ISN# 507 – 8 pages – Detainee: (Unnamed) (Saudi)

Reasons for Detention:

Detainee travelled from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan, via Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, and Pakistan in July 2001. The detainee’s name was found on a list of trust accounts for Al Qaeda mujehidin captured in raids on Al Qaeda safe houses in Pakistan between 11 September 2002 and 1 March 2003. The detainee participated in military operations against the United States or its coalition partners. The detainee fled to Zubair Centre in Tora Bora in November 2001 where he was wounded in an air strike. The detainee was captured by coalition forces while convalescing at an unknown location.

Detainee’s position:

Detainee worked as a driver in Saudi Arabia, driving female teachers from his city to the next city. Detainee says that he went to Afghanistan as a tourist, and to study religion with Jamaayat al Tabliq (Islamic Missionary Society, often an Al Qaeda front), and because he is afflicted “with magic and demons or magic and the devil,” and if someone from Jamaayat al Tabliq read the Koran over him, the demon would be cast out. He originally intended to go to Afghanistan for two or three weeks, depending on whether he was enjoying his stay. He met some members of Jamaayat al Tabliq at a mosque in Pakistan, and travelled with them. He was robbed by the Afghans, who took his passport, watch, wallet, and shoes, and held him prisoner for a month, before turning him over to the Americans. He says elsewhere that he never fought,and resolved to surrender to the Americans himself in order to avoid being killed.

JDZ Conclusions:

It seems remarkable how much Saudi tourism was underway in Afghanistan just at the time of the US invasion. I had never known of Afghanistan’s need for Islamic missionary activity, or its particular suitability as a site for exorcism of personal demons. “Who, me? I’m not a foreign jihadi. I’m just another tourist from Saudi Arabia with no passport, as I too was robbed by the Afghans.” One begins to suspect that the US tribunals get a bit tired of hearing the tourist robbed by the Afghans line. No, I don’t believe him, and I would not release him.

ISN# 245 – 19 pages – Detainee: S (Saudi)

Reasons for Detention:

Detainee is associated with Al Qaeda. He travelled from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan via Quetta, Pakistan. He spent 9 months in Afghanistan, receiving training at the Al Qaeda Camp at Al Farouk. He participated in military operations against the Coalition, carrying a rifle.

Detainee’s position:

The detainee played games at length, demanding a new personal representative, complaining he had been mistranslated, but refusing to answer questions or identify specifically where he thought he had been inaccurately quoted. He did not apparently retract the statements:

I was trained at Al Farouq on the Kalashnikov rifle. I did carry a weapon, but not in battle. A lot of people went to the mountains. I was given a a weapon to protect myself and five others. Each person had to guard the group of people for one hour. We were in a burrow approximately the size of this room.

Although he refused to clarify his position on which earlier statements he desired to deny, he still apparently intended to try to distinquish carrying a rifle in the mountains from bearing arms on the battlefield. He simply declined to answer a direct question as to whether he participated in military operations at Tora Bora.

JDZ Conclusions:

He is obviously a jihadi, who travelled to Aghanistan to fight the Coalition. He was trained by Al Qaeda. One infers from his refusal to deny it that he was indeed at Tora Bora. At the time of this hearing, he was still arrogant and obviously held his captors in contempt. He made repeated cynical (and naive) efforts to exploit Western due process and respect for a defendant’s rights to try to frustrate the operation of the tribunal. I would not release him.

ISN# 581 – 21 pages -Detainee: S (Pakistani)

Reasons for Detention:

He was a member of the Taliban, and held a high-ranking position as a military judge, in which position he tortured, maimed, and murdered Afghani nationals.

Detainee’s position:

He says that he has previously also been accused of being Deputy Foreign Minister and of being a prison guard in Kandahar named Bacha. He says he once went to Afghanistan for two days to attend a funeral. He says he is a chicken farmer. He also worked part-time providing religious instruction a local school.

In January 2002, Pakistani authorities came to his house looking for looted artifacts. He had none, and they took him to the police station, where they demanded bribes. He would not pay, so they put him in jail for 36 days, then identified him as a person they were looking for, who had a similar name. His testimony is supported by letters from a brother and a son in Pakistan.

