But the path to a final decision on the admissibility of the 2007-08 “confessions” to FBI  interrogators who came to Guantánamo as “clean teams” (totally different from CIA interrogators, the government maintains) is far from straightforward.

One defendant, Ammar al-Baluchi, already successfully convinced the previous 9/11 judge that his FBI testimony could not be used at trial. The prosecutors in the 9/11 case have appealed this ruling in the Court of Military Commissions Review (CMCR). The three judges who heard arguments on the issue are expected to render their decision sometime this summer. Whatever the CMCR judges decide, the decision will likely be appealed to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, and possibly to the Supreme Court.

While it does not establish a legal precedent in the 9/11 military commission, it is significant that in 2023, the judge in the case of U.S. v. Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, the man accused of plotting the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, ruled his FBI confession was inadmissible. In 2025, the CMCR upheld the ruling, affirming that his “confession” was legally “tainted” and rendered  “involuntary” by the brutal torture Mr. al Nashiri endured at CIA “black sites” prior to the FBI interrogation.

The current 9/11 judge says he intends to issue a ruling on the confessions of three of the 9/11 defendants – Khalid Sheik Mohammed (the 9/11 “mastermind), Walid bin Attash, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi – by August. He will need to rule on each defendant separately, as they each had different experiences of CIA torture and of their later transition to Guantánamo. Mr. al-Hawsawi, for example, was for a period of time detained at Guantánamo when the CIA was still using it as a “black site.” His attorney argued forcefully that there was no way his client could ever experience any interrogation at Guantánamo as anything other than a continuation of CIA interrogation, that could lead at any time to renewed torture; in other words, he was programmed to tell the FBI agents “what they wanted to hear.”

Attorneys for all three defendants argued that their clients were not given a Miranda warning, notifying them of their right to remain silent, their right to have an attorney present, and the fact that anything they said could be used against them in court of law. Mr. Mohammed, in fact, asked if he could have an attorney and was falsely told that he was not yet charged with any crime, despite that fact that the FBI agents were brought to Guantánamo explicitly to obtain confessions to be presented at trial.

Further muddying the water, two years ago, in a surprising revelation in the 9/11 pre-trial hearings, veteran FBI analyst Kimberly Waltz testified that during the Obama Administration, when moving the 9/11 trial to Federal District Court in New York was being contemplated, the Justice Department decided it would not try to use the FBI “confessions” evidence in court. This was later confirmed by former federal prosecutor Adam S. Hickey.

There is no current litigation concerning the FBI interrogations of the fifth 9/11 defendant, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, because his case was severed following a ruling by the previous 9/11 judge that he was mentally incapable of participating in his own defense as a result of PTSD and a delusional disorder that developed following his torture in the CIA “black sites.”

 Should the current 9/11 judge find any of the defendants’ statements to the FBI admissible, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi’s defense attorney’s will be allowed to call witnesses and present additional arguments in the 9/11 pre-hearings. They are currently blocked from filing new motions in the military commissions until there is a final decision about the legality of the pre-trial agreements they signed in 2024, which were subsequently retracted by then Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin.

The one certainty about the prospects for a trial of the 9/11 accused, is that it will not start on January 11, 2027, as the prosecuting attorneys have requested.

The post As the 25th Anniversary of the 9/11 Attacks Approaches, the Prospects for a Trial in the Guantánamo Military Commissions Remain Uncertain appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

The central issue in the pre-trial hearings, which began in May of 2012, remains unchanged: SUPPRESSION, whether the prosecution will be allowed to use information obtained by interrogators who questioned the 9/11 defendants after they were tortured by the CIA. The last five weeks of legal proceedings included some stunning witness testimony as well as several striking new developments that will have a bearing on the issue.

Testifying for the prosecution, former Naval investigator Robert McFadden described Walid bin Attash as participating voluntarily in interview sessions and eager to discuss his role in 9/11. McFadden also admitted the defendant was never read his Miranda rights nor offered legal counsel. McFadden previously testified in the USS Cole bombing case and the judge in those proceedings suppressed statements the defendant made to McFadden because of the defendant’s previous torture at a CIA black site. That decision has been appealed by the USS Cole prosecution, but there has been no decision after more than 10 months. READ MORE.

