November 11, 2017, TD Blog Interview with Mark Fallon
In his more than thirty years as an NCIS special agent and counterintelligence officer, Mark Fallon has investigated some of the most significant terrorist operations in US history, including the first bombing of the World Trade Center and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. Soon after the September 11th attacks, Fallon was named Deputy Commander of the newly formed Criminal Investigation Task Force (CITF), created to probe the al-Qaeda terrorist network and bring suspected terrorists to trial. Mr. Fallon is the author of Unjustifiable Means: The Inside Story of How the CIA, Pentagon, and US Government Conspired to Torture, where he describes his experience in his role with CITF, and makes a number of other observations from his unique perspective, including the evolution of "enhanced interrogation techniques" (torture) into the American interrogation program and his and others' heroic efforts of many to thwart it that were ultimately not successful. On November 10, 2017, I had the privilege of interviewing Mr. Fallon by e-mail exchange.
The Talking Dog: My usual first question is "where were you on 9-11." I, of course, was one block from the WTC. We know that you were a bit farther away, in London, working on counter-terrorism for the Naval Criminal Investigation Service, NCIS (now a famous t.v. franchise). So my question is more philosophical; in a forward thinking gesture, you devote your book to your granddaughter. My own daughter was not yet two at the time. Neither of them, of course, has any memory of a pre-9/11 world. What "lessons of 9/11" do you think constitute the most important things we can convey to our young ones, from our perspective as (hopefully rational) elders who lived in the pre-9/11 world, particularly based on your unique experiences and perspectives as not merely a law enforcement professional, but in the thick of the hunt for the 9/11 perps as you watched professionals perform interrogations professionally, but a larger cadre of amateurs (and worse) running the show took the enterprise into the realm of torture?
Mark Fallon: One of the lessons learned is how easy it is to forget the fabric of our country should be our values. Unjustifiable Means shows that if a few more people would have stood against cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, the course of history could have been changed. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they were evil, or had bad intentions, but all it took was for a few people in key positions to do nothing, or to help facilitate or enable prisoner abuse. Leaders set a climate or create the conditions that contribute to success or failure. Within other commands or units, cruelty became an acceptable, or even expected practice. Our country is stronger when our actions match our values, even when we think nobody will ever find out.
The Talking Dog: I'll take a bit of a maudlin diversion here to note that we both began our professional careers with the U.S. Department of Justice- you with the U.S. Marshall's service in Newark, N.J. and me with the U.S. Dept. of Justice Tax Division in Washington, D.C. The various paper work associated with being new federal employees on the first day of work was interrupted in order to give the oath of office- we both swore to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. This was presumably the same oath taken by every member of "the War Council" and whatever officials introduced torture as the joker in the deck of the war on terror. You, former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora for example, and countless other heroes identified in your book objected to these practices, but in the end, could not thwart a torture program
that came from "the top" (whether that meant SecDef Rumsefeld, V.P. Cheney, Pres. Bush or the rest of the civilian leadership of the United States). Do you believe this was largely a matter of character-- for example, Daniel Goldhagen's "Hitler's Willing Executioners" or perhaps Stanley Milgram's famous cruelty experiments, comes to mind, that when leadership says something makes us safe,
few will question that, or did the powerful take advantage of the "no questions asked" culture of the military, or do you have some other explanation for how these practices became so widespread, even in the face of opposition? Or was the torture "stovepiped" like "WMD intel" leading into Iraq (just a guess on my part)?
Mark Fallon: I wish I had a good answer for the actions I saw unfolding, other than to reflect back that many of those decisions that led to torture were based on fear, ignorance and arrogance. The “oath” we take is to the Constitution, not to our chain of command. It always amazed me that people in the armed services and working in the national security or public safety space know they might have to risk their lives for their country; however, so few seemed willing to risk their careers to challenge their bosses or commanders. The most common response I heard while opposing the SERE EIT torture within DOD was that it was authorized at the highest levels. As an NCIS special agent, I was accustomed to telling truth to power and telling a general or admiral things they didn’t necessarily want to hear. Challenging authority seemed more difficult for those in uniform, which is why the Navy and Marine Corps relies on NCIS, reporting to a civilian director and to the civilian leadership of the Department of the Navy. I believe it is an institutional strength of the Department of the Navy, over the other services. It was that civilian chain of command, up to Alberto Mora, who coordinated his actions with the Secretary of the Navy, that opposed the torture policies within DOD.
