[ExI] Programme Riz Khan: Guantanamo: The detainees

[Amara Graps]

In addition to recent news that established definitively that the drive
to make torture an instrument of U.S. policy originated at the highest
levels of the Bush administration (surprise, surprise), here, on this
Riz Khan program, we learn that the 'dangerous' prisoners at Guantanamo
Bay were mostly not (even remotely) engaging in terrorist activities to
cause them to be picked up.

Aljazeera : PROGRAMME RIZ KHAN
Guantanamo: The detainees

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvVdOrbRmNE   Part One
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8qiygAWLSU   Part Two

Summary from
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/059EA4E1-1C50-46F5-92F0-0E92880CFF0C.htm

<begin quote>
"The worst of the worst." That is how the Bush administration described
the more than 770 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.

But a closer look at those released from the detention facility shows
anything but. Many, like the Uighur detainees from China, were simply at
the wrong place at the wrong time. Others were 'turned in' because they
fell victim to familial or tribal grudges. In fact, the value of the
information provided by detainees at Guantanamo was of very limited
value, so much so, that former Pentagon officials described it as
"worthless" and "useless".

So who are the detainees of Guantanamo Bay and why were they held for so
long if they had no real information?

On Tuesday's Riz Khan we talk to Roy Gutman and Matt Schofield of
McClatchy News Service about the lives of those captured, held and
released from Guantanamo. The stories of 66 former detainees in 11
countries are the subject of McClatchy's just released Guantanamo:
Beyond the Law.
<end quote>

-- 

Amara Graps, PhD      www.amara.com
Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado