Guantánamo Diary: The Fully Restored Text

Mohamedou Ould Slahi has been prisoner #760 at Guantánamo Bay military prison since 2002.

In 2001, at the behest of U.S. authorities, he was arrested --or kidnapped, depending on how you see it--in his native Mauritania, on the West coast of Africa, and secretly taken to a "black site" in Jordon where he was interrogated for eight months, then flown to Cuba.

At Guantanamo, military intelligence officers and guards subjected him to "special treatment," a protocol personally approved by then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. This included 24-hour-a-day interrogation, beatings, sexual abuse, extended periods of sleep deprivation and enforced stress positions, withholding of food and medical care, and isolation so complete he did not know if it were day or night. His guards wore masks and the International Red Cross was prevented from meeting with him.

Slahi's transgression?

None.

U.S. authorities were unable to find any crime with which they could charge him. In 2010, a federal judge ordered Slahi released.

Our government appealed this decision and Slahi remains, to this day, incarcerated at Gitmo.

You are excused for imagining Slahi's memoir would be filled with bitterness and invective. It is not.

In remarkably readable colloquial English--Slahi's fourth language, which he taught himself in prison--this young, pious Muslim details his treatment with poignancy and dark humor.

If anything, he under-reports the brutality, providing a just-the-facts description. Even so, readers will get a good sense of the day-to-day brutality, the nitty-gritty that news reporting cannot convey.

Where guards are kind, he says so. And where the U.S., CIA and FBI are stupid and cruel, he also says so.

Reading Guantanamo Diary, you realize that you are in the presence of an extraordinarily decent human being.

Slahi finished his hand-written manuscript in 2005. We have the published form--redacted, often clumsily, by military censors--because Slahi's attorneys fought for seven years to have it released. Larry Siems, author and human rights activist, edited the manuscript with a light hand, preferring direct impressions of Slahi to a tidy chronological tale. He did yeoman's work digging through public records and news reports in order to augment redacted passages with copious footnotes.

The ACLU is leading a campaign to free Mohamedou Slahi. You can find out more at [...]

A very difficult book to read with all the censorship. I was only able get get half way through the book before deciding it was a waste of my time because all he basically kept saying was how badly they were treated at Guantanamo. I then scanned to the back of the book and it seems that that is all he continues to write about.
On page 36 he describes a medical check up in which he states "A blood pressure check showed 110 over 50, which is very low." No it's not! That's a near perfect blood pressure. And then he states "The doctor immediately put me on small red tablets to increase my blood pressure." No doctor would ever do this for a blood pressure of 110/50. I know because I'm a RN.

In late 2014 the US Senate prepared the release to the American public and the world. "The Torture Report", which provided details of the types of torture, and the people who developed the methods, and those in the Bush Administration personnel who approved them, and the Agencies who implemented them.
For some this document was a revelation, for others it was Democratic Party propaganda, and for others it just gave details of what we had expected.
From the beginning of the Bush "War on Terror", there's have been, leaks and independent reporting on the injustices committed in our name. The first clue were reports of mercenaries who were paid a fee for every combatant they delivered to the US: and how this was being abused, people turning in neighbors they hated, lone travelers rounded up far from combat zones, shepherds, and others that could be passed on for rewards. It reminded me of a system that was destined to turn out badly. Because when a drive for vengeance starts by rounding up bodies with no regard to innocence or guilt, you know in your heart that the rule of law on which our country was founded has just been thrashed.
If one scoured for the buried stories in newspapers, you got the picture of Black Ops sites, illegal renditions, people being transported to governments know for torture, and the picture began to look bleaker as to the methods we as a nation were beginning to justify as expedient.
It is hard to stand as the world beacon for human rights and lecture other nations and take actions against them for the violation of human rights when we are simultaneously adopting their methods.
The release of the photos of our behaviour at Abu Ghriab was a wake up call for those who had not been paying attention. But as is typical the story became, a few bad apples who misbehaved in violation of orders, with some prosecutions of minor enlisted people: because after all our children were there fighting for "the hearts and minds" of the population.
Thought it became apparent that Gen. Geoffrey Miller had been assigned to Gitmo-ize The prison.
We will not be free from the previous human rights violations we have committed until we finally close the detention camp at Guantanamo. We cannot continually hold people without formal charges, without adequate representation because we are embarrassed about our participation in heinous acts. Guantanamo is the beacon of American injustice that fuels terrorism throughout the world. We have proven in American courts that we are totally capable of trying known terrorists legitimately within our court system. If we are truly a nation of laws, we should prosecute those held, and release those for whom there is insufficient evidence.
This appears to be politically impossible at this time, but information about our actions will eventually force us to address this. For our ability to speak out against human rights violations elsewhere, we need first to clean our own house.
I highly recommend reading Ali H. Layman's "Black Banners" to get an FBI's perspective on enhanced interrogation techniques failure to produce actionable intelligence.