I also don’t think you can discount financial or career motivations and aspirations. The Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) was actively marketing SERE abuse as an interrogation method, even though it was against their own doctrine to do so and they had no legitimate interrogation experience, nor such mission. Some psychologists strayed beyond their competency level to create opportunities for themselves. As I write in Unjustifiable Means, some wanted to get involved in the worst way, and that’s exactly what they did.
The Talking Dog: I found two revelations in your book to be remarkable, and in the hope of avoiding "spoilers" (and encouraging readers to buy the book!) I'll just throw the names out there: (1) the late Roger Ailes (of Fox News fame) and (2) Dr. Martin Seligman (of Authentic Happiness fame), each of whom had some role (whether intentional or not) in our nation's dalliance with torture. First, if you're at liberty to answer, how did you come to learn about each of their roles? Next, while we learned of DOD (if not CIA) in propagandizing the virtues of torture in, say, Zero Dark Thirty (when in real life, torture had no role in locating bin Laden, but painstakingly following intel leads and perhaps a huge cash bounty to a Pakistani general are too boring for Hollywood), is it too cynical at this point to suggest that a huge motivator for "going to the dark side, if you will" was monetary, i.e. NewsCorp's hit show at the time was "24" featuring torture, and later "Drs." Jessen and Mitchell were paid tens of millions of dollars to map out torture, etc. What's your view on this?
Mark Fallon: I believe the glorification of torture by TV shows like 24, as well as others, were a contributing factor leading to the acceptance of torture as necessary. I participated in a project with the Center for the Rule of Law at West Point on the tactical consequence of torture and they related that after 9/11, a general from West Point went to Hollywood to ask them to stop glorifying torture in their portrayals of heroic actions. There was an incredible sense of patriotism after 9/11 and people seemed to want revenge, rather than justice. To be true to our democracy, we must practice the rule of law. That’s what sets us apart from dictators and brutal regimes. As one released prisoner said, “you cannot clean blood with blood”. Our Constitution sets the framework for our justice system and it is justice we should seek.
The Talking Dog: Some years ago I interviewed Erik Saar, an Army Arabic linguist with the rank of sergeant who served at Guantanamo He gave the following fairly long answer, but it's an important point:
The Talking Dog: Let me ask you about your training in the Army Field Manual 34-52 on interrogations, which I understand contains limitations consistent with the Geneva Conventions... Erik Saar: Let me stop you there, because this is a critical point that isn't discussed much. I was NEVER trained in the Army Field Manual on interrogations. Indeed, no Army linguists as far as I know were trained in interrogations. Linguists were ordered NOT to question what they saw. Military interrogators and linguists were supposed to "balance" each other. Of course, linguists had a conflict. This was especially so among civilian contractors, who would frequently tell interrogators that what they were doing was outside the custom and norm of the culture of the detainee, and hence, likely to be counter-productive. Training is a critical factor-- training is everything in the service; we do nothing unless we are trained to do it first. We were, of course, lectured as I described in the book that we had "detainees" who were not POWs because they didn't wear uniforms and other legal explanations given and as such interrogators didn't have to comply with Geneva Conventions. BUT-- interrogators had been trained one way-- don't EVER violate the Geneva Conventions. Indeed, I recall one incident where an interrogation trainee made a joke during interrogation school about "now we go to the electric shock"-- he was almost thrown out of interrogation school just for joking like that.The drill was all Geneva all the time, BECAUSE INTERROGATION IS AND CAN BE MOST EFFECTIVE WITHIN THOSE LIMITS. At Guantanamo, of course, the constraints were "relaxed" by various orders, but the interrogators had never been trained in the new methods.
When I had the Power Point presentation telling us Geneva didn't have to apply, I left, not particularly outraged, but kind of confused. My thinking was a process-- when I left that meeting, my thought was-- this is contrary to Army practice-- we are not TRAINED for this... how can we use techniques that we are NOT TRAINED IN and how do we know this is effective?... Its not just the interrogation methods themselves that are contrary to every aspect of Army practice-- but using improvised, untested techniques that interrogators were not trained in, regardless of what they were-- is contrary to procedure as we were drilled.
Do Sgt. Saar's observations resonate with what you observed at Guantanamo (and in other "war on terror" theaters)?
