The information that came out of Guantanamao Bay has certainly placed some of its inmates in a new light. The interviews that have been conducted with inmates were released under the US Freedom of Information Act. Some of them sound as if they are directly comparable to the strange entries on insurance claim forrms. The ones that Jasper Carrott used to read out for laughs.
The entries show ho wthe truly innocent were caught by this tyrannical sweep. Taliban cooks who just happened to be holding a few grenades to boil the soup...
Qari Esmhatulla, for example, told the tribunal that he agreed to be a Taliban cook because his friends challenged him to do so, and he was with the Taliban for just four days before he was arrested by the Northern Alliance while carrying a radio and a few grenades. U.S. officials accused him of joining the Taliban to participate in jihad.
"Out of everything on that paper, the only thing that was right was I had the radio and the grenades with me," Esmhatulla said, adding that he dropped the grenades and was unarmed when he was captured. "Other than that, everything else is false. I did not say or do any of those things."
Some had just popped across to Afghanistan to improve their lives, since economic migrants are flooding in to the country:
A detainee from Kazakhstan said he was captured by Afghans and turned over to the United States, but did not understand why he was in custody because he just grows vegetables. The tribunal officials tried to pry information from him.
"We are trying to figure out why you are here, the U.S. wouldn't detain someone for two years for simply growing vegetables. Can you help us understand?" the tribunal official said, with no response. "Do you want to tell us why you think you are here?"
The detainee then answered: "I am here because I went to Afghanistan with my family for a better life. They captured me at that house, that is the reason why I am here," he said, before he was asked if he grew poppies in his garden. "I don't know what a poppy is," he said.
Economic migration to Afghanistan....whatever!
Guantanamo Bay should be closed down as an affront to the principles of liberty. However, I doubt that most of those imprisoned are the prisoners of conscience that some critics would like to portray.