First up, this book is not depressing, and is fun to read. I realize that's a weird thing to say about a torture chronicle written by a current Guantanamo detainee, but I lead with it because I bought it only from a sense of duty to know, as an American, what my government is doing. I cracked the spine with dread, and then was amazed to find myself uplifted, not by the crimes and injustices of the American government, of course, but by the ability of the author to remain human and humane in the telling of his ordeal. Guantanamo Diary is a classic of war literature and I beg everyone who reads my blog to buy it and, ideally, go sign the ACLU petition for Slahi's release.

Mohamedou Ould Slahi is a Mauritanian citizen who has been held in Guantanamo for 13 years, without charges, and who has experienced some of the most brutal interrogation performed at the facility—he has been tortured. He makes a compelling and seemingly open case for his complete innocence (and was cleared by Mauritania and Jordan before being extradited to the U.S. in 2002). A U.S. District Court judge ordered him released in 2010, but the Obama administration has appealed and he remains in Guantanamo to this day. At least one military interrogator resigned over his treatment. The book was written in 2005 and has been classified ever since, while the Slahi's pro-bono lawyers fought to gain access to it. It was finally redacted and published January 2015. The volume's editor, human-rights activist Larry Siems, writes of Slahi:

"He has the qualities I value most in a writer: a moving sense of beauty and a sharp sense of irony. He has a fantastic sense of humor. He manages all of this in English, his fourth language, a language he was in the process of learning even as he wrote the manuscript."

And all of these excellent qualities are harnessed in service of giving a precise, damning, humorously rendered detainee's-eye view of American intelligence proceedings. Slahi often makes points "to be fair" to his interrogators or guards, puts himself in their position, tries to understand how they've ended up where they are, mentions good treatment as well as bad, etc. He writes:

"If there's anything good at all in 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."

At first after being extradited to Jordan (per U.S. request) and interrogated there for 9 months, he reports being happy to be in American custody because, "I wrongly believed the worst was over, and so I cared less about the time it would take the Americans to figure out that I was not the guy they were looking for."

Slahi learned English in detention, from his guards and interrogators. There's a wonderful/horrible moment where he's being dragged along with a bag over his head noting some of the finer points of spoken English: "...at the same time I was thinking about how they gave the same order two different ways: 'Do not talk' and 'No Talking.' That was interesting"

Over time, he says, "those responsible for GTMO broke all the principles upon which the U.S. was built and compromised every great principal such as Ben Franklin's 'They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.'" The abuses he writes about are chilling, from being forced to drink 22 ounces of water every hour for weeks at a time, sleep deprivation, beatings, stress positions, forced ingestion of seawater, isolation, enduring extreme cold, ice-torture, sexual assault and much more. One of the most surprising to me was that female interrogators seem to be routinely used to sexually harass, molest and humiliate the devout Muslim prisoners. What a great use of women in the military! The people responsible for coming up with these tortures shame and degrade American service-people.

Slahi eventually cracks under torture and confesses to anything and everything.

It's probably stating the obvious to say that I don't believe honorable people treat other human beings like this, whatever the ends may be.

I'll end with one of his closing statements:

"I have only written what I experienced, what I saw, and what I learned first-hand. I have tried not to exaggerate, nor to understate. I have tried to be as fair as possible, to the U.S. government, to my brothers, and to myself. I don't expect people who don't know me to believe me, but I expect them, at least, to give me the benefit of the doubt. And if Americans are willing to stand for what they believe in, I also expect public opinion to compel the U.S. government to open a torture and war crimes investigation. I am more than confident that I can prove every single thing I have written in this book if I am ever given an opportunity to call witnesses in a proper judicial procedure...."

Please everyone, buy the book and sign the petition. It is the least we can do.

Mohamedou Ould Slahi's journey into the darkest heart of American justice is tragic, horrendous and embarrassing. Any American who holds the belief that the American brand still stands as a gleaming beacon of exceptional values should read this book. Mohamedou has never set foot in the United States, yet the American military and intelligence agencies have taken control of his life and kept him in various prisons since 2001. It is unlikely that Mohamedou has ever done anything to harm Americans, the United States or broken any law anywhere. However, he stood on top of the list of enemies of the U.S., and he was erroneously labeled a "mastermind" of plots against the U.S. He was kidnapped from his home and rendered to Jordan where he was tortured by Jordanian authorities on behalf of the United States. Very little that has happened to him since 2001 was legal. He was taken to Guantanamo after he had been released without charges from Afghanistan, Jordan and his own Mauritania. In a sadistic Alice and Wonderland world, he has fallen down the rabbit hole and subjected to continuous horrors. An American federal judge ordered his release in 2010 after finding no reason to continue his incarceration, but the Obama Administration appealed his release and the nightmare continues.

The book is told by Mohamedou in his own words. An intelligent man who knows several languages and has learned enough English since his capture to write this book, he is surprisingly serene and lacking in bitterness about his plight, owing to his deep faith.

The book recounts several years in captivity in which the prisoner is asked the same questions thousands of times. Like "Groundhog Day," he relives a bondage, discipline, sado-masochistic nightmare again and again. The crude, vile face of our military forces at their barbaric worst is revealed. Apparently, the United States employs sadistic female whores in these prisons to humiliate and assault prisoners with sexual games. Our military apparently has perverted male guards who humiliate religious people with male on male sexual assaults. We have seen the photographs from Abu Ghraeb of such activities, but, at Guantanamo, the use of sexual perversion and humiliation was routine. The banality of such evil was known and condoned, and, even today, endorsed by sick, psychopaths who perch like vultures on some branch of the chain of command. The condition of this inmate was the subject of regular updates informing the Bush White House and the highest levels of the CIA. The architect of this grisly policy of torture and murder was Donald Rumsfeld.

Guantanamo will live, like Auschwitz, long in the memories of the human race as these atrocities will never be forgotten. The disgraceful conduct of our forces with the endorsement of the American people will haunt our future. For the love of God, let this man go home!of

I really struggled with this book, morally, politically and practically. The last part is easy to explain as the text contains the original redactions in black marker pen as the censors struck out the sections they regarded as dangerous to US security. This makes for a disjointed and confusing read, heightened by the fact that the redactions were not done consistently and details obscured in one section, remain in full in others. However it was my own inner confusion that produced a highly personal struggle in reading Guantanamo Diary. Half of me said this has to be true and the other half argued but surely US Homeland Security and western intelligence forces are not as misdirected, inconsistent and self-defeating as they come across in this Mauritanian man's account of how the intelligence war against Al Qaeda terror suspects was conducted. True, half true or a total pack of lies, Guantanamo Diary is a vital read.

Guantánamo Diary by Mohamedou Ould Slahi and Larry Siems (Editor) is a very thought-provoking and disturbing book. This man was arrested and released in 2002. Arrested again and then held, although the government where he was arrested could not understand why he was arrested but they were doing it for the Americans. He was shipped to a couple of places until he arrived at Guantanamo. Never charged with anything, held from 2002 then was finally told he was to be released in 2009 by Judge Robertson but Obama's administration appealed it so he went back to the pit of forgotten souls. He kept a diary during his stay there and it is held by the government as "top secret" because they don't want their abusive ways known but of course we all know. With the freedom of information act, some redacted pages were released and published here. He describes what he went through, and he is still locked up. There was no convincing evidence at the arrest or at the trial or wrong doing but still he sits in a prison of horrors. Who is really the terrorist?

(I included this book as one of several attempting to understand Islam, the War on Terror, and the rise of ISIS. See list of some of the related books are listed below.)

Perhaps what haunts me the most about this book is Slahi's comment that in the US you can be a white supremacist, anti-government protestor, or highly critical of the government and be protected by the First Amendment. But if you speak similar rhetoric against the US as a citizen of another country, you risk being expedited to Gitmo as a terrorist/enemy/existential threat, or worse. There is a strong sense of madness in this book, Catch 22-style. The more he is beaten and fails to produce any evidence, the more they think he must just be cleverly hiding it, and the more they try to torture it out of him.

In short, if you want evidence that America has long since left its moorings of individual liberty and Habeas Corpus and now has a massive bureaucracy fighting a shadow war with little accountability and little regard for human life or dignity, then this is a good place to start. I hope this book is required reading in a high school somewhere. This is one book that should have been required reading of Americans in 2016 as we could have a more intelligent debate about what we want this country to stand for.

The US government never found evidence to take Slahi to trial. He repeats his story to his guards and his interrogators repeatedly, only to have to repeat the ordeal when their time of service is up and new guards and interrogators are rotated in, some for training. He is kept from calling his family for years. His is subjected to both mental and physical torture that makes waterboarding look desirable. Those facts are published openly, our government admits to them. What it doesn't want you to know, it has redacted in this book. I read this book in the spring of 2016, and shortly thereafter Mohmedou was cleared for eventual release. Mohamedou was finally released in October; back to his family in Mauritania, without charge, after 14 years.

Supposedly, Mohamedou mastered English while writing this. Though quite valuable, historically, his editor inappropriately compares the book to the Homeric epics. Perhaps it would be more homeric without the constant redactions (you can find a link to the original hand-written manuscripts on the book's website. Slahi had been a college student in Germany where he earned an engineering scholarship. He is a devout Muslim, and a Hafiz (memorized the Quran). In the early 1990s, he went from Germany to Afghanistan to fight with Al Qaeda against the Afghan government, which the US also opposed at the time. He maintains he severed his links to Al Qaeda and returned to Mauritania, but his cousin/brother-in-law was allegedly a spiritual advisor to Osama bin Laden. Slahi's house was used by three jihadis to spend a night before traveling to Afghanistan in 1999, where they were to receive training to fight in Chechnya. The US government maintains this was itself a terrorist act.

Slahi moved to Montreal in 1999 where he led prayers at a mosque, where one of the bombers in the Millenium Plot either worshiped or was radicalized. The Canadian government investigated Slahi but found no evidence he even knew the bomber. Slahi returned to Mauritania in 2000, where he was detained and questioned for three weeks by the FBI, who released him. At some point, his Al Qaeda-affiliated cousin and he attend the same wedding of a relative, which the US maintains again put him in contact with Al Qaeda, although his cousin apparently left sometime before 9/11 and disavowed the attacks. Slahi kept working as a computer engineer but was rounded up after September 11 with other persons of interest, this time extradited with no hope of release. He was extradited from Mauritania by the CIA, a move that was unpopular in Mauritania when it was revealed because it was a breach of national sovereignty and Mauritania's constitution; it cost their president an election.

The military and FBI interrogators are obviously split over his interrogation. This conflict among multiple would-be suspects is backed up by FBI agent Ali Soufan's book The Black Banners. His interrogators always question him about the Millenium plot on LAX, something he has already been investigated for by three different countries and been allowed to walk free. He recounts the plane rides and torture of being restrained in a jump suit in which it is hard to breathe, much less eat. The CIA secretly rendered him out and Slahi reports being detained in Central Asia before rendered to Jordan for torture and interrogation for several months. From Jordan to Guantanomo.

At Gitmo, the guards would take the prisoners blindfolded on high-speed boat rides, trying to make them think they were being transferred, or perhaps just to torture them by near-drowning and suffocation. At some point, it gets sadistic because it is clear that Slahi and some other suspects know nothing that would be useful to the US government, yet they are still endlessly questioned and tortured through various means. There is the sleep deprivation and blaring music, being kept from doing their required prayers in Islam (something Slahi was deeply concerned about his salvation over). While some of the scenes with women coming in, disrobing, and sexually molesting the married man are redacted, much of it is not redacted-- the government admits your tax dollars are paying for this. By regulation, these activities would be monitored by guards and interrogators, and I guess this is what they do for entertainment in Gitmo.

Slahi is not given his mandatory International Red Cross phone call for 6 years in detention. He's held naked in a 49 degree room. He notices how his interrogators are clearly frustrated with the military as they watch Marine guards beat him senseless, perhaps out of their own frustration with the military. (Medical records confirm his condition and beatings.) A federal judge orders him released on Habeas Corpus in 2010 as there was not a case against him-- it's not illegal to be related to a terrorist. At the time Slahi's memoir was declassified in 2012, there was no prepared prosecutorial case against him. Yet, he was still deprived, held, and interrogated. He has been lied to and manipulated by guards, their bosses, and bureaucrats. His lawyers are the only truly sympathetic ears he has. He describes his Marine guards as "big babies," always playing video games and taking out their boredom on him with beatings and manipulation.

Mohamedou asked for a Bible early on in his captivity to help with his English and better understand the West. It was better than learning English through his guards' curses. Through reading it, he feels he gained insight into the war in Iraq and the West's interest in the Middle East in general. Sadly, for years his only experience with people he assumed to be Christians were brutality. His guards mock him for being a virgin until marriage, taunting him as being gay (oddly, I had a similar experience as a virgin Christian in a Muslim country and that endeared me to him a bit more). Slahi rightly notes that "Americans worship their bodies..." Only after several years in captivity is a Christian woman assigned to him and she watches out for his health and well-being. They engage in religious discussion and, perhaps the most sad aspect of the book for me, she doesn't understand the Gospel:
She explained her assurance of going to heaven, which Slahi found remarkable because even with his memorization of the Quran, teaching in a mosque, praying perfectly, etc., the Quran gives him no such assurance. When she explains that it was because she had "accepted Jesus" he writes that that's just one more work a person has to do. I know only what little of their discussions Mohamedou records, supposedly she enlists the help of others in theological discussions. But he never grasps that Christianity teaches that our righteousness isn't our own, it is Christ's and given only as a free gift, none of our works--praying/not praying, etc. can obtain it.

There is the issue of a false confession, which he gave to an interrogator who he trusted as humane and promised to help him get what he wanted. It's not clear if and when he met with other prisoners and lawyers before the government gave up on him, but eventually he is allowed fellowship and to plant his own garden with the help of the Christian woman. After the government has basically given up on him, he's given books, watches movies with his guards, plays video games and other activities that just make his continued captivity for no reason even more absurd. He's kept in prison because he's in prison. I give this book 4.5 stars out of 5. The redactions cause it to suffer (not the only book on the list below that is redacted, others are worse) and I am sure someone in the US government would say Slahi is lying about something somewhere. I'm just glad he's finally back home. This book speaks volumes about an America few Americans know.

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Other books I read or listened to concurrently:
A History of Islam, The Middle East, and Arab nations:
A Very Short Introduction to the Koran - Michael Cook (4.5)
A Very Short Introduction to Islam - Malise Ruthven (3 stars)
In the The Shadow of the Sword - Tom Holland (4 stars)
In God's Path - The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire - Robert G. Hoyland (4 stars)
Great World Religions: Islam (The Great Courses)- John Esposito (1.5 stars)
Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes - Tamim Ansary (4.5 stars)
Brief History of the Middle East - Peter Mansfield (3.5 stars)
History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani (4.5 stars)
The United States and the Middle East 1914-2001 (Great Courses) by Salim Yuqub (3.5 stars)
Islam Unveiled - Robert Spencer (1.5 stars)
Lawrence in Arabia - Scott Anderson (5 stars)

Reform-style:
Desperately Seeking Paradise - Ziauddin Sardar (5 stars)
Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz - Islam and the Future of Tolerance (1.5 stars)
Reza Aslan - No god but God - The Origins and Future of Islam (2.5 stars)

Reform and human rights:
Infidel - Ayaan Hirsi Ali (4.5 stars)
Heretic - Ayaann Hirsi Ali (4 stars)
Headscarves and Hymens - Mona Eltahawy (4 stars)
I Am Malala - Malala Yousafzai (5 stars)
I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced by Nujood Ali (4.5 stars)
In the Land of Invisible Women - Qanta Ahmed (4.5 stars)
Between Two Worlds - Zainab Salbi (5 stars).
City of Lies - Ramita Navai (3 stars)
Reading Lolita in Tehran - (read earlier)
Half the Sky - Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn (4 stars)
Seeking Allah Finding Jesus - Nabeel Qureshi (4.5 stars)

Foreign policy/Americans traveling in Middle East and Central Asia:
Between Two Worlds - Roxana Saberi (2.5 stars)
Children of Jihad - Jared Cohen (4 stars)
The Taliban Shuffle - Kim Barker (4 stars)
A Rope and a Prayer - David Rohde and Kristin Mulvihill