DZ Conclusions:
He seems to have evidence confirming his identity as different from that of the Taliban judge. No evidence that he is that person he is accused of being is cited. His statements of not seeing weapons in many years seem to be an exaggeration, and may possibly have been taken by the tribunal as impeaching his entire testimony. Reading this transcript, however, I find no real evidence against him, and am obliged to suppose that he is not the person he is accused of being. I would release him.

ISN# 068 – 19 pages – Detainee: X (not named) (Saudi)

Reasons for Detention:

Associated with Jama’at al Tabligh (an Islamic missionary organization commonly used as an Al Qaeda cover). Captured by Pakistani forces with group of Al Qaeda mujahedin. His name was on a list of Al Qaeda mujehedin seized from an Al Qaeda safehouse in Pakistan.

Detainee’s position:

Denies being a member of Jama’at al Tabligh. Says he was arrested at the airport travelling from Afghanistan to Pakistan with no passport.

He says that he is a high school graduate and works for the chamber of commerce. He claimed to have been on a one month summer vacation devoted to a personal mission correcting Islamic errors (which he later extended). He started in Dubai, and then proceeded to Pakistan for three months, then to Afghanistan for one month. He says his passport was stolen. Claimed complete ignorance of Al Qaeda and Taliban.

JDZ Conclusions:

This detainee has a great deal more to say than the others. But his story of readily expandable vacations, random travel decisions, and ignorance of politics is not compelling. What is a Saudi doing in Afghanistan at the time of the US invasion, other than being a jihadi?

There is a possibility that he is telling the truth, but some actual evidence and the weight of the circumstances are completely against him. I would not release before the conclusion of hostilities.

SN# 342 – 5 pages – Detainee: M (Saudi Arabian)

Reasons for Detention:

M was arrested by Pakistani police in Quetta 25 November 2001. M. was identified as a member of Al Qaeda by several witnesses. He is reported to have been a member of the security team assigned to Al-Nashri, Al Qaeda Persian Gulf commander linked to the attack to the USS Cole. He is reported to have been the manager of the Al Qaeda guesthouse in Kabul. He is reported to have been on a Taliban airplane carrying fighters to Northern Afghanistan. He was identified as an Al Qaeda member by a former guard at Osama bin Laden’s complex in Kandahar.

From December 2000 to November 2001, he traveled extensively. His passport records his visiting Saudi Arabia (several times), Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Syria, and Malaysia. A Malaysia stamp was used by Al Qaeda in passport forgery used to eliminated evidence of travel to Pakistan and Afghanistan. His passport stamp record conflicts with information reported by Saudi Arabia.

Detainee’s position:

Denies everything. Declines to take Islamic oath.

JDZ Conclusions:

Clearly an Al Qaeda terrorist. I would not consider releasing him for a moment. He is probably an accomplice in capital crimes.

ISN# 965 – 9 pages – Detainee: H (Afghan)

Reasons for Detention:

H was captured by US forces, when stopped at a checkpoint. H was wearing an olive-green field jacket and was with a group of persons observed caching weapons recently used against US forces. Medical examination post-capture detected hearing impairment likely to result from firing weapons.

H was allegedly raised and employed by a low level Taliban commander named Mullah Mohammed Shah.

Detainee’s position:

Denies everything. Asserts that he is a farmer. Has never seen the Taliban. Does not even know what a rifle or a pistol is.

JDZ Conclusions:

It is evident that H was detained on suspicion and has been held on the basis of not implausible circumstantial evidence. It is probable that he did commit hostile acts against US forces. He was captured by US forces. He is plausibly connected to the Taliban. I found it impossible to form any opinion on the truth or falsehood of his denials, until we got to his denials of even knowing what a rifle or a pistol is.

Q: Did you ever use a rifle or a pistol or anything like that?

A: I have not used it. If I do not know it, how is it possible that I have used it?

Here H strains credulity to the breaking point. It is not possible to believe that any male rural Afghan does not know what weapons, particularly rifles and pistols, are. H has persuaded me that he is lying.