Mark Fallon: Sgt Saar’s comments are reflective of a failure of leadership. The President’s military order of November 13, 2001 authorizing DOD to detain and try detainees before military commissions also ordered that detainees be treated humanely. Even though President Bush stated that the Geneva Conventions didn’t apply, we were directed to treat detainees consistently with those provisions. As the Special-Agent-in-Charge of the task force operating under that military order to bring terrorists to justice, I observed the first generals at Guantanamo observing the Geneva Conventions. Both General's Lehnert and Baccus, as well as my task force, the CITF operated under that theory. It wasn’t until other generals were assigned to Guantanamo that I was a command climate shift toward cruelty. I view Unjustifiable Means as a leadership book, about what it’s like leading during crisis, when more than careers are at stake. I hope the challenges I faced might help some future or current leader face ethical challenges between loyalty to their boss and their duty.
The Talking Dog: Can you describe what you observed in the course of interrogations at Guantanamo (or elsewhere) in the war on terror, that you found appropriate and professional and to the extent you can talk about, the particular abuses you actually observed? What was the chain of command or "pipeline" for reporting these? How obvious was it at the time that the overwhelming bulk of detainee were nobodies- "dirt farmers" as one of your chapter titles referred to it-- and certainly not terrorists or even Taliban fighters?
Mark Fallon: Your readers will have to read Unjustifiable Means to find out the answer to that question.
The Talking Dog: On another occasion, I interviewed Matthew Alexander, an Air Force Major who served as an interrogator in Iraq (and was credited with helping to track down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, head of al Qaeda in Iraq and a major thorn in side of the American military in Iraq.) I found it odd that while the Air Force relied on experienced officers, and in your case, NCIS relied on experienced law enforcement professional civilians, the Army relies heavily on NCOs- non-commissioned officers, often young and inexperienced. Major Alexander's observations:
What was interesting about my relationship with the unit in Iraq is that I was the highest ranking interrogator, meaning not that I was a Major and my direct supervisor a Captain, but that no one above me was an interrogator, which leads to the second portion of your question. Much of the opposition to rapport based interrogations came from those who had very limited experience and no law enforcement experience. There appeared to be a direct correlation between those who used racial epithets to refer to detainees and those who consistently wanted to use harsh methods. Prejudice against Muslims and Arabs was negatively affecting our ability to elicit information through interrogations because it promoted incorrect stereotypes which led to incorrect detainee analysis and, hence, misapplied interrogation approaches.*********
The problem with the Army model of recruiting interrogators is that it selects recruits based on an academic aptitude exam (which I think is based on the notion that a minimum level of academic aptitude is required for language training, which most interrogators attend). The problem is that interrogation is a social skill, not an academic one. So the Army is most likely recruiting the exact opposite personalities as those required for the art of interrogations. That said, they often get lucky and I found that the young Army interrogators that worked on my team in Iraq were extremely bright, intellectual, and quick to learn. The problem is supervision. If they are taught negative stereotypes and operate in a culture that tolerates violations of the regulations and law, then things can quickly digress.
My team of a dozen or so interrogators was about half US Army interrogators and most were on their first tour. A few had never been outside the U.S. or talked to an Arab or Muslim before arriving.
Chris Mackey in his book "The Interrogators" talks about their inability to distinguish good from bad and high level from low level detainees during the early months in the war in Afghanistan. He suggests that we sent a lot of nobodies to Gitmo.
I prefer a trained, native interpreter over a soldier with language skills because the interpreter is also a cultural encyclopedia. Several times my interpreters made crucial inputs to my interrogation strategies based on their cultural knowledge. Some of our Army interrogators were trained in Arabic but still had to use an interpreter as there were 14 dialects of Arabic in Iraq and also because interrogation is a very nuanced conversation.
***********
The Army techniques are mostly effective if tailored for the culture (there’s a couple that I would argue are ineffective and counterproductive – Fear Up and Pride and Ego Down). The main difference I noted is that as a criminal investigator there was heavy emphasis on the rapport building and analysis phases, but the Army program emphasized the interrogation techniques. What was disappointing about the Army training is that there were no Arab or Muslim instructors, so the cultural learning was basically limited to slide presentations. The best thing we can do to increase the effectiveness of our interrogation methods is to improve our culture training.
Because it’s the Army, I do think the organizational culture reinforces an "us versus them" mentality that results in a misplaced attitude towards the detainee/interrogator relationship. This is easily corrected with proper training and supervision.