Al Qaeda and ISIS books:
The Siege of Mecca - Yaroslav Trofimov (5 stars)
The Bin Ladens - Steve Coll (4 stars)
Growing Up Bin Laden - Najwa and Omar Bin Laden (4.5 stars)
Guantanamo Diary - Mohamedou Ould Slahi (4.5 stars)
The Black Banners - Ali Soufan (5 stars)
Black Flags - The Rise of ISIS - Joby Warrick (4.5 stars)
ISIS - Jessica Stern (4 stars)
ISIS Exposed - Eric Stakelbeck (2.5 stars)
The Rise of ISIS - Jay Sekulow (1 star)

One controversy surrounding the ongoing war on terror is the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Used to house suspected terrorists, or “enemy combatants”, individuals held there are subjected to routine and ongoing interrogations. Obama himself promised to close the prison, but to this day it still remains open. What goes on there is a closely guarded secret – operating outside of the Geneva Convention, which is one the main criticisms of the prison. One story that has emerged is that of Mohamed Ould Slahi a prisoner that has been held there for many years. Guantanamo Diary chronicles his experiences there, and also of his arrests and ongoing interrogation. He began writing the diary 3 years into his stay, and although a federal judge ordered his release, he remains in U.S. custody in Cuba.

The diary was written by Slahi, and what he describes and details are not only the conditions under which he lives in Guantanamo, but the way in which he was captured and detained. He was suspected to have been a part of the Millenium plot, which before reading the book, I knew nothing about. Larry Siems edited the book, and he also worked to get the book published to get Slahi’s story out there. The book was also edited twice, and censored by, the military. The details are shoking – and I had a vague of what went on there, and a somewhat strong opinion against the prison and the housing of “terrorists” there. Waterboarding is just the tip of the iceberg. Here he talks about the ongoing interrogations:

“Weeks went by, months went by, and the interrogators’ thirst for information didn’t seem close to being satisfied. The more information a detainee provided, the more interrogators complicated the case and asked for more questions. All detainees had, at some point, one thing in common: they were tired of uninterrupted interrogation.”

I know there are real terrorists there, there are bad guys there. But, many have been there for years, like Slahi himself, having never actually been charged with anything. He was originally detained Mauritania, and actually had once been affiliated with Al Qaeda when they were fighting against the Soviet Union with Afghanistan. Somehow his name stayed on a watch list, which is somewhat understandable. He goes through a short series of prisons in the middle east, and is briefly released to his family. He is arrested again after 9/11, and it’s then that he finally makes his way to Cuba.

Parts of this book were shocking – but it was hard to put down. I hope there can be real justice for the prisoners being housed at Guantanamo. With that said, I also read this book with the idea that Slahi himself could be guilty of something, and that in reading the diary, I was only getting one side of the story. The story is compelling, and part of a broader story that may never be told.

This redacted version is driving me nuts. I'm having to trust some knuckle dragging fool in my government to decide what I can and can't read. This reminds me of the Mormon Church who, right here in my state of Utah, has decided what its members can or can't read, eat, drink or otherwise live their lives. I'll be damned if I'm going to simply accept such behavior from my secular government.

Honestly, I was hesitant to read this book. I was worried that the graphic descriptions would get to me. The tone of this book is not like that though. Yes, there are graphic descriptions of torture and abuse, but the tone is not one of self-pity. The descriptions are more factual, almost as if told by a neutral party, and there is not a lot of pity-mongering. The descriptions of torture don't even start until past the half-way point of the book.

Slahi is clearly an intelligent man. The book we are reading has been edited for grammar, but there are copies of his actual writing. Since English is his fourth language, his ability to convey his thoughts so clearly is impressive.

The story is, of course, tragic. The breaking of his spirit and the guilt he feels is terrible. I hope that one day he can see the book and hopefully add more. There is a LOT that has been redacted, but Siems (compiler/editor) does his best to fill those blanks from records that he obtained.

There is a lot that has stayed with me from this book, but I was particularly moved by how empowered he felt when he was allowed to have a water bottle to drink on his own terms. (He was forced to drink at intervals, often against his will, prior to that) He knows the readers will not fully appreciate it when he tries to convey how much freedom he felt in that moment. They have been stripped of so much that being able to decide when he drinks is a luxury to him.

Overall, a must-read and very socially relevant book.