H is clearly a rural Afghan, who probably did fire on US forces in defense of his local authorities. He seems to be an insignificant foot soldier type. I think he should be released as soon as there was no organized hostile force he could rejoin, as long as he takes a credible oath to keep the peace. Evidently, US authorities believe organized hostile forces still exist, and in those circumstances, I believe they are justified in continuing to detain him.

JDZ, author/publisher of the Never Yet Melted Blog, will be participating in the bloggers’ study of Gitmo documents initiated by Edward Morrissey of the Captain’s Quarters blog to determine the validity of the Mark Denbeaux and Joshua W. Denbeaux Profile Study of 517 Guantanamo Bay Detainees which concludes:

1. Fifty-five percent (55%) of the detainees are not determined to have committed any hostile acts against the United States or its coalition allies.

2. Only 8% of the detainees were characterized as al Qaeda fighters. Of the remaining detainees, 40% have no definitive connection with al Qaeda at all and 18% are have no definitive affiliation with either al Qaeda or the Taliban.

3. The Government has detained numerous persons based on mere affiliations with a large number of groups that in fact, are not on the Department of Homeland Security terrorist watchlist. Moreover, the nexus between such a detainee and such organizations varies considerably. Eight percent are detained because they are deemed “fighters for;” 30% considered “members of;” a large majority – 60% – are detained merely because they are “associated with” a group or groups the Government asserts are terrorist organizations. For 2% of the prisoners, a nexus to any terrorist group is not identified by the Government.

4. Only 5% of the detainees were captured by United States forces. 86% of the detainees were arrested by either Pakistan or the Northern Alliance and turned over to United States custody. This 86% of the detainees captured by Pakistan or the Northern Alliance were handed over to the United States at a time in which the United States offered large bounties for capture of suspected enemies.

5. Finally, the population of persons deemed not to be enemy combatants – mostly Uighers – are in fact accused of more serious allegations than a great many persons still deemed to be enemy combatants.

I am currently reading through the cases in set number 22.

——————-

Mr. Morrissey’s initial call for the study is here.

Ralph Peters mocks the other MSM Big Lie of the past week.

I’M trying. I’ve been trying all week. The other day, I drove another 30 miles or so on the streets and alleys of Baghdad. I’m looking for the civil war that The New York Times declared. And I just can’t find it.

Maybe actually being on the ground in Iraq prevents me from seeing it. Perhaps the view’s clearer from Manhattan. It could be that my background as an intelligence officer didn’t give me the right skills.

And riding around with the U.S. Army, looking at things first-hand, is certainly a technique to which The New York Times wouldn’t stoop in such an hour of crisis.

The Washington Post tries a little pre-emption in tomorrow’s edition:

The Bush administration, seeking to limit leaks of classified information, has launched initiatives targeting journalists and their possible government sources. The efforts include several FBI probes, a polygraph investigation inside the CIA and a warning from the Justice Department that reporters could be prosecuted under espionage laws.

In recent weeks, dozens of employees at the CIA, the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies have been interviewed by agents from the FBI’s Washington field office, who are investigating possible leaks that led to reports about secret CIA prisons and the NSA’s warrantless domestic surveillance program, according to law enforcement and intelligence officials familiar with the two cases.

Numerous employees at the CIA, FBI, Justice Department and other agencies also have received letters from Justice prohibiting them from discussing even unclassified issues related to the NSA program, according to sources familiar with the notices. Some GOP lawmakers are also considering whether to approve tougher penalties for leaking.

In a little-noticed case in California, FBI agents from Los Angeles have already contacted reporters at the Sacramento Bee about stories published in July that were based on sealed court documents related to a terrorism case in Lodi, according to the newspaper.

Some media watchers, lawyers and editors say that, taken together, the incidents represent perhaps the most extensive and overt campaign against leaks in a generation, and that they have worsened the already-tense relationship between mainstream news.

Fiat justitia, ruat coelum.[Let justice be done, though the Heavens fall.]

Wretchard reflects on Tim Blair‘s observation that the Danish cartoons were more widely published in Islamic countries than in Canada, New Zealand or Australia, and went unpublished by a single major US daily, and concludes that the media’s self-censorship wasn’t really occasioned by fear of Islamic violence.

