Read Online My Guantanamo Diary by Mahvish Khan - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Mahvish Khan
Ads: Link
$25,000 to anyone who would turn in members of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Considering that the per capita income in Afghanistan in 2006 was $300, or 82 cents a day, that’s like hitting the jackpot. The medianincome for each American household was $26,036 in 2006. 1 If a bounty system of equal proportions were offered to Americans, it would be worth $2.17 million. The average American and the average Afghan would have to work for eighty-three years to make that kind of money. One particularly disingenuous leaflet offered Afghan locals up to a whopping $5 million.
Of course, offering large sums as bounty doesn’t violate any international laws. But when the result is a pattern of hundreds of men being randomly sold into captivity and then held without due process on the basis of flimsy allegations made by people who benefited financially, it’s at the very least cause for concern—and a second look.
The Department of Defense (DOD) has said it was unaware of any sort of bounty being paid for prisoners. Here are two of the leaflets:
Bounty leaflet 1 in English.
Bounty leaflet 2, front and backside, in Pashto and Dari. (English translation: Up to $5 million will be awarded for providing information about the whereabouts and/or capture of Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders.)
Then defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters in late 2001 that leaflets were dropping across Afghanistan “like snowflakes in December in Chicago.”
Afghanistan has been a country of deep-seated, relentless conflict for generations. Here, in the United States, with our rule of law and live-and-let-live traditions, we can’t understand the complex animosities, based on tribal affiliation and religious, ideological, and political differences, that might lead one Afghan to turn another in. Territorial feuds over land are common. Throw large monetary rewards into the mix, and the result could easily be a lot of false reports—and wrongful detentions.
Afghan warlords and locals went for the bait. But they weren’t the only ones. The hefty bounties also created an extensive black market for abductions in Pakistan. That’s where many detainees’ road to Guantánamo began—specifically with Pakistan’s notoriously unscrupulous Inter-Services Intelligence.
When the United States began bombing in late 2001, thousands of Afghans fled to neighboring Pakistan. The Pakistani police, border guards, and locals, all eager to get their hands on large sums of cash, seized hundreds of men. It was big business. Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf even bragged about it in his memoir, In the Line of Fire .
“We have earned bounties totaling millions of dollars,” he wrote, admitting that his agents had handed over 369 men to the U.S. military in exchange for Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) “prize money.” When he got a lot of flak for his published admissions, Musharraf quickly backtracked. Subsequent editions of his book have dropped this mention of the 369 men and CIA prize money.
According to Amnesty International reports, two-thirds of the men who landed in Guantánamo were picked up inPakistan, where many were “groomed” in local jails to grow out their beards and look more like Taliban before being sold to the U.S. military.
Arabs in particular became a valuable commodity and an opportunity for profit. They stood out and were easily rounded up. Tom Wilner told me that none of the Kuwaitis at Guantánamo had been captured on any battlefield; they weren’t even accused of engaging in any hostilities against the United States. His clients told him that they had been sold by Pakistanis or Afghan warlords.
Several Chinese Muslim detainees, known as Uighurs, told their attorney, Sabin Willett of Bingham and McCutchen, that they had been betrayed by Pakistanis. They had gone to Afghanistan for military training so that they could fight for independence from China. When U.S. warplanes started bombing Afghanistan, they, along with many others, fled
Of course, offering large sums as bounty doesn’t violate any international laws. But when the result is a pattern of hundreds of men being randomly sold into captivity and then held without due process on the basis of flimsy allegations made by people who benefited financially, it’s at the very least cause for concern—and a second look.
The Department of Defense (DOD) has said it was unaware of any sort of bounty being paid for prisoners. Here are two of the leaflets:
Bounty leaflet 1 in English.
Bounty leaflet 2, front and backside, in Pashto and Dari. (English translation: Up to $5 million will be awarded for providing information about the whereabouts and/or capture of Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders.)
Then defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters in late 2001 that leaflets were dropping across Afghanistan “like snowflakes in December in Chicago.”
Afghanistan has been a country of deep-seated, relentless conflict for generations. Here, in the United States, with our rule of law and live-and-let-live traditions, we can’t understand the complex animosities, based on tribal affiliation and religious, ideological, and political differences, that might lead one Afghan to turn another in. Territorial feuds over land are common. Throw large monetary rewards into the mix, and the result could easily be a lot of false reports—and wrongful detentions.
Afghan warlords and locals went for the bait. But they weren’t the only ones. The hefty bounties also created an extensive black market for abductions in Pakistan. That’s where many detainees’ road to Guantánamo began—specifically with Pakistan’s notoriously unscrupulous Inter-Services Intelligence.
When the United States began bombing in late 2001, thousands of Afghans fled to neighboring Pakistan. The Pakistani police, border guards, and locals, all eager to get their hands on large sums of cash, seized hundreds of men. It was big business. Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf even bragged about it in his memoir, In the Line of Fire .
“We have earned bounties totaling millions of dollars,” he wrote, admitting that his agents had handed over 369 men to the U.S. military in exchange for Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) “prize money.” When he got a lot of flak for his published admissions, Musharraf quickly backtracked. Subsequent editions of his book have dropped this mention of the 369 men and CIA prize money.
According to Amnesty International reports, two-thirds of the men who landed in Guantánamo were picked up inPakistan, where many were “groomed” in local jails to grow out their beards and look more like Taliban before being sold to the U.S. military.
Arabs in particular became a valuable commodity and an opportunity for profit. They stood out and were easily rounded up. Tom Wilner told me that none of the Kuwaitis at Guantánamo had been captured on any battlefield; they weren’t even accused of engaging in any hostilities against the United States. His clients told him that they had been sold by Pakistanis or Afghan warlords.
Several Chinese Muslim detainees, known as Uighurs, told their attorney, Sabin Willett of Bingham and McCutchen, that they had been betrayed by Pakistanis. They had gone to Afghanistan for military training so that they could fight for independence from China. When U.S. warplanes started bombing Afghanistan, they, along with many others, fled
Similar Books
