TOPDOG08.COM

« Oliver Willis announces his candidacy | Main | Guilty until proven innocent »

September 21, 2003

Cold-blooded character assassins

Is it just me, or does this sounds like a pre-emptive strike to discredit someone who Bush feared might speak out against his treatment of prisoners in Cuba?

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — U.S. authorities have detained a Muslim chaplain who counseled suspected terrorists at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, saying he was carrying classified documents when he arrived back in the United States.

News reports said Army Capt. Yousef Yee had drawings of the prison and lists of detainees, but that could not immediately be confirmed. Yee has not been charged.

Yee, a 34-year-old who converted to Islam after being raised as a Christian, arrived at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba last November. His job was to teach fellow troops about Islam and counsel detainees suspected of links to Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime or the al-Qaeda terror network....

Yee is being held at a military brig in Charleston, S.C. — the same place where officials are holding Yaser Esam Hamdi, an American-born Saudi who allegedly fought with the Taliban, and Jose Padilla, a former Chicago gang member charged with plotting to detonate a bomb.

"He had daily access to the detainees," said Capt. Tom Crosson, a spokesman for U.S. Southern Command in Miami, who confirmed the military was holding Yee in South Carolina. "He is the first U.S. soldier that I know of to be detained and held since the war on terror began."

Since when are "drawings of the prison and lists of detainees" something you can get thrown in a military prison for without being charged? The idea that he was gonna try to spring them from jail in an elaborate escape plot or something is ridiculous on it's face! Wasn't part of his JOB to have lists of the prisoners that he talked to there? Are a few sketches that he could have reproduced from memory later anyways really significant at all? This man was HAND-PICKED by the US military, to provide basic religious services and cultural sensitivity training. He is by no means some type of fundamentalist. It is dispicable that they are trying to discredit him as a terrorist sympathizer, without even filing a single charge against him! Were they that afraid of what he might say once he got back home to New Jersey? They had to grab him in Florida, as soon as his plane from Cuba touched the ground? Why not just cut out the middle man and lock him up with the other detainees in Guantanamo?

Oh wait, that's right. He's a US citizen with a distinguished military career! Guess the suspicion of terrorism makes it harder for him to get on 60 minutes now and start talking. Right? Wouldn't want him to show up at the UN on Tuesday and start asking about execution chambers, teenagers held without cause, and violations of the Geneva Convention.

Why do I have images of that scene in Scarface, when Al Pacino is driving the station wagon behind the reporter and his family on their way to the UN. The Bolivian assassin wants him to pull closer, so he can denotate the bomb rigged to the family's car, but Scarface can't do it. Obviously, John Ashcroft would not have shared Scarface's dilemma. Someone needs to be shut up? You shut them up. Or if you can't do that, you discredit them and ruin their life.

Hey, Ashcroft: SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND (freedom of speech).

Posted by Mike at September 21, 2003 11:54 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.topdog08.com/cgi-bin/mt-trackback.cgi/193

Comments

Post a comment