***********As I stated earlier, stereotyping our enemies led down a disastrous path in Iraq and significantly harmed our interrogations. It goes back to that old Sun Tzu saying, “Know they self, know they enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.” Even some of the Iraqis who joined Al Qaida for social or economic reasons and then adopted the ideology were fairly easy to win back as Iraqis are very secular and tolerant. I actually believe that the most fanatical Al Qaida members are the easiest to interrogate simply because they are driven by emotions (probably how they were recruited) and those emotions can then be used by the interrogator.
Similar question- do Major Alexander's observations (from the Iraqi theater) resonate with your observations and experience in the war on terror? As a follow up, Major Alexander was a skilled and experienced interrogator whose rapport building methods worked; what was driving what amounted to an untested and quite frankly amateurish method of gratuitous brutality, when the evidence in front of everyone was that it was, aside from immoral and illegal, not generating anything useful?
Mark Fallon: I wholeheartedly agree with Matt Alexander. It’s hard to answer this question without writing a thesis, but let me offer a few thoughts. There have been a chronic and historic challenges with the manner in which the Army trains and fields interrogators. Most of the Army interrogation training is not grounded in science and relies on an anecdotal notion of what is effective. Evidence-based research has shown that even those trained by the Army, under the Army Field Manual in interrogations, should use those techniques that revolve around "rapport-building." Yet, the Army continues to train in the Manual (which contains deviations from rapport-building), and interrogators go into the field, and through trial and error, end up finding those practices that they view as the most effective (even if, in reality, they are not). We’re wasting valuable time and resources training in techniques that are not used (and that are viewed as ineffective, or even counterproductive by those in the field.) NCIS, instead, relies on a cadre of highly trained and experienced professional investigators, who work criminal investigations, counterintelligence and counter-terrorism. It’s not an assignment, but a career path, so it’s a much different model than the Army, or the other services. While I understand the Army force structure model, those interrogators just aren’t suited for the interrogation of high value targets. Under the McCain-Feinstein Anti-Torture Amendment to the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) a review of the Army Field Manual is required by law, but there is incredible cultural resistance to making changes. I have been informed of discussions within the Army that are concerned with the costs associated with revising the interrogation training within the Army. I would offer that the costs of not doing so would be much greater.
The Talking Dog: I'd like to talk about the issue of "narrative." I have a saying that I often use , "narrative trumps fact." Certainly this dynamic is at work when otherwise intelligent hard-nosed people like the late Justice Antonin Scalia recites the efficacy of torture literally citing Jack Bauer as his source, and Alan Dershowitz, the famous Harvard Law professor and criminal defense attorney, seriously made a suggestion that "torture warrants" should become an element of our law, so strong his belief in the "ticking time bomb scenario." "Twenty-Four" and Jack Bauer are, of course, fictional. I should add that the "Law and Order" and "NCIS" franchises, also fictional, nonetheless feature careful and constitutionally compliant police work, if dramatic and time-condensed. Do you have an explanation for why the "torture works and will keep us safe" narrative has proven so powerful, even among people who presumably should know a whole lot better? How has media contributed to this, or, if it has, combated this?
Mark Fallon: Of course the media has contributed to the narrative of the torture lobby. Just look at who wrote books with former CIA director George Tenant, former CIA RDI program head Jose Rodriguez and the creator of the SERE EIT torture program, James Mitchell. The torture architects and advocates continue to manipulate the public with claims that torture was safe, necessary and effective. If anyone wants to really learn what an absolute disaster it was, they just need to read the SSCI Torture Report executive summary. The level of brutality, ineptitude and gross professional incompetence is startling. History revisionists continue to try to have the entire 6,000 page full report destroyed. Unjustifiable Means shows the operational and strategic consequence of those practices when they gravitated to Guantanamo and onto Abu Ghraib.
The Talking Dog: Following up on a point in the last question, there was an evolution between the detention facility operations (run by Joint Task Force, or JTF, JTF-160) and interrogation operations (first run by JTF-170) and then ultimately, the two functions were merged (in "JTF-GTMO") so that detainees could be "softened up" by confinement conditions (such as the "frequent flyer plan" to impose sleep deprivation, or interference with meals, deprivation of "comfort items" such as Korans, toilet papers and mats to sleep and/or pray on, etc.) I sometimes suggest "personnel = destiny," though I'm not sure about how much of the GTMO operation was local personnel driven (as opposed to Dick Cheney/Don Rumsfeld driven). That said, can you briefly walk through the evolution of how this played out during the (I'm guessing) three command structures you observed at GTMO (Lehnert/Bacchus, Dunlavey and Geoffrey Miller)?
