| "I can't believe these things can happen, that they can come and take your husband away at night and, without reason or evidence, destroy your family, ruin your dreams," Nadja Dizdarevic, the wife of a Bosnian Muslim seized by U.S. authorities in January 2002, wrote to the federal court. Her husband, Boudella al Hajj, was taken into custody on the steps of a Sarajevo court that had found him not guilty of terrorism charges.
"Why? Why are they doing this to us?" Dizdarevic asked. ..snip.. Detainee attorneys also contend that tribunal authorities select the information they consider. Al Hajj, a Bosnian Muslim clergyman originally from Algeria, was arrested in October 2001 based on an FBI tip that he and others were plotting to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo. The Bosnian Supreme Court ruled in January 2002 that there was no credible evidence that he and five others had hatched such a plot. The day they were released, they were immediately taken into custody by U.S. authorities. Al Hajj's lawyers provided the Bosnian court documents to the Justice Department months ago. The tribunal agreed that the records would be relevant but said they were "not reasonably available." The panel did, however, obtain a copy of an earlier Bosnian court document, which indicated al Hajj was under investigation. "They can get their hands on information they want, but they can't get their hands on what detainees ask for," said Melissa Hoffer, one of al Hajj's attorneys. Hoffer said her clients have never been questioned about the alleged bombing plot, despite nearly three years of captivity. Dizdarevic wonders when her husband will meet the U.S. standard for release. The members of al Hajj's panel, citing classified evidence to continue holding him, said, however, that another review board should consider his exoneration before a Bosnian court the next time his case is reviewed, next year. "After three years of fight, without any reason, they declare that my husband is an enemy combatant, a man that was so good that he would never in his life wish anyone any harm," she wrote. "What am I supposed to tell my children, who at every phone ring, every door bell, ask 'Is this our father?' " Pentagon officials declined to comment on specific cases. |
Read the entire thing. Here's another story:
| Abd Al Aziz Sayer Uwain Al Shammeri, a Kuwaiti professor of Islamic studies, questioned the tribunal's presumption that he was an al Qaeda member, an accusation that the tribunal based on three facts: that a version of his name was on an international terrorist list, that he traveled to Afghanistan in September 2001 and that he tried to cross into Pakistan without a visa. He said millions of Arabs linked to the same Saudi tribe share his last name, and that he traveled to Afghanistan to teach the Koran as a Muslim duty.
"How can it be that travel to a large country with millions of people is travel for al Qaeda?" he asked, according to tribunal documents. "For is a person who traveled to China considered a communist?" Al Shammeri said he fled Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks without returning to his host's home to retrieve his passport when he heard that the Northern Alliance, the Taliban's main military opposition at the time, was rounding up and killing any Arabs it could find. He said he presumed Pakistani authorities would return him to Kuwait once they verified his identity. The military officers found Al Shammeri's explanation about his passport "unpersuasive" and cited other classified evidence. "I didn't think they would tell me, 'Since you don't have identification or a passport, that means you're a follower of Usama Bin Laden,' " Al Shammeri said, according to tribunal documents. |
"Winning" the war on "terror" will be a meaningless victory if it means giving up everything this nation stands for. Yes yes, I know. This nation's past is far from pristine. I both acknowledge and accept that. And I'm in no way making excuses for it when I say...
There is one major difference between then and now. Now, through the power of technology, these stories can no longer be kept quiet. They will get out, and they will reach every corner of the globe. Information technology has transformed the "battle of ideas" in a way our government clearly does not understand. The gap between the rhetoric of our ideals and the reality of our actions now must be much, MUCH smaller. Secrets have simply become infinitely harder to keep than they once were. Why is that so hard for these people to see?
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