 Testifying for the defense, former CIA psychiatrist Dr. Charles Morgan (who played no part in the CIA’s RDI – “rendition, detention, and interrogation” – program) who is on the faculty of Yale Medical School and the University of New Haven, and works at the National Center for PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), portrayed the post-CIA interrogations very differently. Mr. bin Attash, he testified, would have been suffering PTSD and unable to distinguish between CIA and subsequent interrogators; any confessions he made, regardless of their apparent voluntary nature, were in fact “conditioned fear memories.” Morgan added that the defendant’s PTSD would have been causing him “pain and distress and psychological despair” and that the interrogators were “interviewing a person (who had) been traumatized…a person who suffers from a significant mental illness.” READ MORE.

 Despite significant testimony from witnesses like McFadden and Morgan, it also became clear that failure to conduct a speedy trial in the 9/11 case is producing new problems for the prosecution. Increasingly, expert witnesses are dying, suffering from health issues that make their appearance in court impossible, or showing understandable lack of detailed memory now more that 22 years after the events of 9/11.

During the five-week session the judge also made an unprecedented visit to the CIA black site on the Guantanamo base, presumably to see the interrogation room first-hand and determine how similar it is to rooms where post-CIA interrogations were subsequently conducted. He issued a statement explaining that a site visit would be “beneficial for determining” how to rule on suppression. READ MORE. While the April-May hearings were on-going, the New York Times broke a story concerning the attempt to move the 9/11 case to federal court, in 2009. Federal prosecutors, at the time, had rejected using confessions the 9/11 defendants made during FBI interrogations because of the failure to “Mirandize” them. READ MORE.

9/11 pre-trial hearings are scheduled to resume in July and August for another four weeks as the judge attempts to hear from all the witnesses whose testimony bears on the issue of suppression.

The post Hearings in the 9/11 Case at Guantanamo Move Closer to Crucial Decisions on Admissibility of Key Government Evidence appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

On February 1, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the counter-terrorism and human rights, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, announced she had come to an agreement with the U.S. government to visit and review practices at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Here technical visit will include meetings in officials in Washington D.C. followed by a four-days spent at the U.S. Naval Station Guantánamo Bay, Cuba where she and her team will talk with detainees and military personnel. Over a three-month period, Ní Aoláin will also interview individuals in the U.S. and elsewhere, on a voluntary basis, including victims and families of victims of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks and former Guantanamo detainees in countries to which they have been repatriated or resettled. At the conclusion of her mission, Special Rapporteur Ní Aoláin will issue an end-of-mission report on her findings and recommendations to address violations of human rights and international law.

Then on February 2, Majid Khan, who had been detained for nearly a year more than the sentence he received from senior military officials in October of 2021, was finally resettled to Belize, where his wife and daughter will join him. Khan was captured, in 2003, forcibly disappeared by the U.S., imprisoned, and tortured at overseas “black sites” operated by the Central Intelligence Agency, before he was brought to Guantanamo September of 2006. Khan pled guilty, in 2012, to war crimes including supporting al Qaeda by transferring money to individuals who carried out terrorist attacks in the years after 9/11. Although he completed his sentence in March of 2022, Khan remained at Guantanamo. In June of 2022, he filed a case in federal court, Khan v. Biden, challenging his continued imprisonment. The government never responded to the merits of Khan’s filing but arranged his resettlement in advance of a court-ordered deadline to do so. Read more about the many years of Khan’s legal challenges to Guantanamo justice.

