As I mentioned before, PBS's Frontline has a fascinating episode about an al-Qaida affilated family that grew up with the Bin Ladens. Well, one of the family's sons, Abdurahman Khadr, apparently grew disgusted with the whole, oh killing innocents things, and appears to have become an informer after 9/11. (He was arrested in Afghanistan and eventually convinced his guards and the CIA that he had genuinely turned on AQ. His story is extraordinary, and I find it convincing. You can judge that for yourself.) What I find particularly interesting is what the kid found when he was sent to Gitmo, as a sort of undercover prisoner:
Q: What's your impression of Guantanamo? Do a lot of people belong there? What's your impression of the inmates?
They asked me always this question. I told them in 100 percent there is 80 percent of people that went to Afghanistan, like people that can't do anything. They've had enough. If you put them back in their countries they won't do anything. That's in 80 percent.
Among those 80 percent there is almost 60 in those 80, 60 that are people that haven't done anything. People that worked in a project in Pakistan, an old man that his son brought him, you know, just to sell him for $5,000. Drug dealers, people that didn't have anything to do with Al Qaeda were put there for no reason but because someone brought them there or someone thought of getting thousands for them, whoever captured them that they were Al Qaeda.
The rest, the 20 percent from the whole 100 percent, there's 10 percent of them that should be kept there and 10 percent of them if they go out and they catch up with Al Qaeda again they might go back to being Al Qaeda. But there's only like 10 percent of the people that are really dangerous, that should be there and the rest are people that don't have anything to do with it, don't even, don't even understand what they're doing here.
Q: Just explain the bounty hunting, how people ended up there. That they paid a bounty.
At the very beginning, after Americans took over Afghanistan, they needed to show the American public that you know, we have got people. So there was normal Afghans would catch normal Arabs, normal small Arabs and go to the American base and tell them, you know what, we have a big commander. The American would say yes okay and they would just buy him.
Q: If the Americans were paying large bounties, a large amount of money they would have ended up with a lot of innocent people there, don't you think?
Yes, a lot of innocent people. I told you the one story, I remember two, actually. One is the father that was brought by his own son. The son gave him a gun and took him up to an American base up there and took $5,000 for him. That's one story.
The second story is a drug user, a person that was sitting next to me, not worried about being in jail, not worried about what's going to happen to his family, not worried about what he's going to get. All he's worried about every time he asks the MPs to come around, asking them for a smoke, asking them for some hashish for you know, for marijuana, something like that, you know. Not even, he doesn't even know what he's doing here. Truly a drug addict, not Al Qaeda at all.
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There have been reports before--in the Washington Post I think--about how most of the men at Gitmo are basically just Taliban foot soldiers. And I've heard a few reports about this bounty system. But given the abuses we're now learning about, you think this might be worth revisiting?
Are you a crazy idiot?
Posted by: D | June 22, 2004 at 12:14 AM