The latest from The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com
- Andy Worthington: Forgotten: The Second Anniversary Of A Guantanamo Suicide
- Michael Russnow: Susan Boyle Placed Rather Than Won: Hollie Steel Cried Her Way Into the Finals
| Andy Worthington: Forgotten: The Second Anniversary Of A Guantanamo Suicide | Top |
| Today, unnoticed in the Western media (although I can't vouch for the Arabic world) is the second anniversary of the death at Guantánamo -- apparently by suicide -- of Abdul Rahman al-Amri, a Saudi prisoner, and a long-term hunger striker, who had admitted that he was a foot soldier for the Taliban, but who went to his death with a ludicrous and unsupported allegation against him that, to this day, is regarded by the Pentagon as "evidence" -- a claim that, despite arriving in Afghanistan in September 2001, he became a "mid-level al-Qaeda operative" who "ran al-Qaeda safe houses" in the three months before his capture in December. The date of al-Amri's death is always significant for me, because it was in response to his death -- and with no interest from the mainstream media -- that I wrote my first two articles for my blog (after completing the manuscript for my book The Guantánamo Files ), providing some background to his story that would otherwise have been overlooked. I have followed this up in the two years since with several articles about the other prisoners who have died in Guantánamo: the three men who died in June 2006 -- Ali al-Salami, Mani al-Utaybi and Yasser al-Zahrani -- and the belated and inadequate results of an investigation into their deaths, and Abdul Razzaq Hekmati , the Afghan prisoner who died of cancer in Guantánamo on December 26, 2007, who was featured in a front-page story that Carlotta Gall and I wrote for the New York Times in February 2008. Al-Amri's death, like those of the three men the year before (two of whom were Saudis) provoked the Saudi government to break the festering mistrust that had developed between the Saudis and the U.S. in the wake of the 9/11 attacks (in which most of the operatives were Saudis) by pushing the U.S. government to repatriate the majority of the remaining 106 Saudi prisoners in Guantánamo (93 between June 2006 and December 2007), so that they could be put through a rehabilitation program that, with a high degree of success, has involved religious reeducation, counseling and support in finding wives and jobs, in order to enable them to re-enter Saudi society. As a result of this pressure, only 13 Saudi prisoners remain in Guantánamo, even though, as I reported two months ago , six of these men were "approved for transfer" after multiple military review boards. However, the 100 or so Yemenis still held at Guantánamo (who make up over 40 percent of the prison's remaining population) have been less fortunate, even though one of the three men who died in June 2006 was a Yemeni. Only 13 Yemeni prisoners have been released throughout Guantánamo's history, as negotiations between the U.S. and Yemeni governments have dragged on interminably, and even a recent proposal -- that the Saudis would take them , and put them through their rehabilitation program -- has not yet resulted in any official agreement, despite being discussed during a recent visit to Saudi Arabia by defense secretary Robert Gates. In the meantime, two Yemeni prisoners have had their habeas corpus petitions granted by U.S. courts (and more are likely to follow ), and with each passing day it becomes more apparent that Obama's promise to close Guantánamo within a year will only be achieved if a solution can be reached regarding the Yemeni prisoners. The great irony about this delay is that, as my three years of research into the stories of the Guantánamo prisoners has demonstrated, the Yemeni prisoners, like their Saudi counterparts, are, for the most part, not the "hardcore terrorists" invoked in Dick Cheney's fearful, self-seeking rhetoric (as he attempts to evade prosecution for his central role in the illegal and counter-productive "War on Terror"), but rather a mixture of innocent men -- missionaries and humanitarian aid workers, sold for bounties by the U.S. military's unscrupulous allies -- and low-level Taliban foot soldiers, recruited, like Abdul Rahman al-Amri, to support the Taliban in Afghanistan's long-running civil war, in which the enemy was not the United States, but the Muslims of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance. In the absence of any news regarding Abdul Rahman al-Amri's forgotten death, I can only reiterate what I wrote exactly a year ago , to mark the first anniversary of his death: On this somber anniversary, the best I can do to mark the shameful circumstances of Abdul Rahman al-Amri's passing (without having been granted an opportunity to present his case in a court of law) is to repeat one of the few statements attributed to him during his imprisonment in Guantánamo, which demonstrates, I believe, how he never presented a threat to the United States or its interests. Responding to an allegation that he admitted to "carrying an AK-47 while retreating" to Pakistan (which was supposed to suggest militancy against the United States), he pointed out that "Americans trained him during periods of his service" with the Saudi army, and insisted that, "had his desire been to fight and kill Americans, he could have done that while he was side by side with them in Saudi Arabia. His intent was to go and fight for a cause that he believed in as a Muslim toward jihad, not to go and fight against the Americans." Two years after his death, Abdul Rahman al-Amri's words remain as relevant as ever for many of those still held at Guantánamo, when, as President Obama vacillates , Dick Cheney's monstrous lies once more draw politicians of both parties to resort to preposterous fearmongering , unable -- despite the evidence available to them -- to differentiate between the few dozen terrorists at Guantánamo, and the rest of the prison's population: innocent men and foot soldiers in a distant war that preceded the attacks of September 11, 2001 and that had nothing to do with the events of that dreadful day. One day, when historians look back on the history of Guantánamo, they will realize that, behind all the arrogant labeling of randomly-seized prisoners as "enemy combatants," who could be held neither as prisoners of war nor as criminal suspects to be put forward for trials in federal courts, and behind all the torture that was introduced when these nobodies were unable to come up with "actionable intelligence," was a war that, although justified in its pursuit of al-Qaeda, was fatally flawed when those who instigated it -- and the politicians who supported them -- decided to equate a despised government that had sheltered al-Qaeda (the Taliban) with al-Qaeda itself. Four months into the new administration, the grievous errors made by the Bush administration in its pursuit of that small group of men who had gathered around Osama bin Laden, as the Saudi billionaire, or his proxies, launched the attack on the United States, have not been addressed in an adequate manner , and seem, instead, to have inflicted permanent damage on America's moral compass. Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press), and maintains a blog here . More on Barack Obama | |
