Australian David Hicks, a Muslim convert, was picked up at a taxi stand in Afghanistan by US allies, the Northern Alliance, in late 2001. He was sold to US forces for about $1,500. Hicks was the second person processed into Guantanamo on January 11, 2002, the day the facility opened.
He was released in 2007. Hicks has written a book titled "Guantanamo: My Journey." This book is not available in the US however it appears that a Kindle version is available from Amazon. It is also interesting to note the reviews and review ratings shown on Amazon's website. Here is a portion of one review which rated the Kindle edition at 4 stars out of maximum possible of 5. The reviewer is rabbitt49.
Unlike other reviewers I have read the book! If you can believe David Hicks (and I would believe him before I believe the lies of goverments and military, both Australian and American) then the entire Guantanamo experience should be brought forth as the war crime that it was. He was sold out for a few hundred dollars to the invading U.S. forces. They then turned him into an 'american killing rambo' in the media and threw him in the cage at Guantanamo base with a few hundred other people, many under the same circumstances.
Three other raters gave it a 1 star rating. One of those who gave it one star wrote: "Warped and dreamy one sided account counter to truth and reality."
There is one 5 star rating in which the rater remarks that it is a "...thought provoking book that shows the depths America and its allies have sunk to in the name of the so called war on terror."
Jason Leopold has read David Hicks' book and describes its effect on him:
"It's a powerful and heartbreaking memoir and it made a profound impact on me emotionally."
Hicks was brutally tortured, psychologically and physically for four years, maybe longer. He was injected in the back of his neck with unknown drugs. He was sodomized with a foreign object. He spent nearly a year in solitary confinement. He was beaten once for ten hours. He was threatened with death. He was placed in painful stress positions. He was exposed to extremely cold temperatures, loud music and strobe lights designed to disorient his senses.
Leopold has interviewed Hicks and the purpose of this diary is to make people aware of his book and his interview with Hicks - who was dubbed "The Australian Taliban".
From the interview with Jason Leopold for Truthout:
TO: Can you describe for me what you felt, emotionally, as you were writing the book and having to relive the torture you were subjected to?
David Hicks: At times I wrote as a third person, as if I was writing a chronological research report as part of my day job. At other times I had moments of vivid clarity. I would stop typing, sit back, and stare into nothing. The smells, sounds, the feeling of actually being there came flooding back as if had been transported to the camps of Guantanamo, clearly remembering what it was like to have actually been there.
TO: Solitary confinement appears to be among the worst of all the terrible experiences prisoners faced at Guantanamo. Can you explain what it does to you in a way that Americans, with no experience of such things, can understand what such isolation, especially with no knowledge of how long it will last, does to a person?
DH: Solitary and indefinite detention are two different things and are devastating when combined. Isolation has a powerful impact on the mind, especially when coupled with incommunicado detention as in GTMO. Everything outside the four walls is quickly forgotten. With no mental stimulation the mind becomes confused and dull. That state of mind is an advantage to interrogators who manipulate every aspect of your environment. They create a new world reality. Time ceases to exist. Talking becomes difficult, so when conversations do take place, you cannot form words or think. Even when hostility is not present such as during a visit with a lawyer or International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) visit, coherent sentences become elusive and huge mental blanks become common, as though you are forgetting the very act of speaking. Everything you think and know is dictated by the interrogators...
There is much more. I encourage everyone to read the entire interview. See detailed descriptions of what has been done in our names and quite possibly continues today. Some detainees, due to purely political reasons, might well serve the rest of their lives in detention at Guantanamo or elsewhere without ever having been charged with a crime.
Link for the interview
For those who might have missed it, geomoo has written a comprehensive diary on this topic. Here is the link to geomoo's diary.