Something To Read

HITT: Americans are going to think that because you were at Guantanamo Bay, that you were a terrorist, and that everybody was.

ABDULLAH: Yeah.

HITT: What would you say to them?

ABDULLAH: Uh… I would say, even if I were an angel, I would still be a terrorist to them, because it’s the thing that they wanted. People don’t want to take responsibility for their mistakes, that’s it. They want to put it on others. It’s like slaughtering a sheep, for example, and when the sheep keeps shaking and the blood’s spilling all over the place, they’d scream at it and say, “You’re a bad sheep! Bad, bad sheep, because your blood came on my clothes, or my dress.” You know what I’m saying? They would take you, maybe torture you, or maybe kill you, or maybe put you under so much stress, and then they would say, “You’re a bad person,” ‘cause you’d been through those things. Why did you put me through those things in the first place?


The above is the closing segment from a radio show I listen to on NPR that was re-broadcast yesterday from its original play date a year ago. The show deals with detainees from Guantanamo bay and the situations surrounding their detainment. The final segment consists of a man interviewing two individuals held for extended periods of time with little or no evidence of their guilt, and no way to question their detainment because of the American governments attitude toward the Geneva conventions and the rules of habeas corpus.

I'm not trying to turn this into a political blog or debate over American foreign policies over the Internet. I am just restating for you, the reader, a transcription of an ex-prisoners statement that I think is quite powerful.

The full transcript is available here. If you would like to listen to this particular show it will be hosted for the rest of the week (until next Monday) if you search for "This American Life" in Itunes under podcasts.