The same day that Khan left Guantanamo, Theodore Olson, who coordinated 9/11-related litigation for the Bush administration and who is himself a 9/11 victim family member, became the highest-level member of the Bush Administration to acknowledge publicly the fundamental failure of the Guantanamo military commissions to deliver justice and accountability for the crimes of 9/11 and other terrorist acts. As Olson, who served as the 42nd solicitor general of the United States from 2001 until 2004, wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, “we made two mistakes in dealing with the detained individuals at Guantanamo. First, we created a new legal system out of whole cloth…. [T]he commissions were doomed from the start. We used new rules of evidence and allowed evidence regardless of how it was obtained. We tried to pursue justice expeditiously in a new, untested legal system. It didn’t work.” The second mistake was to pursue the death penalty in the newly created commissions, Olson continued. Although federal courts could have handled the cases 15 or 20 years ago, he concluded, that today, “the only guarantee that federal court prosecution brings is years of appeals resulting from the legal morass of the past two decades. This is no resolution…. The American legal system must move on by closing the book on the military commissions and securing guilty pleas.”

As the month drew to a close, on February 23, the Rabbani brothers, were returned to Pakistan after spending 20 years at Guantanamo without ever being charged with a crime. Although Pakistani by nationality, the brothers were born and raised in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and are ethnically Rohingya. They were captured by Pakistani security forces in 2002 and then held at a CIA detention site for 550 days before being taken to Guantanamo in 2004. The younger of the two brothers, Ahmed, became well known for his artwork and also for his participation in the hunger strikes Guantanamo detainees have mounted. The Pentagon recently partially lifted its ban on the release of detainees’ artwork, but it is unknown whether Ahmed was able to take the more than 100 paintings he made at Guantanamo with him to Pakistan.

The post GTMO UPDATE: Detainee Releases and High-Level Reviews of Guantanamo Policies and Practices appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

This announcement is coming after almost six years of tireless advocacy around the world, and on the heels of the January, 25th World Says No to War on Yemen Global Day of Action that CODEPINK helped organize. It comes after years of US lobbying, including getting bipartisan bills on Trump’s desk that were vetoed by the president.

CODEPINK has been engaged in the movement to end the war on Yemen since it began in 2015. “This is a hard-fought win for peace and it shows that activism in the streets and in the halls of Congress can bear fruit. We hope peace activists everywhere are heartened by this decision,” said CODEPINK co-director Ariel Gold.

Moving forward, CODEPINK will continue to push the Biden Administration to truly end all support for this war, which should include an end to all intelligence sharing with the coalition, an end to arms sales, and an immediate reversal of the terrorist designation for the Houthis, restoring and increasing humanitarian aid to all parts of Yemen, and reparations for the Yemeni people.

UPDATE: as of February 17th, 2021: CODEPINK applauds the Biden Administration’s decision to reverse the terrorist designation on the Houthis in Yemen. The administration also announced that they will stop offensive intelligence sharing with Saudi Arabia. Peace activists still seek clarity on what “offensive” support really entails, and there are still questions about which arms sales will still be permitted to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The post Codepink Applauds Biden’s Decision to End U.S. Support for The War On Yemen appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

And yet Saudi Arabia is escalating its war and tightening its blockade.

The war is only possible because Western countries — the United States and UK in particular — continue to arm Saudi Arabia and provide military, political and logistical support for the war. The Western powers are active participants and have the power to stop the world’s most acute human crisis.

The disaster in Yemen is man-made. It is caused by the war and blockade. It can and must be ended.

People and organizations from the U.S., Britain, Canada, France, Italy, and across the world, are coming together to call for an end to the war in Yemen and solidarity with the people of Yemen. We demand that right now our governments:

• Stop foreign aggression on Yemen.
• Stop weapons and war support for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
• Lift the blockade on Yemen and open all land and sea ports.
• Restore and expand humanitarian aid for the people of Yemen.

We call on people around the world to protest the war on January 25, 2021, just days after the U.S. presidential inauguration and the day before Saudi Arabia’s ‘Davos in the Desert’ Future Investment Initiative.

We ask individuals and organizations everywhere to participate in protests — with masks and other safety precautions — in their towns and cities on that day and make clear that the WORLD SAYS NO TO WAR ON YEMEN.

