Few realize how expensive it is to keep Guantanamo Bay prison operational. The Joint Task Force (JTF) detention center, which opened in 2002, costs US taxpayers $140 million a year, breaking down to about $800,000 per detainee.

The JTF was never meant to be permanent, yet twelve long years after the first round of prisoners arrived, 149 prisoners remain detained there indefinitely.

The oft repeated lie that these men are the “worst of the worst” has clouded the reality that the vast majority are completely innocent, and were simply swept up in a dragnet in Afghanistan. 78 have already been deemed innocent and cleared for release, yet pure political theater keeps them imprisoned.

Moreover, only six of the 149 men have been formally charged with a crime. Five are being tried together as alleged co-conspirators of 9/11, although they all are alleged to have varying operational levels, and one alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing. Yet the commissions process is completely corrupted by absurd levels of government secrecy, classification and intrusion.

A few weeks ago I traveled to Cuba to cover the continuing plight of these men and conduct an in-depth investigation for Breaking the Set. The report details how America came to host one of the most notorious prisons in Cuba, the brutal and systematic torture that took place, the sham of the 9/11 military commissions, the ongoing prisoner hunger strike and how Guantanamo Bay prison can be closed for good.

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Gitmo Exclusive Part I: An Untold History of Occupation, Torture & Resistance

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Gitmo Exclusive Part II: Media Brainwashing, Sham Trials & Closing Gitmo for Good

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My brother interviewed me about my personal, intense experience at Gitmo for Media Roots Radio. Listen here.

Follow me @AbbyMartin and let me know what you think at #BTSGitmo 

Media Roots presents American Anthrax, a documentary comprised of news footage that establishes how everything you’ve been told about the Anthrax Attacks is a lie. Conceptualized, edited and produced by Robbie Martin, co-host of Media Roots Radio.

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 American Anthrax, by Robbie Martin

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September 11, 2001, shook the United States to the core, a country that had been nearly untouchable since its democratic inception. However, immediately following this horrific tragedy, another equally as impactful ‘terrorist attack’ occurred when weaponized anthrax was sent to multiple Congressman and journalists through the U.S. Postal Service.

The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were both one-time events that happened in two prominent cities. Unlike 9/11, the Anthrax Attacks localized terrorism and spread fear to every corner of American life, where the simple act of getting your mail could prove fatal. Five people died as a result of breathing in the deadly anthrax spores, including postal workers and one NY Post reporter. Countless others were infected.

The Bush administration initially tried to link this ‘second wave of terrorism’ to al-Qaeda. Once that talking point out-lived its usefulness, the official narrative began leaning towards Saddam Hussein and his mythological biological weapons program. Establishment propagandists like John Mccaine and ABC news reporters intentionally spread disinformation to plant the seed in the public mind that the anthrax came from Iraq, which eventually lead to Colin Powell’s infamous 2003 WMD speech at the UN.

All the while, the U.S. government was fully aware that the anthrax did not come from an external source, because the strain showed tell-tale signs of being a specific anthrax strain that was weaponized and manufactured by the U.S. military. Eventually, two different men were accused of being the perpetrators behind the attacks, yet no charges were ever brought to either of them. The first accused individual, Steven Hatfill, ended up being rewarded a multimillion dollar settlement from the government for being wrongly accused before any evidence was presented. The subsequent accused individual, Bruce Ivins, allegedly committed suicide while the FBI was trying to break him into confessing.

Ultimately, the FBI asked the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to verify its evidence pointing to Ivins as the main suspect. Instead, the NAS concluded that the DNA in the anthrax sent in the mail was in fact not a match to the anthrax Ivins worked with. Before the National Academy of Sciences finished their independent investigation, the FBI rushed its pre-established conclusions about Ivins’ guilt to the press, and the case was closed. To this day, the FBI has never commented on the many glaring contradictions in the official narrative of the attacks, and Obama has threatened to veto any future investigation into them.

MR

Follow Robbie at @fluorescentgrey, photo by Wikimedia Commons

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Robbie and Abby Martin talk ‘American Anthrax’ on Breaking the Set

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Abby and Robbie Martin discuss the news of the day including a District Court judge forcing torture victims to pay their torturers’ legal fees; Latin American leaders standing up to US imperialism in light of the NSA leaks; the establishment’s use of agitation propaganda to manufacture outrage at other nations while promoting an undercurrent of American exceptionalism.

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