ABQjournal: Letters to the Editor
No U.S. Safeguards for Detainees
RE: “GITMO Visits Reveal Policy Gone Bad” commentary
The article is a travesty. Mahvish Khan is an absolute dupe of the Taliban and al-Qaida. The Guantanamo detainees are trained by al-Qaida to lie through their teeth to elicit sympathy for them and their cause.
The writer doesn’t show a shred of evidence about the veracity of their statements, yet she believes them implicitly, thereby damning the honorable soldiers who captured these terrorists or terrorist sympathizers, and the soldiers and sailors who treat these despicable people with respect and excellent treatment.
The American writer of this op-ed went in with a built-in bias and an agenda. There is absolutely no objectivity in the article. The detainees were captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan and should be tried by military tribunals.
They are not U.S. citizens and are not entitled to the protections of the U.S. Constitution.
JACK MAHER
Albuquerque
Let us remember that we don’t necessarily know the truth about every single person we’ve imprisoned. It has to be conceivable that one in 400 is neither a liar nor guilty. These are not simply soldiers rounded up in the middle of battle. These are suspects and we all know how trustworthy our intelligence has been in larger matters.
Perhaps we have no obligation to treat these people as we would hope we would treat American citizens with the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair, speedy and open trial. But, they are where they are in part to be certain they can’t be touched by our judicial system. And, if our own standards of justice are so flexible, why should any American citizen expect any better treatment. Mr Maher could be declared an enemy combatant tonight and disappear. Surely he knows that.
Maher has the right to object to Mahvish Khan’s story, but he is very willing to accept the sketchy claims of an administration that seems incompetent and untrustworthy in many matters. mjh
mjh’s blog — I felt that my own country had taken a wrong turn
Guantanamo’s innocuous men By Mahvish Khan, Special to The Washington Post