Monday, March 06, 2006

Bomb-makers and Chicken Farmers

Last Friday a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the AP compelled the Department of Defense to release about 5000 pages of transcripts from hearings at Guantanamo. The Pentagon still has not released a full list of the 490 names, but many previously unknown identities can now be confirmed-and even more stories told.

Not surprisingly, the transcripts show a wide spectrum of opinions about the quality of prisoner treatment, from "American people are very good. Really. They give us three meals. Fruit juice and everything!" to a colonel telling a defiant detainee, "I do not care about international law. I do not want to hear the words international law again. We are not concerned about international law."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030406Y.shtml

More details of Bisher al-Rawi's hearing, and the effect of the UK's "no comment" on his previous relations with the British intelligence MI5 (since they would neither confirm nor deny his association, the judge would not accept his defense), can be read at:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article349562.ece

And many other voices can be heard in today's NY Times article. This article details both the detainees who sound innocent and befuddled ("I'm only a chicken farmer") and some proud Al Qaeda members, who sound like the "bomb-makers" Cheney says they are.