The post The World Says No to War on Yemen! International Protests, Monday, January 25, 2021 appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, while the U.S. government is unable to manufacture necessary protective garments (masks and gowns) for doctors and nurses working round the clock to save lives, U.S. arms manufacturers have been awarded new contracts for building more weapons with which to take lives.  Raytheon leads the pack with a Navy contract for 32 new Tomahawk missiles and as sole-source contractor for the highly classified Long-Range Standoff nuclear cruise missile.  United for Peace and Justice member groups and others in Massachusetts are working to shed light on Raytheon’s military contracting and its impacts.

Why Raytheon?

“Our work is still to insure peace, paradoxically through developing the world’s most powerful weapons systems…and these works are wonderful works indeed.”  —General Electric chairman, Fred Borch, 1964

“Together, we’re advancing defense strategy, protecting people and infrastructure through proven solutions that make that world a safer place – faster than ever before.” —Raytheon Annual Report, 2018

by Paul Shannon

What does Raytheon do? Celebrate gender and racial diversity? Offer a helping hand to little girls? Feed the hungry? Promote a green economy? Spread scientific knowledge to our young?

There is no better practitioner of the American genius for papering over wanton destruction and mayhem with comforting illusion than the Raytheon Company, headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. But in the real world, Raytheon is an essential component of the largest war machine ever constructed. In the real world, Raytheon is emerging as one of the leading merchants of death of our time.

The Raytheon Anti-war Campaign seeks to expose this reality, highlight the human destruction that Raytheon weapons cause (especially in Yemen), mobilize against the atrocities perpetrated with Raytheon arms, and lay bare the ways in which the company wields power.

The campaign is being waged by a coalition of groups, including Mass. Peace Action, United Against War and Militarism, Veterans for Peace, the Friends Meeting at Cambridge-Peace and Social Concerns, the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security, American Friends Service Committee and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

The Raytheon Anti-War Campaign held its first demonstration in August of 2018, along Concord Avenue in Cambridge, in front of the large Raytheon facility located there. It was the first of scores of spirited rallies the campaign would organize over the next 18 months, until the coronavirus hit. The campaign was officially launched at the end of September 2018 at an educational forum headlined by Medea Benjamin at the Quaker meeting house in Cambridge.

Raytheon, one of President Trump’s favorite companies, is based right here in “liberal” Massachusetts and our “liberal” politicians proudly celebrate its presence. The immediate goal of the campaign is to use Raytheon’s critical support for the U.S./Saudi war against Yemen and the company’s extensive presence in Massachusetts to give visibility to, create controversy around, and mobilize opposition to that war. The message is, “The war in Yemen may seem far way, but one of the key players involved in that war just goes along its merry way here in Massachusetts, piling up profits it makes off that killing: Yemen is Massachusetts’ War. We have a responsibility to end it.” In the process, we educate the public about the destructive U.S./Saudi Alliance and Raytheon’s role in promoting and profiting from U.S. war policies.

The clearest connection of Raytheon to that war is the billions of dollars in arms sales Raytheon makes to Saudi Arabia – including its guided Paveway bombs that have been used against civilian targets and civilian infrastructure in Yemen. Almost five percent of Raytheon’s total revenue comes from weaponry sales just to the Saudis – never mind what it sells to dozens of other countries. The Saudi war against Yemen has caused thousands of deaths and the infrastructure destruction that has led to starvation and cholera in that desperately poor country.

But the weapons sales are only the tip of the iceberg. Raytheon boasts of its 50-year relationship with Saudi Arabia, helping to protect the regime. It has 400 employees in-country. It has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Saudis to cooperate in military-related projects, including the establishment of Raytheon Arabia to be based in Riyadh, which will engage in increasing military cooperation. Recently President Trump gave Raytheon the OK to produce its sophisticated Paveway bombs in Saudi Arabia jointly with the Saudis. The truth is that Raytheon is a key component of the armed forces of the Kingdom.

