The Mauritanian (Guantánamo Diary)

“Now I was sitting in front of bunch of dead regular U.S. citizens. My first impression, when I saw them chewing without a break, was, What’s wrong with these guys, do they have to eat so much? Most of the guards were tall, and overweight. Some of them were friendly and some very hostile.”

Throughout the book, Slahi offers his impressions of Americans, such as the way they eat, their approach to health and exercise, and their political and religious views. This quotation features Slahi’s first impression in the context of his detention. He repeatedly notes how Americans worship their bodies, in his view, by describing how they overeat or overexercise. This emphasis on materialism is, perhaps, part of the reason they didn’t understand Slahi’s prayers in detention beyond racial animus.

“Whenever I realized that a guard was mean I pretended that I understood no English. I remember one cowboy coming to me with an ugly frown on his face: ‘You speak English?’ he asked. ‘No English,’ I replied. ‘We don’t like you to speak English. We want you to die slowly,’ he said.”

At the beginning of his detention at Guantanamo, Slahi spoke several languages, but his English was basic. Other detainees spoke no English at all. On one hand, the latter made communication difficult. For instance, Slahi describes an incident in which a detainee begged in his native language—to no avail—for medicine to alleviate his pain. Furthermore, as this quotation demonstrates, some guards and interrogators preferred that detainees remain powerless by not being able to communicate. On the other hand, in some cases, not understanding English helped detainees ignore the taunts and insults from some staff, while pretending not to understand English helped them avoid negative attention. Slahi, however, learned English while in detention—and even asked guards and interrogators for help with certain words. As a result, he began speaking English fluently.

“I wrongly believed that 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 are looking for. I trusted the American justice system too much, and shared that trust with the detainees from European countries. We all had an idea about how the democratic system works.”

Slahi was taken from Mauritania to Jordan, Afghanistan, and then Guantanamo. At the start of his ordeal, he naively believed that in the US he’d be treated with dignity and that the US government, as a democracy, would follow due process. However, he came to realize that the opposite was true: He was detained without any legal representation for years while being repeatedly tortured. The author thus developed a more cynical view of nominally democratic governments such as Canada, which escalated his situation, and the US, which found ways to avoid due process if avoidance suited its interests.

“General Miller was responsible for a kind of class society he created in the camp. Blocks were defined by their levels, and there were five levels. The best was Level One, for so-called highly compliant detainees. Level Four was for isolation as a disciplinary measure, and Level Five was reserved for people who were considered of high intelligence value. Detainees of this level are completely under the mercy of their interrogators, which was very convenient for the interrogators. The system was designed to keep us on edge all the time: One day in paradise, and the next in hell.”

General Geoffrey Miller ran the Guantanamo Bay detention camp when Slahi was there. According to the author, Miller organized the camp into a hierarchical “society” featuring several levels of detainees at the bottom, the guards in the middle, and higher-level staff—such as the interrogators from various intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense—at the top. Furthermore, Guantanamo staff used the carrot-and-stick method of reward and punishment. Several human rights groups (such as Human Rights Watch) and a French court alleged that Miller was linked to the war crimes committed at Guantanamo.

“‘I have done nothing. The U.S. wants to dirty Islam by pinning such horrible things on Muslims.’

‘Do you know Ahmed Ressam?’

‘No, I don’t. I even think his whole story was a fake, to unlock the terrorism budget and hurt the Muslims.’

I was really honest about what I said. Back then I didn’t know a whole lot of things that I do now. I believed excessively in Conspiracy Theories—though maybe not as much as the U.S. government does.”

During interrogations, Slahi was asked about Ahmed Ressam, the organizer of the Millennium Plot. The Canadian and US governments erroneously linked the author to Ressam because the two resided in Montreal around the same time. At this stage of his ordeal, Slahi still expressed his true thoughts. Here, he openly states his belief that Islamophobia and racism are at the root of the War on Terror. At Guantanamo, most detainees were Arab Muslims—and most, like him, were held without evidence—so his conclusions are logical.

“Canadian intelligence wished I were a criminal, so they could make up for their failure when Ahmed Ressam slipped from their country to the U.S. carrying explosives. The U.S. blamed Canada for being a preparation ground for terrorist attacks against the U.S., and that’s why Canadian Intel freaked out.”

Slahi blames Canada for his detention at Guantanamo—so much so that in 2022, he initiated a lawsuit against Canada for this reason. The relationship between the US, as a superpower in the early 2000s, and its allies and vassals, in the context of the US War on Terror, is part of Slahi’s analysis in this book. It was this international framework that allowed the US to extradite, or kidnap—in Slahi’s words—terrorist suspects with little evidence through several countries to ultimately end up at Guantanamo.