| Michael Russnow: Susan Boyle Placed Rather Than Won: Hollie Steel Cried Her Way Into the Finals | Top |
| It was a surprise, though not completely shocking, that Susan Boyle did not win Britain's Got Talent . Her performance in the finals held today in London surpassed her original rendition of the same song she sang in her introduction to the world, I Dreamed a Dream from Les Miserables and was a marked improvement over her semi-final selection of Memory from Cats . But the intervening week since last Sunday's semi-final performance win via telephone call-in votes -- ironically over the contestants which beat her in the finals, the dance hip-hop team, Diversity -- may well have played a part in her second place finish. Taking nothing away from Diversity , who displayed terrific moves as did their dancing counterpart Flawless , which was the opening act, it seems to me Susan's negative press in the tabloids and CNN, plus tweets on Twitter may have worked against her. Hard to say and difficult to prove, but, having suggested in my last column that she was a bit too overconfident and cheeky, I must commend her for her subdued patter after her brilliant number, and, in particular for how she behaved when Diversity was declared the winner. "The best people won," she said of Diversity . "They're very entertaining, and lads, I wish you all the best." She put a beautiful cap on her talent show stint and, no doubt, vanquished the doubters with her remarks and, more importantly, the stirring and different style with which she sang the Les Miserables hit. Of course, though we may be disappointed for Susan it is unlikely too many tears will flow from either our eyes or her own, because she is destined to live the dream she sang about and we'll be hearing a lot from her in the years to come. It's hard to believe with all the hoopla that the Queen won't summon her for a command performance. To me, although he didn't make the top three, the other bet to achieve some level of stardom is the handsome and very talented Shaun Smith, the 17-year-old high school rugby player who wowed us with Ain't No Sunshine . For a teenager with no previous exposure or professional experience, his singing was enormously infectious and his baritone vibrato and up-tempo transitions were sheer excitement. Because of his age and looks there's little doubt a contract will soon be forthcoming, probably from American Idol 's Simon Cowell, who was practically salivating during every performance -- even more than Amanda Holden! The other young singers, 12-year-old Shaheen Jafargholi and 10-year-old Hollie Steel, were quite good, but as adolescents will have to develop a bit before we see whether they rise to everyone's expectations of their talents. A word about Hollie, though, and her complete breakdown on Friday's semi-final performance. Lest you think I'm cruel, so be it, but it tells me that shows like this should not allow children to compete against the adults. It is simply not fair. Not because they might be considered cute and cuddly nor even that the flaws in their performances contrasted with adults might be forgiven. But Hollie's mistakes and fumbles, leading to a hysterical meltdown, should have ended it there for the girl. Indeed, hosts Ant and Dec, as they tried to calm her down, informed her there would be no more time for a do over. But amidst her continued tears, running into the arms of her waiting mother, the ordinarily cold Simon Cowell, playing against type, assured her they would find the time and permitted her to come back later. Her second try was much better, and so, though she didn't win the audience vote, she was voted into the finals by the judges. They insisted it was because of her talent, and against the other choice, the falsetto-voiced Greg Pritchard, I would have to agree. However, I have to respond to Simon's comment in the finals, after Hollie performed extremely well, that others had discussed the fairness of whether children should appear with grownups. He admitted that he'd wrestled with it as well, but came to the conclusion that if their talents matched the adults, why not? He further suggested that votes for Hollie should be based on talent and not pity. But wasn't it pity that rescued Hollie in the semis? There were several other children near the same age, who all performed in the semis without subjecting us to their neuroses. Indeed, Natalie Okri, also ten years old and one of the top three in the group that included Susan Boyle, didn't cry until after she was voted out. Shaheen, Aiden Davis, Callum Francis, Kieran Gaffney and 2 Grand's Sallie Lax are all in the age twelve range and didn't need the judge's support. However, having said that, Simon did help Shaheen in the initial audition when he stopped him mid-performance and suggested that he do another number, which then wowed the judges and the audience. These two instances demonstrate that, talent aside, the children have been given favored treatment over the adults. No one stopped Susan Boyle and gave her a chance to start again after a faulty beginning when she squeaked out the first few bars of Memory in the semi-finals. Likewise, no one allowed Welsh tenor Jamie Pugh to have a second try when, with an admitted bundle of nerves, he fell short as he performed Impossible Dream . Amanda Holden even buzzed in during the middle of the song, later chided by Simon for doing so, which no doubt even unnerved him more. So, why the double standard? On the one hand they say that talent is talent, no matter the age, and in a sense that's true. But if they make exceptions for kids who don't quite make it at first or cry uncontrollably,is that fair? In a track meet, if you fall they don't make everyone redo the race just because you've won all the previous ones. In my opinion, they should have a separate talent contest, Britain's Kids Got Talent, with a cutoff at least at 14. That's my solution, though I doubt they'll take it. Michael Russnow's website is www.ramproductionsinternational.com More on Susan Boyle | |
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