And Raytheon is actually involved in the formulation of U.S. policy supporting the war in Yemen. Mark Esper, our present Secretary of Defense, was Raytheon’s top lobbyist. As Secretary of Defense, along with a lobbying firm currently hired by Raytheon, he deep-sixed, at the last minute, an amendment to the recent National Defense Authorization Act which would have ended U.S. involvement in the Yemen war.

Over the last year and a half, the Raytheon campaign has carried out scores of public actions at Raytheon plants, at our universities and at events sponsored by Raytheon or groups funded by Raytheon.

Raytheon recruiters are constantly at MIT, Northeastern, Boston University, Tufts, UMass / Lowell, and other colleges. The campaign has developed relationships with students at some of these colleges to carry out protests to publicize the war in Yemen and inform those who might be interested in working for Raytheon as to what the company is all about.

Raytheon uses its profits to fund numerous community groups, who sing the company’s praises, such as the Girl Scouts of America, the Walk for Hunger, MathCounts, the Boys and Girls clubs, and the Moon Shot commemoration project at the JFK Library on Boston Harbor. It runs science programs in many schools. We have established a presence at some of the events of these organizations, and have urged them to condemn Raytheon’s role in war crimes in Yemen.

Last fall, the campaign worked with State Rep. Denise Provost to file a bill that would divest the Mass. Pension Plan of its holdings in Raytheon and other companies selling weapons to the Saudis. The bill got 20 cosponsors. The hearing of the bill took place in Gardner Auditorium where for hours speaker after speaker testified, condemning Raytheon’s role in Yemen, and urging the Public Service Committee to give the bill a favorable report. Despite a valiant lobbying effort by members of the campaign, the committee sent the bill to study, effectively killing it. But our efforts have significantly raised awareness of the Yemen war and Raytheon’s role.

The campaign has sent out speakers several times to make public presentations. One of our members has created a power point presentation on the campaign. Our goal had been to significantly increase presentations to student, community and religious groups. Then, the coronavirus hit and turned the country upside down. We are now adapting our work to the present realities, carrying out further research on Raytheon and the tragedy in Yemen, updating our slide show, organizing a webinar series on Yemen and on the military industrial complex, and considering a project to put pressure on Raytheon to produce ventilators for hospitals instead of weapons for Saudi Arabia.

The Raytheon Anti-War Campaign has made a significant contribution to increasing the strength of the peace movement in eastern Massachusetts. We bring together students, young people and older activists to raise our voices for peace and against our country’s pervasive militarism and the brutal wars that we wage. We invite you to join us.

Paul Shannon is an organizer for the Raytheon Anti-war Campaign and is on the board of Mass. Peace Action and the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security.

The post Multi-faceted Peace Campaign Highlights Raytheon Company Destructive Purpose appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

It’s not surprising that Trump is more concerned with protecting Saudi interests and the profits of U.S. weapons companies than he is with protecting the lives of the Yemeni people. But we are not ready to give up and neither are the progressive leaders in Congress. Send a message now to your Senators and Representative asking them to vote to override Trump’s veto and support the next–even stronger–legislation in congress to end the war in Yemen.

H.R.643 and S.3652 go even further than the War Powers Resolution. S.3652 in the Senate, “the Saudi Arabia Accountability and Yemen Act of 2019,” is being led by by Senator Menendez and would prohibit certain arms sales to Saudi Arabia and in-flight U.S. refueling of Saudi war planes. H.R.643, introduced by Congressman Jim McGovern alongside a bipartisan group of 20 lawmakers in the House, would stop all U.S. arms sales and military aid to Saudi Arabia. Together, these two bills would effectively end the war!