I think the real reason for the reluctance among Anglospheric publications to print the Danish cartoons was less timidity than the fear of tacitly repudiating the underlying assumption of the President Bush’s War on Terror, that the West is not at war with Islam but only with a small group of extremists who have corrupted “the religion of peace”. The Danish cartoons threatened to convert this limited war into a more general confrontation between the value systems of the West and Islam…

Once the Danish cartoon crisis threatened to knock the props out from under President Bush’s limited war on Islamic renegades and escalate it to a “clash of civilizations” the barrenness of the Lefist intellectual cupboard became obvious even to themselves. There was no recipe to deal with this contingency. A “clash of civilizations” would pull matters from their grasp precisely because they refused to touch it in the first place. They could only continue to pretend Islamism didn’t exist; and so they thrust their heads into the sand even further. The Danish cartoons? What cartoons?

Ralph Peters, reporting from Iraq, says the MSM lies:

The reporting out of Baghdad continues to be hysterical and dishonest. There is no civil war in the streets. None. Period.

Terrorism, yes. Civil war, no. Clear enough?

Yesterday, I crisscrossed Baghdad, visiting communities on both banks of the Tigris and logging at least 25 miles on the streets. With the weekend curfew lifted, I saw traffic jams, booming business — and everyday life in abundance.

Yes, there were bombings yesterday. The terrorists won’t give up on their dream of sectional strife, and know they can count on allies in the media as long as they keep the images of carnage coming. They’ll keep on bombing. But Baghdad isn’t London during the Blitz, and certainly not New York on 9/11.

It’s more like a city suffering a minor, but deadly epidemic. As in an epidemic, no one knows who will be stricken. Rich or poor, soldier or civilian, Iraqi or foreigner. But life goes on. No one’s fleeing the Black Death — or the plague of terror.

And the people here have been impressed that their government reacted effectively to last week’s strife, that their soldiers and police brought order to the streets. The transition is working.

Most Iraqis want better government, better lives — and democracy. It is contagious, after all. Come on over. Talk to them. Watch them risk their lives every day to work with us or with their government to build their own future.

Oh, the attacks will continue. They’re even predictable, if not always preventable. Driving through Baghdad’s Kerada Peninsula District, my humvee passed long gas lines as people waited to fill their tanks in the wake of the curfew. I commented to the officer giving me a lift that the dense lines of cars and packed gas stations offered great targets to the terrorists. An hour later, one was hit with a car bomb.

The bombing made headlines (and a news photographer just happened to be on the scene). Here in Baghdad, it just made the average Iraqis hate the terrorists even more.

You are being lied to. By elements in the media determined that Iraq must fail. Just give ’em the Bronx cheer.

Hat tip to Dr. Sanity.

Ben Shapiro listened to Al Gore’s wild accusations, made in a speech in Saudi Arabia, alleging that the US had comitted atrocities against Arabs, and wondered why, in time of war, this kind of activity is not prosecuted.

At some point, opposition must be considered disloyal. At some point, the American people must say “enough.” At some point, Republicans in Congress must stop delicately tiptoeing with regard to sedition and must pass legislation to prosecute such sedition.

“Freedom of speech!” the American Civil Liberties Union will protest. Before we buy into the slogan, we must remember our history. President Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and allowed governmental officials to arrest Rep. Clement Vallandigham after Vallandigham called the Civil War “cruel” and “wicked,” shut down hundreds of opposition newspapers, and had members of the Maryland legislature placed in prison to prevent Maryland’s secession. The Union won the Civil War.

Under the Espionage Act of 1917, opponents of World War I were routinely prosecuted, and the Supreme Court routinely upheld their convictions. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes rightly wrote, “When a nation is at war, many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right.” The Allies won World War I.

During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the internment of hundreds of thousands of Japanese-Americans, as well as allowing the prosecution and/or deportation of those who opposed the war. The Allies won World War II…

This is not to argue that every measure taken by the government to prosecute opponents of American wars is just or right or Constitutional. Some restrictions, however, are just and right and Constitutional — and necessary. No war can be won when members of a disloyal opposition are given free reign to undermine it.