Pentagon Argues Poetry from Detainees "Presents a Special Risk to National Security"

[Jcrowley]

Twenty-one poems written "inside the wire" in Arabic, Pashto and English have been gathered together despite formidable obstacles by Marc Falkoff, a law professor at Northern Illinois University who represents 17 of the detainees at the camp. The collection, entitled Poems from Guantánamo: The Detainees Speak, will be published in August by the University of Iowa Press with an afterword written by Ariel Dorfman.

<snip>

Many of the poems deal with the pain and humiliation inflicted on the detainees by the US military. Others express disbelief and a sense of betrayal that Americans - described in one poem as "protectors of peace" - could deny detainees any kind of justice. Some engage with wider themes of nostalgia, hope and faith in God.

But most of the poems, including the lament by Al Hela which first sparked Falkoff's interest, are unlikely to ever see the light of day. Not content with imprisoning the authors, the Pentagon has refused to declassify many of their words, arguing that poetry "presents a special risk" to national security because of its "content and format". In a memo sent on September 18 2006, the team assigned to deal with communications between lawyers and their clients explains that they do not "maintain the requisite subject matter expertise" and says that poems "should continue to be considered presumptively classified".

The defence department spokesman Jeffrey Gordon is unsurprised that access to detainees poetry is tightly controlled. "It depends on what's being written," he says. "There's a whole range of things that are inappropriate." Of course poetry that deals with subjects such as guard routines, interrogation techniques or terrorist operations could pose a security threat, but Gordon is unable to explain why Al Hela's poem is still classified, saying "I haven't read any of these ".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,,2021901,00.html

[babylonsister]

1. I am SO SICK of these people! And I don't mean the ones writing poems!

They're surely afraid the truth will come out.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. "The home of the Brave" trembles before scary poetry.

Perhaps the heroic literary censors should study the word "irony".