Should win a Pulitzer Prize—Beautifully written account by a Mauritanian whom the Germans, Canadians, and Mauritanians decided after intense interrogation was no terrorist, but whom the U.S. nonetheless "rendered" to Jordan for torture and then to Bagram Air Base followed by Guantanamo Bay. Writ of habeas corpus granted in 2010, but still not released. Lt. Col. on U.S. prosecution team (whose friend had been copilot of UA Flt. 175 on 9/11) withdrew indicating he couldn't, as a Christian, continue to go with the prosecution using that kind of evidence. Larry Siems, the editor, has done a wonderful job through his introduction and footnotes, of filling in the blanks created by the U.S. censors and pulling helpful background information into the picture. Frankly, I didn't expect the writing to be so engaging or fair-minded under the circumstances. Quite believable, given the situation of Canadian engineer Maher Arar, to whom the Canadians (but not the Americans) awarded a large sum as a result of similar treatment of a much shorter duration.

Heartbreaking story excellently told. Check out this one too: "Murder at Camp Delta: A Staff Sergeant's Pursuit of the Truth About Guantanamo Bay" by Joseph Hickman. Another interesting (and infuriating) read. President Obama, close this hell hole.

Mr. Lincoln, King, and the Kennedy brothers gets assassinated, yet Bushy, Cheney, and Rumsfeld thrive on. It's a mad/sad world.

i just went to the link per C. Olson's review at https://www.aclu.org/free-slahi. Super easy to sign a petition for Mr. Slahi, took me 2 secs.

P.S. For those that aren't aware: please try to shop at smile.the store.com, your purchases will support [Charity of your choice]. i don't work for the store, i just think this is a great service from the store that not many ppl are aware of. My charity is for medical care for animals in Romania, for example.

After reading the media and print reviews I wanted to read this very detailed diary about prison life at Guantanamo, and draw my own conclusions. I have conflicted feelings about Slahi and his story is not easy to rate. Like it? Love it? does not fit.The diary is difficult to read, and the redacted blacked out portions do not help. His writing about his treatment is gruesome, I cannot imagine such pain, and I am angry at the way he was treated by some American military and intelligence personnel. He draws one in with his emotions, humor and language. He is a very smart person. Keeping him detained for so many years without absolute proof of his involvement in terrorism and sufficient evidence to prosecute is troubling. When Slahi was to be released President Obama pulled the plug. Why? What other intelligence does the U.S. have to keep Slahi detained? I would recommend reading this diary, but it is not for the faint hearted. There are awful descriptions of his treatment in Cuba and other countries. The diary, I believe, supports the closing of Guantanamo as President Obama promised.

One of the most disturbing things you will ever read, this account of imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay in the aftermath of 9/11 is among many things a testimony to the stupidity of redaction.
Redaction - a vogue word for crossing stuff out - is as imperfect an art in the hands of American security agencies as their approach to interrogation.
Applied as inconsistently as it is in this diary of a detainee's shocking experiences at the hands of the super power, it is worse than useless.
Analysis by the editor and others was able to peel back the suppressed details with ease.
As to the account itself, who are we to believe? There are inconsistencies in his story that are unexplained.
By the end, the reader is left with a strong desire for some counter-balancing narrative, because on its own this is a story that by its very nature remains one-sided.
That being the whole point, perhaps.

The process, people and power this man has confronted are a testament to the degrading of America's democracy and therefore a posthumous Usama Bin Laden victory at the hands of the very people charged with protecting the country. They failed its constitution, and exposed its population to more danger, economic as well as physical. The book is clear-eyed, even-keeled, humorous and harrowing at the same time. It should change this country.

I have read excerpts on line, but cannot bring myself to read the entire work because of the subject matter. I cannot fathom what it would be like to have to actually live this horror, for a single moment never mind fourteen soul numbing years. Good work, Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, et. al. This is the only legacy you will be remembered for. That you advocated for, championed and fought for the right to do to the author what you did. I'm pretty sure fire and brimstone await you.

