slightest chance that the administration will abandon its broader secret prison program even when it trumpets the closure of Guantanamo."

The stories that Smith tells in this book are horrifying and infuriating, and ultimately compelling. Brilliantly written and nearly impossible to put down, Eight O'clock Ferry lays out with clarity both the tragedy of our behaviors as well as their banality.

At this holiday season, people of most of the world's great religions are celebrating champions of peace, justice, and the enduring reality of the most noble aspects of human nature. Holding up to the cleansing light of day the terrible and tragic behaviors of our nation, done in our name, will hopefully help us all disinfect ourselves of the psychopathic illness inflicted on us by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, and their handmaidens in this criminal administration.

That is a holiday gift worth giving ...

Thom Hartmann is a New York Times bestselling author and the host of "The Thom Hartmann Program" syndicated nationally by Air America Radio. His website is ThomHartmann.com. [1]  You can find information on how to listen to his program (online if you don't have a radio station that carries it) and read more about his great books.

This book is available in the BuzzFlash Progressive Marketplace. [1]

THOM HARTMANN'S "INDEPENDENT THINKER" BOOK OF THE MONTH REVIEW

Technorati Tags: Thom Hartmann [7] Guantanamo [8] Secret Prisons [9] Terrorism [10] Eight O'Clock Ferry [11] Thom Hartmann [12] Clive Smith [13]