Mark Fallon: The unification of the command structures between JTF-160 and JTF-170 to create JTF-GTMO was to eliminate opposition to the practices DOD planned to adopt. The “intelligence components” wanted to demonstrate omnipotence over the prisoners and create the conditions where prisoners would experience debility, dependency and dread. These theories are taken right from the manner in which our service members were psychologically tortured under Communist regimes. Having a separate general responsible for prison operations interfered with the direction DOD was heading. The CITF and NCIS became a thorn in their side, constantly challenging practices viewed as unlawful and inhumane.
The Talking Dog: On the subject of Geoffrey Miller, your book very ably debunks the "few bad apples" theory, noting the role of Miller, psychologist Larry James, legal officer Diane Beaver and others in the "migration" or "Gitmoization" of abusive interrogation practices (i.e. torture) from Guantanamo to other theaters including Bagram and the rest of Afghanistan and of course, Iraq and Abu Ghraib. At the end of the day, other than a few NCOs who were foolish enough to allow themselves to be photographed (and/or took the pictures!) documenting detainee abuse (a detainee in a hood on a box with electric wires evidently connected, piles of naked detainees- perhaps dead, perhaps not -with Lynndie England giving the troubling thumbs up, etc.), and one female general (Janis Karpinski) demoted, there was pretty much no accountability for any of this. Much the same could be said of the whole war on terror-- occasionally soldiers were court-martialed for particular atrocities, but the abuses in interrogation (including at times death) did not result in accountability of any kind, whether by the Bush Administration itself, or the unfortunate decision of my college classmate Barack Obama to "look forward not backward." Let me ask you twin philosophical questions: (a) among the victims of torture we don't think about is the society at large that permits it, writ large, and (b) how much has this "forward not backward" approach ("elite immunity" if you like) to overall disillusionment with a government that just won't punish the powerful, be they Wall Streeters who cause the financial crisis or top government officials who write torture memos and advance that awful practice, has led to the current state of our society (a humongous opioid addiction problem, a spike in mass shootings to now exceed one a day, an electorate willing to take a chance on Donald Trump, a complete outsider devoid of any public service or military service or experience, to name a few consequences)?
Mark Fallon: The SASC Detainee Abuse Report and hearings totally debunks the narrative that Abu Ghraib was the result of a few bad apples. Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) were adopted that were based on cruelty. President Obama’s policy of impunity, looking forward not backwards, has allowed for the reemergence of torture as a matter of national policy. The Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued a report to the judges to see if the ICC will move forward with official investigating, among other things, the United States for things considered war crimes. That’s a strategic consequence of flawed policies and ignoring our responsibilities under the Conventions Against Torture to hold those involved accountable.
The Talking Dog: Late in your book is a chapter called "the Worst of the Worst," in which you provide a nice rogues' gallery of those responsible for injecting torture into the war on terror. Of these people, which among them (as many as you care to describe) strike you as particularly cautionary tales, and why? And, on a more optimistic note, you and others heroically tried to stop the torture regime; who among the heroes would you like to highlight and why?
Mark Fallon: I highlighted the people I did, because each was at a crossroad and their actions, whether intentional, or unintentional, contributed to the proliferation of violent extremism. My main goal was to just set the record straight on how the actions of a few have impacted so many.
The Talking Dog: Q12. You have offered gratuitous advice to our current President that he not go down the rabbit hole of torture, because "we tried it and it was ineffective." Of course, while torture doesn't work to get "actionable intelligence" of value, it certainly does work to terrorize populations (including the torturing nation) and to coarsen overall discourse, two things that I believe our current President is strongly in favor of. At this point, around half the American public "favors" the use of torture although this polling fluctuates, sometimes wildly. Notwithstanding that after centuries of brutality, the entire civilized world concluded that torture was just so wrong as a matter of morality that it could not be used EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES (and this is enshrined in American law as well as ratified treaties), here we are again. Can you give my readers the "elevator pitch" as to why this is a dark place we should just not go?
