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Look closer. Think harder. Choose the sound argument over the clever one.
Friday, June 03, 2005
Guantanamo fog . . .
Michelle Malkin gives us the other side of the Guananamo story. As usual, the first reports you hear are usually the least accurate.
HT: Powerline.
More: Mark Steyn's perspective shines, as usual. (And again, "...the average detainee puts on 13 pounds during his stay...")
And more, from Lileks. (And now even more.)
Powerline: "The mildness with which terrorist detainees have been treated stands as an imperishable monument to the greatness of the American spirit and the moderation of the Bush administration."
Eat like a king detainee with the Gitmo Cookbook.
Update, 7/13: An independent investigation ... only turned up three violations of Army regulations and the Geneva Conventions, the AP reports today. None of these involved torture of any kind, although one investigator found that the totality of techniques used on one prisoner qualified as "abusive" ...
Comments:
(Please keep in mind that each commenter's opinions are only his/her own.)
But of course hes a liar isn't he? A liar your government freed to carry on his extremely dangerous activities in this country.
But back to the story, "Mubanga had a flight back to Britain booked for 26 September, 2001, from Karachi, and says he had planned to return to Pakistan by bus. But after the terrorist attacks of 11 September, the bus stopped running."
Sign on the Afghanistan-Pakistan Bus Company's front door: "Since America, half a world away (but about whom we care deeply) closed its airspace for five days, we've met with all our competitors, large and small, and have decided to all close our doors indefinitely. We apologi(zs)e for any inconvenience this may cause."
"Hiding in Kandahar while the American bombing campaign began, he says he discovered that his British passport and his will were missing. 'I don't know if they were lost or stolen. I just realised one day they were gone.'"
So, as any sensible British citizen would do, he rushed to the nearest British Consulate, reported the loss/theft, and waited for their instructions. Oops! Nope! He gets his other passport and tries to hide out in Zambia for a while. Anybody smell anything odd here?
In a forthright fashon typical of anyone with nothing to hide, "Mubanga's solicitor, Louise Christian, suggested that by this time the authorities must have realised they did not have Martin Mubanga in Afghanistan, and would easily have discovered that the real one had recently flown from Karachi to Africa." [Emphasis mine.] Maybe our Peaceful Muslim/lifelong amateur boxer doesn't realize that donating his Passport to the cause is what we Yanks call "aiding and abetting" the enemy.
Why wouldn't I believe everything he says?
I can see that you want mubanga to be a terrorist and I want him to be innocent. None of us knows, I still wish you could meet him though.
your govt doesn't seem to think he is a terrorist.
Our criminal justice system decided long ago that one can't arrive at the truth only by listening to the defendant's testimony or by trying to judge his character. One looks at physical evidence, circumstantial evidence, cross-examination, etc. Every convict insists he's innocent.
If he had shown up at a British Consulate reporting his passport lost or stolen before 9/11/2001, he probably wouldn't have been detained. But he didn't.
That he wasn't captured on the battlefield (as others were) means, perhaps, that he didn't have the stomach for that fight, which is a good thing.
I appreciate you challenging my thinking.
Much more interesting than meeting him would be you and I both being flies on the wall the hour he and his passport parted ways.
Even bin Laden himself is regarded as a "soft spoken, humble and simple man. He is very good in his behavior. He doesn't behave like a terrorist."
I spent 8 years on the North-West Frontier, goddamnit... Didn't turn me into a terrorist... Didn't turn me into a feminist, either...
Tell me if I'm wrong here: unlike Mr. Mubanga, you didn't go there explicitly to study Islam under the Taliban. Of all the Islamic schools, he freely chooses the most extreme, the Taliban. (And al-Qaida training camps nearby.)
I don't doubt that he's an accomplished rapper, or that he's performed with kuffar. From his actions (fleeing Afghanistan instead of fighting along side his classmates), it seems he doesn't have his Taliban classmates' stomach for the fight-to-the-death (to his credit).
But he did have the stomach to donate his British passport to al-Qaida, and tell every necessary and convenient lie.
If it turns out the London bombers were these youths from Leeds, we'll hear about their talents and abilities, their friends and "good" sides, too. Yet they were fully capable of the evil they did.
...events are slow burn over a period of time they believe in violent Jihad against "Jahiliah"
Its wierd what you say about
"Even bin Laden himself is regarded as a "soft spoken, humble and simple man."
all the taliban I met in pakistan were OK. they were disapointed that I wasn't a Muslim, but weren't shouting "infidel!" at me in the street like the shop keepers were.
I could see how combination of the invasion of Iraq and some parts of the north of England and the work of khutabah on an emerging muslim youth could create these people everywhere.
some groups seemed conservative and religious and others pretended to be but were really into politics.
Bit like Texas probably
"Sitting down with a kaffir who has the blood of innocent Muslims on his hands?"
No way.
ANY Muslim at the moment who allies himself with Tony blair is off the radar for these people em masse.
In a strange way I feel that I am doing exactly the same thing as "the peace keeper Tony Blair" is with Mr Hamzas friends though.
I disagree with them on a number of issues but I think that their main "focus" is on defending Muslims who have already been attacked in their own countries.
They seem very proud of this ideology in Finsbury park and look down on anyone who would bomb over here.
I think most of them had their "justified warfare" in Bosnia and Afghanistan against the Russians.
It is possible that the embryos of his "violent sybolic Jihad" passed through Finsbury park.
its wierd.
I'm also quite surprised at how quickly and cleanly the Afghanistan campaign went. Every other major power who has got themselves involved in Afghanistan... well I'm sure you know the history.
But is life on the ground in Afghanistan all that different? I can't say, but suspect that it might not be. I sincerely hope and pray things get better for what at times literally seems a completely God-forsaken country.
And things in North-west Pakistan have got worse even as things in Afghanistan have got better(?) - the Islamists just jumped to the other side of the border. NWFP is getting even more repressive than it was before. If you can imagine such a thing.
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