“But the whole environmental setup made me very skeptical toward the honesty and humanity of the U.S. interrogators. It was kind of like, ‘We ain’t gonna beat you ourselves, but you know where you are!’ So I knew the FBI wanted to interrogate me under the pressure and threat of a non-democratic country.”

When the author was interrogated under US pressure or by US interrogators directly in third-party countries—including Mauritania, Jordan, and Afghanistan—the interrogations were conducted under the threat of torture. In such cases, the line between self-described democracies like the US and authoritarian states was blurred. Slahi later suggested that the US’s reliance on torture at Guantanamo gave the nondemocratic governments carte blanche to use torture in their own countries: If the leader of the “free world” doesn’t adhere to its own guidelines for human rights, then why should they?

“The lawyer asked Ibrahim and me whether he could defend our cousin Mahfouz, who now was wanted by the U.S. authorities with a $25 million reward. ‘What are you going to do for him? Reduce his sentence from 500 to 400 years?’ I asked wryly. People in the other parts of the free world like Europe have problems understanding the draconian punishments in the U.S. Mauritania is not a country of law, so we don’t have a problem understanding whatever the government does; even so, the Mauritanian legal code, when it is followed, is much more humane than the American. Why sentence somebody to 300 years when he is not going to live that long?”

This passage is from a scene depicting a family wedding the author attended just before his first arrest in Mauritania. He and his family discussed his cousin and former brother-in-law Mahfouz Ould al-Walid (Abu Hafs), who was a spiritual advisor to al-Qaeda. This discussion made the author examine the justice system in different countries. To a person who came from a country that at one point was under a military dictatorship, the concept of the state possessing the monopoly on violence was obvious. However, because the US was the most powerful country in the world in the early 2000s, and a self-described democracy that lectured others about their political systems, the harsh nature of its justice system surprised Slahi. While he was aware of the latter, at this time he was still naive and believed that in the US he’d get appropriate legal representation and that the US government would follow due process. He was later proven wrong.

“‘I’m arrested,’ I whispered, and hung up without even waiting on his answer. Then I erased my whole phone book. Not that I had any hot numbers—all I had were some numbers of business partners in Mauritania and Germany—but I didn’t want the U.S. government harassing those peaceful people just because I had their numbers in my phone. The funniest record I deleted read ‘PC Laden,’ which means computer store; the word for ‘store’ in German just happens to be ‘Laden.’ I knew no matter how hard I would have tried to explain that, the U.S. interrogators would not have believed me. For Pete’s sake, they always tried to pin things on me that I had nothing to do with!”

When Slahi was initially arrested in Mauritania to be brought in for questioning under US pressure, he honestly admits to deleting the contacts in his phone. He suggests that he did so to protect his friends, who had nothing to do with his ordeal. He makes similar statements later in the book. Despite the apparent hopelessness of his situation, he relies on his sense of humor throughout the book. Here, he thinks about being linked to Osama bin Laden because of the German name of a computer store. Nevertheless, this fear was founded considering that later the US government alleged that he received a phone call from his cousin, Abu Hafs, from bin Laden’s satellite phone.

“Of course he threatened me with all kinds of painful torture should it turn out I was lying. You know we have some black motherfuckers who have no mercy on terrorists like you,’ he said, and as he proceeded, racial references kept flying out of his mouth. ‘I myself hate the Jews’—I didn’t comment—‘but you guys come and hit our building with planes,’ he continued.”

Agent Lee from the US interrogated the author in Mauritania. This interrogation shows the extent of the US power projection and its ability to pressure third-party countries into cooperation. It represents an escalation because it’s one of the first indications that the author will be tortured in captivity as a method of obtaining information. In addition, the agent’s use of racial slurs exemplifies the kind of racism and Islamophobia that the author and other majority Arab Muslim detainees experienced during their Guantanamo captivity.

“November 28th is Mauritanian Independence Day; it marks the event when the Islamic Republic of Mauritania supposedly received its independence from the French colonists in 1960. The irony is that on this very same day in 2001, the independent and sovereign Republic of Mauritania turned over one of its own citizens on a premise. To its everlasting shame, the Mauritanian government not only broke the constitution, which forbids the extradition of Mauritanian criminals to other countries, but also extradited an innocent citizen and exposed him to the random American Justice.”