Too many questions. I am very skeptical regarding the redactions. At first you believe that it is for national security, but as it progresses I am concerned that it is to reinforce the narrative from the prisoner's perspective. Why would MOS's entire polygraph be redacted, surely there were baseline questions asked at the beginning which would require no redaction.
Based on his narrative if MOS was considered the number 1 for terrorism intel the world is a very safe place. It also argues the point that GITMO is not a training tool for Islamic terrorism because it must be filled with nobodies or just low level foot soldiers. MOS attempts to make the point that after several years in custody that he would some how be able to provide the US with current and accurate intel that the US with all of our operatives would not be able to verify. He also states near the end of the book that he has provided intel which would allow the US to capture an operative. So which is it? Is he an innocent or is he involved with terrorism.
According to his timeline within 7 months MOS has a TV/VCR and a laptop in his cell, after deciding to "cooperate." MOS builds friendships while playing chess and debating religion with his captors. He is also allowed to repair their electronic items. Why would the military allow MOS to repair DVD players let alone computers in prison? It would require the issuance of tools that MOS could have used as weapons, and access to information as he "repaired" the computers.
Interrogators asking MOS for a critique of their interrogation techniques so they could improve for the next prisoner and learn from their "mistakes" is ludicrous.
With all of the prisoners released by President Obama, including those with direct ties to Bin Laden, why is MOS still incarcerated? Based on MOS's story Obama should have released him year ago.
I still have to give credence to the treatment of prisoners in custody.

Bought after hearing about it on NPR, eager to read what I hoped would be a window into the opaque world of Guantanamo. The work was a disappointment. I didn't trust the narrator. My bull$hit detector kept getting tripped. My impression is that Mr. Slahi is a salesman peddling a worldview, not a chronicler. It read more like Bill O'Reilly than Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

To put this review in some context, I'll say that the prison at Guantanamo repulses me. I see it as a horrifying precedent and a violation of American ideals. As an American, I believe condemnation of the prison is a patriotic duty. However, it is also a free man's duty to be critical and discerning. Guantanamo Diary did no so much shed light on a dark corner of a dark room as it bolstered the enduring maxim that the first casualty of war is truth.

Guantanamo Diary is an extraordinary book and the first-ever memoir to be written by a Guantanamo detainee. It is also an American story – one that is ongoing. Don't forget to sign ACLU's petition to #FreeSlahi www.aclu.org/free-slahi

After hearing an interview with Larry Seims on the radio, I checked this book out. I have no reason to doubt what Mahamedou Ould Slahi writes. I personally believe that he is being held unjustly, as are other detainees. To assume that "Guantánamo Diary" offers an academic argument against the detention of so-called "enemy combatants" would be a mistake. The book only offers one person's experience being caught up in a national policy gone bad.

Unfortunately, as literature the book does not hold up. The redactions make it very difficult to read, despite Seims' well-researched attempts to give the redactions context. In addition, not much actually happens in the book. Slahi is detained at various black sites around the world before he is sent to Guantánamo. From there, the book reads like a laundry list of interrogations, which included exposure, sexual humiliation, sleep deprivation, beatings, fake executions, and so forth. Reasonable people will agree that treating people in this manner is wrong and it is clear from Slahi's book that he is being mistreated. It is not my intention to in anyway trivialize his treatment, but the narrative rarely progressed.

Something that is mentioned only very briefly in the forward is the fact that Slahi did serve as a combatant in Afghanistan, fighting against the Soviets at a time when he was hailed by Ronald Reagan as a "freedom fighter." After that, Slahi lived a perfectly normal life, studying computer electronics and trying to improve his family's situation.

While I appreciate the exposé and believe it provides a very valuable case study of the injustice given to one man, the book does not read very well. It is an important document to have, it is only one person's perspective.

Seller was wonderful! Received the book quickly, and was packaged well. For what it's worth, I felt bad after reading this. I felt like I just helped fund a terrorist. My gut tells me that the Mohamedou is guilty as hell, and I hope that the proceeds from my purchase don't assist with his release. I feel that he is deceptive, and the different agencies and Countries that have detained him had every right to do so....not faulting the publisher, but this guy deserves to be exactly where he is.

Have you ever watched "raw, unedited" videos?
You know that you have to spend a lot of time and really pay careful attention to glean anything useful from them.

The editor mentions at the very beginning how he intentionally kept his editing limited to things like tense (English is the author's 4th language).

As a result, other than looking at the timeline of events at the beginning, I simply was unable to wade through this large book despite the fact that I read voraciously.

While I can only speculate, the US Government must have had some compelling reason for his detention.

Do you expect:

1) For Mohamedou Ould Slahi to tell the truth of the extent of his involvement in terrorist activities?

2) The US Government to tip it's hand and publicly reveal all it knows about him and his web of connections, jeopardizing any
ongoing intelligence gathering or intelligence gathering methods?

Setting aside our pre-9/11 concepts of "human rights", even then only applied when convenient for us while wagging our finger at other countries,
of course there is the question of how useful torture is for obtaining intelligence and the "shelf life" of any info gleaned.