[antimedia] antimedia: If ever there was a time....

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Posted by antimedia:
If ever there was a time....
http://www.antimedia.us/posts/1150496973.shtml


   ....when context is badly needed, it's when reading [1]this op-ed in
   the New York Times. The Times saw fit to grant their most important
   editorial space to a former Guantanamo prisoner because they hate
   Guantanamo and want to see it closed. When you read the op-ed, you
   will either feel really sorry for this guy and angry about Guantanamo
   (what the Times wants you to feel) or you will, like me, laugh your
   ass off at the unbelieveability of his story.
   According to this gentlemen, he went to Afghanistan on a "dream
   vacation". That alone is enough to get me laughing uproariously. For a
   French muslim, I can imagine a great number of "dream vacations" --
   Mecca, for example, or Egypt or Morroco or Algeria possibly -- but not
   Afghanistan.
   But, to his utter "horror", 9/11 was happening as he was attempting to
   return from his two months "trapped" in an Al Qaeda training camp, and
   he was stuck inside Afghanistan as the borders were closed. Somehow,
   he managed to make it across the border into Pakistan, along with many
   of his fellow vacationers.

     As soon as my time was up, I headed home. I was a few miles from
     the Pakistani border when I learned with horror about the attacks
     of 9/11. Days later, the border was sealed off, and the only way
     through to Pakistan and a plane to Europe was across the mountains
     of the Hindu Kush. I was with a group of people who were all going
     the same way. No one was armed; most of them, like me, had been
     lured to Afghanistan by a misguided and mistimed sense of
     adventure, and were simply trying to make their way home.

   Unfortunately for him, he was "mistaken" for a combatant and sent to
   Guantanamo, where he spent two-and-one-half agonizing years being
   subjected to privation and torture, being forced against his will to
   eat three square meals a day, live in an air conditioned cell and
   endure regular health checkups, including dental care.
   Finally he was released and returned to France, his native country,
   into the arms of his loving family -- all of whom, mother, father, and
   two brothers, have [2]now been convicted of plotting chemical terror
   plots inside France while he was vacationing in Afghanistan and
   sentenced to various terms in prison. And to add insult to injury,
   he's languishing in a French prison awaiting trial on his own charges,
   of having attended an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan for two
   months, a charge he gladly admits is true.
   Poor fellow just can't seem to get a break. (Hat tips to
   [3]Newsbusters and [4]Dadmanly.)

References

   1. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/14/opinion/14benchellali.html?ex=1307937600&en=6690e6767b9e6a6d&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
   2. http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/06/14/france.attack.ap/
   3. http://newsbusters.org/node/5901
   4. http://dadmanly.blogspot.com/2006/06/outrageous-postscript.html