France colonized Mauritania in the early 20th century. The country gained independence in the framework of the global decolonization movements after World War II, in 1960. Thus, the author considers it tragically ironic that on its Independence Day from Western colonialism, the government of Mauritania allowed the author’s extradition to Jordan for the purpose of further interrogation on behalf of the US without any definitive evidence. The ability of the US to unofficially extradite suspects in this manner marked the peak of its unipolar moment and the extent of its hegemony in the early 20th century.

“My reality was that I was secretly detained in a Jordanian jail and my family could not even possibly know where I was. Thank God after a while that dream disappeared, though every once in a while I would still wake up crying intensely after hugging my beloved youngest sister. The first night is the worst; if you make it through that you’re more than likely going to make it through the rest.”

Here, the author was still in shock from the fact that his homeland, Mauritania, allowed him to be kidnapped to Jordan on flimsy evidence for further interrogation upon the US’s order. Even though he was subsequently tortured in Jordan, it was the first night away from home that was the most unbearable to him. He seems to have accepted his circumstances somewhat afterward. His transfer to Jordan also represents an escalation and a rising action in the narrative.

“‘Do you know where you are?’ asked Abu Raad.

‘In Jordan,’ I responded.

He was obviously shocked. I shouldn’t have been informed about my destination, but the Mauritanian interrogator must have been so angry that he didn’t exactly follow the orders of the Americans. The initial plan was to send me from Mauritania to Jordan blindfolded and not inform me about my destination, in order to plant as much fear and terror in my heart as possible to break me.”

One way to exert psychological pressure and elicit compliance in detainees was to keep them blindfolded and earmuffed so that they remained oblivious about their location and immediate surroundings. However, Slahi knew he was being taken to Jordan from the onset, which reduced the fear element of his interrogations. When the author was kidnapped and taken to Guantanamo, the psychological techniques that his interrogators used became more elaborate.

“‘Do you think I am lying to you?’

‘No, I think you forgot.’

That was too nicely put, but the fact that the Americans didn’t provide the Jordanians with any substantial evidence tied the hands of the Jordanians mightily. Yes, Jordanians practice torture on a daily basis, but they need a reasonable suspicion to do so. They don’t just jump on anybody and start to torture him.”

According to the author, one of the key reasons he was taken to a third-party country like Jordan—rather than directly to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp under US jurisdiction—was to have the Jordanians apply torture during interrogation to obtain information from the detainees. At this time, the author still naively believed that if he were taken to the US, he’d have been granted due process because the US is a democracy.

“And after him, my neighbor was an older Palestinian who kept coughing the whole time.’

He is very old,’ a guard told me.

‘Why did they arrest him?’ I wondered.

‘Wrong place, wrong time,’ the guard answered.”

This quotation exemplifies the apparently arbitrary nature of justice during Slahi’s ordeal. Whereas he was arrested and taken to different countries (before his transfer to Guantanamo prison) based on insufficient evidence, others in the Jordanian secret prison were captured for even less substantive reasons (as the guard’s response here indicates). In moments when the meaninglessness of existence seemed unbearable, the author relied on his faith.

“‘I just arrived from Washington,’ he commenced. ‘Do you know how important you are to the U.S. government?’

‘I know how important I am to my dear mom, but I’m not sure when it comes to the U.S. government.’

The Navy Lieutenant Ronica couldn’t help smiling, although she tried hard to keep her frown. I was supposed to be shown harshness.”

One way the author maintained his mental health was through the use of humor—both during his ordeal and in writing. He uses humor consistently throughout the book to break up the emotional gravity of the text. By this stage, Slahi had already been tortured, and no end to his detention was in sight. Nevertheless, Slahi accepted his situation for what it was and joked with his captors—here, interrogators—despite the unequal power relationship between them.

“Within a couple of days of my transfer, a young Swiss woman from the International Committee of the Red Cross showed up at my cell and asked me whether I wanted to write a letter. ‘Yes!’ I said. Natalie handed me a paper and I wrote, ‘Mama, I love you, I just wanted to tell you that I love you!’ After that visit I wouldn’t see the ICRC for more than a year. They tried to see me, but in vain.”

Slahi was unable to meet with the Red Cross for more than a year because the US Department of Defense justified his being “disappeared” as a military necessity. Slahi took this earlier opportunity to write a letter to his mother. Throughout the book, he references his mother warmly and alludes to their close relationship. Slahi’s generally being prohibited from communicating with his family—and his mother’s and brother’s deaths while he remained imprisoned—is one of the most tragic aspects of his story.

“‘You know, it’s not against the law to have sex with detainees,’ she said, as she was taking off her uniform blouse and was whispering in my ear, ‘You know how good I am in bed,’ and ‘American men like me to whisper in their ears,’ she said, slowly removing her uniform piece by piece, hoping I would crack and relieve her from the pain of humiliation she was inflicting upon herself. I could tell it wasn’t her first choice to act in this way.”

Sexual assault and humiliation were part of the torture program at Guantanamo. According to Slahi’s editor, Larry Siems, in the original edition of Guantánamo Diary, the pronouns “she” and “her” were redacted so that the reader wouldn’t know that the assault was carried out by female soldiers. In his view, these soldiers were themselves abused by the military by being forced into this situation (“Writing Guantánamo Diary | Highlights.” De Bali. 1 Sep. 2022). Slahi’s observation that the female interrogator apparently didn’t want to participate in these acts corroborates this suggestion.

“But I also knew that the government was ready to take any measures to pry information out of me, even if it would take injury to my family members, especially when you know that the Mauritanian government is cooperating blindly with the U.S. I mean the U.S. government has more power over Mauritanians than over U.S. nationals, that’s how far the cooperation goes. A U.S. citizen cannot be arrested without due process of law, but Mauritanian citizens can—and by the U.S. government!”

The author muses about the seemingly limitless power of the US government to exert greater control over foreigners than its own citizens. The early 2000s were the height of the American unipolar moment in geopolitics and thus of the US ability to extradite foreign citizens and grossly violate their human rights in captivity under the guise of military necessity.

“No sleep. Water diet. Every move behind my door made me stand up in a military-like position with my heart pounding like boiling water. My appetite was non-existent. I was waiting every minute on the next session of torture. I hoped I would die and go to heaven; no matter how sinful I am, these people can never be more merciful than God.”

For months, the Guantanamo staff had been using an interrogation-and-torture plan designed specifically for Slahi because he was then considered the top enemy combatant in detention. Despite his strength of spirit and his faith, the author began to lose hope and started considering death. Thus, Chapter 6 is the lowest emotional point in the text.

“Now, thanks to the unbearable pain I was suffering, I had nothing to lose, and I allowed myself to say anything to satisfy my assailants. Session followed session since I called Captain Collins. ‘People are very happy with what you’re saying,’ said SFC Shally after the first session. I answered all the questions he asked me with incriminating answers. I tried my best to make myself look as bad as I could, which is exactly the way you can make your interrogator happy.”

This quotation is part of the book’s climax, in which Slahi gives up after one of the worst torture sessions—his staged kidnapping in Chapter 5—and gives the interrogators a false confession. For a time, it seems that his spirit is broken as he tries to please his interrogators by making himself look as guilty as possible. Captain Collins is the code name for Richard Zuley, an infamous Chicago detective who has been linked to torture and police brutality. However, Slahi is exonerated—in the secrecy of Guantanamo—when he passes the polygraph test twice, which shows that he’s not a terrorist.

“‘Look at your uniform and ours. You are not one of us. You are our enemy!’ Master Yoda used to say.

‘I know.’

‘I don’t want you to forget. If I speak to you, I speak to my enemy.’

‘I know!’

‘Don’t forget.’

‘I won’t!’ Such talk left no doubt that the animosity of the guards had been driven to its extreme. Most of the time I had the feeling that they were trained to devour me alive.”

Slahi believes that the Guantanamo Bay detention camp guards underwent special training to ensure that they hated the detainees. Their hatred was part of the psychological pressure on those like Slahi when they weren’t being interrogated or tortured. It’s therefore ironic that the Guantanamo staff adopted Star Wars names to conceal their identities. They chose the names of positive characters fighting an evil empire in the Star Wars saga, while they themselves were engaging daily in gross human rights violations.

“Your family comprises the guards and your interrogators. True, you didn’t choose this family, nor did you grow up with it, but it’s a family all the same, whether you like it or not, with all the advantages and disadvantages. I personally love my family and wouldn’t trade it for the world, but I have developed a family in jail that I also care about.”

The subject of relating to one’s captors is difficult and paradoxical. People are social creatures and require human contact. For a long time, the author was in solitary confinement. As a result, he welcomed eating meals with another detainee with whom he had little in common. While it’s unsurprising that Slahi would crave any kind of community, his relationships with guards and interrogators are inherently unequal because they’re between a person who’s completely helpless and lacks even basic rights—a Guantanamo detainee—and a person in a position of power working for the US government. Some in such positions, such as the interrogators, were the author’s torturers. For this reason, it’s difficult not to interpret such a relationship as a trauma bond or the related Stockholm syndrome, in which the captive begins to feel affection and defend the captor.