Trump may think he can protect his family’s cozy, lucrative relationship with bloody Saudi leader MBS, but we know that real power lies with the will of the people. Together, with your help, we will keep making our voices heard until the war in Yemen is over. Take action now to tell your Senators and Representative to vote to override Trump’s veto and support H.R.643 in the House and S.3652 in the Senate  

Towards peace,

Medea Benjamin, CodePink, a member group of UFPJ

The post Override Trump’s Yemen War Powers Veto appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

 Now Vermont progressive Senator Bernie Sanders and constitutional conservative Senator Mike Lee of Utah have introduced a resolution to cut off U.S. support for this illegal war. Because Bernie’s resolution declares that the war in Yemen violates the Constitution, it’s guaranteed a vote on the Senate floor within days. That’s why UFPJ has joined a massive coalition of progressive partners to win this vote. But we need you to get your Senators on board. Click here to send them your message. NEXT: follow-up with a phone call—see the sample call script below

 This is a vote we MUST win!

Thank you for all you do!

The UFPJ Coordinating Committee

 Sample Call Script:

Hello,

I am a constituent of Senator _______________ and I am calling to ask [him/her] to support S.J.Res. 54 to end U.S. military support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

Over eight million people are facing famine as the result of my tax dollars supporting the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen’s civil war. S.J.Res.54 is a bipartisan, privileged resolution invoking the War Powers Resolution. It requires a vote on ending U.S. military support for this war.  As your constituent, I urge you to cosponsor and vote YES on the Sanders-Lee resolution to ensure that our nation stops causing suffering in a country already devastated by conflict, cholera, and famine.

Thank you.

The post End War in Yemen: A Vote We Can Win! appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

Once you’ve made your call, which is the most important action you can take today, please also take a moment to send a letter to your Senators and Representative using our online form, demanding that they stop supporting potential war crimes in Yemen!

Please contribute $10 to keep our campaign for peace going!

Thank you for taking this important action, today!

In Solidarity,

UFPJ’s Coordinating Committee

The post [Action Alert] Stop Weapons Sales to Saudi Arabia. End the War in Yemen. appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

“There have already been thousands and thousands of civilians killed…If you talk to Yemenis, they will tell you that this is perceived inside Yemen as not a Saudi-led bombing campaign, which it’s broadly advertised in the newspapers, but as a US bombing campaign or at best a US-Saudi bombing campaign. There is a US imprint on every civilian death inside Yemen, which is radicalizing the people this country against the United States.” -Sen. Chris Murphy

Yemen is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis, and the US-backed Saudi-UAE led coalition is responsible. Since their bombing campaign in Yemen began two years ago, more than 10,000 people have been killed, and millions have been forced from their homes. As a weapon of war, the Saudi Coalition is inflicting starvation on the population by blockading the country’s ports.  Fourteen million out of 26 million Yemenis are food insecure and Yemen is standing at the brink of famine.

Right now, all eyes are on the Port of Hodeida, which is a main entry point for a vast majority (70%) of Yemen’s food, medicine, and aid which 80% of the population depends on. Coalition forces have already imposed a blockade on the port and destroyed many of the vital roadways and bridges in Hodeida province. Now, many fear a military attack on the port, which would threaten the lives of over a million children already suffering from malnutrition. In response to the threat, the United Nations and aid organizations are busy preparing humanitarian contingency plans.

“Administration officials have proposed the US. participate directly in an attack on Yemen’s major port…such an attack could push the country into full-blown famine, where nearly half a million children in Yemen are facing starvation”. –Rep. Mark Pocan

The attack can be prevented. As Reuters stated, “the coalition of Gulf Arab countries might still be waiting for a go-ahead from its Western allies [to] launch the Hodeida offensive.” The US must act now and use its influence to stop provoking militarism and start using diplomacy in Yemen.

While Donald Trump goes to Saudi Arabia to sell weapons to the murderous Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, tell Congress that US should be working for a ceasefire and peace negotiations instead.

Peace activists are pressing forward through protest, lobbying, vigils, and even fasting to end to the war in Yemen. Our movement must continue to lead with actions to prevent an imminent attack on Hodeida, to stop arming and aiding the Saudi led coalition, and to support the work of humanitarian aid organizations on the ground in Yemen.

The post Send a Letter to Congress: No weapons to Saudi Arabia! No attack on Hodeida! Stop war crimes in Yemen! appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.