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Guantanamo Voices: Chapter 5

The cover of Guantanamo Voices featuring an idyllic sunset lit illustration of the prison with the sea in the foreground. Inset along the left side are images of a bleeding hand, a detainee with black bag over their head and another sitting on a cot in their cell.
Lawyer Thomas Wilner is working in his office when he receives a call from a woman who tells him about 12 Kuwaiti men who went missing in 2001 while traveling to Pakistan and Afghanistan. The families of the men, including Khalid Al Odah seen in his home wearing a white dishdasha and ghutra while holding a photo of his son, were advised to find an American lawyer to investigate.
Wilner is seen walking along a brick wall. He was a corporate lawyer, not a civil rights crusader. But he remembers his grandfather, a rabbi from Lithuania, who instilled in him that "All men are created equal." He remembers the lessons of his home and school to "Do the hard right against the easy wrong."
Not willing to turn away from this, Wilner flies to Kuwait where he meets Khalid Al Odah, who served in the Kuwaiti Air Force and trained in the US. While Wilner was in Kuwait, the US government informed the Kuwaiti government that the 12 men had been detained at Guantanamo.
Wilner and his colleague look on in shock as they learn that a bounty had been placed on the men and they were detained without hearing. At a border checkpoint, US soldiers have several men on their knees. They handcuff them and put a bad over their heads.
Lawyer Thomas Wilner walks along a wire fence. Topped with barbed wire, it has green plastic sheeting on it to hide the interior from view. In the background is guard tower.
A sunlit scene from Baghdad showing a statue of Saddam Hussein blends with a line of men in orange jumpsuits being led past an American flag under the stern watch of a US soldier.
A pair of battered, handcuffed hands belonging to a Kuwaiti man.
A crowd of Japanese Americans looks on while a soldier nails a notice to the side of a building.
A worried Japanese American couple flees down the street at night, their arms carrying their belongings and a baby. In the next panel, three young Japanese American boys look out from behind a barbed wire fence.
Thomas Wilner sits at a desk in a high rise office building. He is surrounded by books, phones, and computer monitors. He is a middle aged man, balding with glasses. His sleeves are rolled up as he writes.

Description

Excerpts from Chapter 5 of Sarah Shay Mirk's anthology about Guantanamo Bay. One of NY Times' best graphic novels of 2020.

From Abrams Books:
"In Guantánamo Voices, journalist Sarah Mirk and her team of diverse, talented graphic novel artists tell the stories of 10 people whose lives have been shaped and affected by the prison, including former prisoners, lawyers, social workers, and service members. This collection of illustrated interviews explores the history of Guantánamo and the world post-9/11, presenting this complicated partisan issue through a new lens."

“Moving details emerge, as when one detainee narrates his relationship with an iguana, along with profound frustration; in the words of one attorney, ‘The law is a joke.’ The island colors and collection of styles make for a surprisingly artful book.” —New York Times Book Review"