Debra Burlingame writes in the Wall Street Journal about Abdullah Saleh Al-Ajmi, a former Guantanamo detainee cum homicide bomber in Mosul last March. His poetry was included in the book “Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak,” (Iowa University Press, 2007) and read for a Guantanamo “teach-in” in 2006;
In his introductory remarks to the students, Mr. [Marc] Falkoff described Al-Ajmi and the other detainee poets as “gentle, thoughtful young men” who, though frustrated and disillusioned, expressed an abiding hope in the future. “One thing you won’t hear is hatred,” he said, “and the reason you won’t hear it is not because I edited it out, it’s because it’s not there in the poetry.”
Two years after the “teach-in”, that gentle, thoughtful young man drove about 10,000 pounds of explosives into an Iraqi army compound and detonated the truck killing 13 and wounding scores of others leaving a smoldering 25-foot crater where his “gentle, thoughtful” personage evaporated.
Burlingame reports that his father knew what kind of person he was;
The bombings carried out by Al-Ajmi and two other Kuwaiti nationals have stirred a public outcry from their fellow citizens. Al-Ajmi’s own father has reportedly threatened to sue the government of Kuwait for issuing his son a passport and failing to live up to the terms set forth in the transfer agreement with U.S. State Department as a condition of his release. Kuwait’s negligence and the State Department’s failure to follow up have resulted in calls from the public for the detainees to stay right where they are and for Guantanamo to stay in operation.
Their own countries are calling for them to stay put in Guantanamo;
“We cannot romanticize them into fallen heroes of Western neo-imperialism,” wrote Shamael Al-Sharikh, a columnist for the Kuwaiti Times, in an article advocating that Guantanamo stay open, “because we are as much potential victims of terrorist attacks as [Americans] are.”
My regular readers may remember the video interview I did last month with a member of Amnesty International who kept claiming that these detainees have “human rights” – rights they won’t afford their victims. The courts and the lawyers and the whining-ass Amnesty International don’t understand that this isn’t a question of legal rights…it’s war. Even though we can’t bring our spineless politicians to that realization, the courts, whose main function it is to protect the People of the United States should arrive at that conclusion. Except our court system has taken on the personae of it’s sleaziest members and become ambulance-chasing shysters afraid they’re going to lose some business if they let the Executive Branch fight the war without their interference.
There are no legal issues. These aren’t people who were picked up drunk on the street and shipped off to Guantanamo to populate some prison farm or sweatshop factory…these are folks scooped up from the front lines of the battle. Guantanamo didn’t turn them into suicidal maniacs…their culture did that.
At least three who’ve been released have gone on to commit suicide attacks, at least four others have been killed in battle on the wrong side after their release. The more civilized elements on the Arab Street are beginning to see the benefit of removing these criminals from the world’s stage, how long before the Left puts our safety and security ahead of their petty politics and fund raising schemes?
UPDATE FROM TSO:
I actually shared some emails with Mr. Falkoff in June of last year when this book came out, I find what he said interesting now.
My Email to him:
From: TSO
Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2007 1:43 PM
To: mfalkoff@niu.edu
Subject: I’m absolutely overjoyed that I took a year and a half off of law school to go to Afghanistan, watch friends of mine die, put my life on the line to capture these guys, and then you go and make money off their defense and publish their poetry. Looking forward to you publishing the letters home from SSG Craig Cherry and SGT Bobby Beasley.
Sheer asshattery.
TSO
Combat Infantryman
3L
And his response to me:
From: Marc Falkoff
Date: Thursday, June 21, 2007 3:37 pm
Subject: RE:
Dear Mr. TSO,I am very sorry to learn of the deaths of your friends.
You should know that none of the 17 men whom I represent has been accused of fighting or harming our troops. Nor were any of them taken into custody by Americans. Most were taken into custody in Pakistan, by Pakistani personnel, after they crossed the Afghan border trying to return to their families in Yemen.
I understand that you may be disinclined to believe me. My only request for years has been to get my clients their day in court, where they will have an opportunity to prove their innocence. To date, none of my clients has been charged with crime, and none has been convicted of anything. One, in fact, was released from Guantanamo earlier this week, and is now home in Yemen.
Neither I nor any of the detainees will make a penny off of the poetry book. We long ago arranged for all profits, if there are any, to be donated to the Center for Constitutional Rights, a human rights law firm.
Respectfully,
Marc Falkoff
Wonder if the client released in his email is the one that was peacefully blowing people up in Iraq?
UPDATE x2, nope, a different guy.