Mark Fallon: Patriots don’t torture…cowards do. As George Washington wrote from his camp at Cambridge, those that would engage in prisoner abuse bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country. It’s un-American.
The Talking Dog: Other than recommending that they read your excellent book (available on Amazon!) is there anything I should have asked you but didn't, or anything else you would like to add on these critically important topics?
Mark Fallon: I actually recommend they buy three copies of Unjustifiable Means and give two to friends! On a more serious note, America is strongest when our actions match our values. Citizens in a democracy also have responsibilities and every citizen should resoundingly denounce torture and prisoner abuse done in their name. Torture is illegal, immoral, counterproductive and inconsistent with American values. Our country was founded upon human and inalienable rights and that’s what Americans should be espousing.
The Talking Dog: I join my readers in thanking Mark Fallon for that informative interview, and I commend interested readers to check out Unjustifiable Means: The Inside Story of How the CIA, Pentagon, and US Government Conspired to Torture.
Readers interested in legal issues and related matters associated with the "war on terror" may also find talking dog blog interviews with former Guantanamo military commissions prosecutors Morris Davis and Darrel Vandeveld, with Guantanamo military commissions defense attorney Todd Pierce, with former Guantanamo combatant status review tribunal/"OARDEC" officer Stephen Abraham, with attorneys Pardiss Kebriaei, Nancy Hollander, Jon Eisenberg, David Marshall, Jan Kitchel, Eric Lewis, Cori Crider, Michael Mone, Matt O'Hara, Carlos Warner, Matthew Melewski, Stewart "Buz" Eisenberg, Patricia Bronte, Kristine Huskey, Ellen Lubell, Ramzi Kassem, George Clarke, Buz Eisenberg, Steven Wax, Wells Dixon, Rebecca Dick, Wesley Powell, Martha Rayner, Angela Campbell, Stephen Truitt and Charles Carpenter, Gaillard Hunt, Robert Rachlin, Tina Foster, Brent Mickum, Marc Falkoff H. Candace Gorman, Eric Freedman, Michael Ratner, Thomas Wilner, Jonathan Hafetz, Joshua Denbeaux, Rick Wilson,
Neal Katyal, Joshua Colangelo Bryan, Baher Azmy, and Joshua Dratel (representing Guantanamo detainees and others held in "the war on terror"), with attorneys Donna Newman and Andrew Patel (representing "unlawful combatant" Jose Padilila), with Dr. David Nicholl, who spearheaded an effort among international physicians protesting force-feeding of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, with physician and bioethicist Dr. Steven Miles on medical complicity in torture, with law professor and former Clinton Administration Ambassador-at-large for war crimes matters David Scheffer, with former Guantanamo detainees Moazzam Begg and Shafiq Rasul , with former Guantanamo Bay Chaplain James Yee, with former Guantanamo Army Arabic linguist Erik Saar, with former Guantanamo sergeant-of-the-guard Joseph Hickman, with former Guantanamo military guard Terry Holdbrooks, Jr., with former military interrogator Matthew Alexander, with law professor and former Army J.A.G. officer Jeffrey Addicott, with law professor and Coast Guard officer Glenn Sulmasy, with author and geographer Trevor Paglen and with author and journalist Stephen Grey on the subject of the CIA's extraordinary rendition program, with journalist and author David Rose on Guantanamo, with journalist Michael Otterman on the subject of American torture and related issues, with author and historian Andy Worthington detailing the capture and provenance of all of the Guantanamo detainees, with law professor Peter Honigsberg on various aspects of detention policy in the war on terror, with Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch, with Almerindo Ojeda of the Guantanamo Testimonials Project, with Karen Greenberg, author of The LeastWorst Place: Guantanamo's First 100 Days, with Charles Gittings of the Project to Enforce the Geneva Conventions, Laurel Fletcher, author of "The Guantanamo Effect" documenting the experience of Guantanamo detainees after their release, with John Hickman, author of "Selling Guantanamo," critiquing the official narrative surrounding Guantanamo, with Rebecca Gordon, author of "The New Nuremberg" identifying potential war crimes prosecutions arising from the conduct of the War on Terror, with Naomi Paik, author of Rightlessness: Testimony and Redress in US Prison Camps since World War II, and with psychologist Jeffrey Kaye, author of "Cover Up at Guantanamo" concerning issues associated with detainee deaths attributed to suicide at Guantanamo, to be of interest.