Gitmo’s poets
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.
Category: Antiwar crowd, Politics, Terror War
Disillusioned? Do you mean disappointed as in the outcome of their failed attempts in force Shea Law on people? Do you mean dissatisfied in getting caught illegally participating in a war as an unlawful combatant?
These people hid among women and children. They are cowards of the greatest kind. They may target what they see as “the enemy” but they hurt people who have nothing to do with the situation. They commit the worst kind of atrocity against the innocent yet this dope holds them up as “gentle, thoughtful young men”.
Open your eyes Mr. [Marc] Falkoff and take a good look at what your “gentle, thoughtful young men” have done. Or maybe you are okay with that?
It figures that Falkoff would donate the profits to the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is anything but a “human rights law firm”. The CCR, which is an affiliate of United for Peace and Justice, is a radical legal and political action group that has been been promoting the interests and agenda of the lunatic Leftist fringe for over forty years. Since 9/11, the CCR has consistently opposed US counterterrorism initiatives, and not surprisingly, called for the closure of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. For what it’s worth, Falkoff may as well donate the profits directly to al Qaeda.
“For what it’s worth, Falkoff may as well donate the profits directly to al Qaeda.”
Whoaaa buddy… settle down now.
TSO- After reading the two emails I would say your colleague came off much more level-headed and reasonable. He pretty much owned you old pal.
TSO: Shocking you would think so. Just shocking. I hope someday you don’t have to deal with some asstard publishing the poetry of the men who murdered your brothers in arms.
He pretty much owned you old pal.
If by “owned” you mean made an ass of himself by publishing a book of poetry by “gentle, thoughtful young men,” some of whom went on to commit brutal acts of violence, whose own parents wanted them locked up, then, yeah, Falkoff totally “owned” TSO.
Dumbass.
Rooney, are you hanging out with Ward Churchill in his mom’s basement again? Put down the bong, tell her you need some pizza bites, and drink a big cup of “shut the hell up”.
His “clients”, the ones both alive and at room temp, are killers. They want you dead, me dead, anybody who doesn’t meet their standards of Muslim law.
If we were to drop you on the border of the 2 “kastans” right now do you think those “gentle, thoughtful young men” would they know you were a sweet, innocent little liberal who tries to get us all to “just get along?” What would they do? Lop off your head and call you infidel.
Now look at Ward and go “PARTY ON DUDE”!
Ha!!! This keeps getting better and better!!!
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the – Web Reconnaissance for 07/30/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
I thought you would get a kick out of that one! Party on!
TSO- BTW, I pulled 17 of my dead shipmates out of Aden Harbor after they were murdered by criminals. So don’t try to pull that one on me. I could care less if those criminals went on to write poetry. I can’t control what they or anyone else does. You need to realize that the only person you can control is yourself and stop getting so worked up by others who have different ideas than you. It clouds your judgment and your ability to think rationally. You’re better than that, friend.
TSO: You are really something else Rooney. So you would have been totally cool with the criminals who murdered your shipmates being given lawyers paid by the government who also published their poetry. Your right, my judgement is far too clouded to appreciate the poetry of guys who used triple stacked Russian landmines command detonated to kill people I served with. I’m such an awful bigot. Now, I am off to pay my penance on the golf course for a weekend. But hey, if I don’t make it because of something that happens, I should just smile and remember I have no control over anything.
Rooney –
Moral relativism is for the amoral. Dismount.
Incidentally, would someone care to enlighten me as to how an innocent Yemeni goat herder could possibly manage to wander into Afghanistan?
It would be interesting to read the entire email exchange between TSO and Mr. Falkman. Based on the portion posted above, it appears TSO jumped to an extremely irrational conclusion; namely, that the poetry writing detainees were responsible for killing his battle buddies.
Or TSO is using guilt by association to get his point across. Either way he comes out of the exchange looking like a buffoon – an appeal to emotion is not a solid foundation upon which to build an argument.
But I could be wrong, so I ask: where’s your proof? This site is fond of challenging Winter Soldier and other anti-war group claims for failing to provide the 5 Ws, yet no proof is offered to justify your claims.
Just looking for some consistency, fellas. Making statements based on the “America good, everyone else bad” mentality is the definition of ethnocentrisim.
Finally, Jonn, if detainees have zero rights because “we are at war” then I suspect you had no problem spending time as a detainee for no reason. After all, we were at war, right?
EW –
Whether “poets” such as Abdullah Saleh Al-Ajmi are firing on TSO in Afghanistan or a GI in Iraq is completely irrelevant to the thrust of both TSO’s letter and Debra Burlingame’s article. This discussion is about the consequences of releasing terrorists back into our societies, and the amorality of portraying mass murderers as sympathetic figures.
As I implied in post 11, Marc Falkoff is a stark raving idiot if he thinks that anyone with a lick of common sense believes that innocent Arab farmers, shopkeepers and herders are accidentally wandering hundreds, if not thousands, of miles across the frontiers of some of the most closed police states in the world, into the wildly popular tourist destinations of Taliban-infested Afghanistan. For some reason, the Pakis don’t seem to be picking up wayward Nepalese or Mongolian nomads along the Afghan-Pakistani frontier – how is it that Mr. Falkoff’s Yemeni friends have such a uniquely poor sense of direction???
Careful Mike, you are sliding down a very dangerous slope.
The larger discussion you are alluding to is an exercise in misguided principles; you are arguing that, because a few people have been released from Guantanamo and have committed crimes, EVERYONE detained by US forces is justified. I sincerely hope you are kidding…?
I’ll remind you to read Mr. Falkoff’s first sentence of his second paragraph. At the time it was written, none of the detainees had been so much as accused of harming US soldiers (or committing any crimes). That they went on to commit crimes is irrelevant to the above discussion.
You and TSO are using hindsight to justify future actions, and the ramifications of such a mindset are not only anathema to a free society, but are wholly ignorant of the potential consequences. According to your logic, everyone consuming alcohol at a bar should be arrested because they *might* get behind the wheel and *might* get into an accident later that night.
The only “asshattery” in the email exchange came from the mind of TSO…but I can understand his frustration because he lost his friends. You, on the other hand, are a different story…there is no excuse for your ethnocentric, Orwellian slant.
EW –
Your poor reading comprehension skills are exceeded only by your inability to wrap your brain around the nature of the “War on Terror”.
I am not arguing – in your words, not mine – that “because a few people have been released from Guantanamo and have committed crimes, EVERYONE detained by US forces is justified”. I am arguing that people who have been established as combatants and terrorists and are considered a continued risk to the United States and its allies should not be released into society so that they can resume killing people.
Secondly, the “War on Terror” is an IDEOLOGICAL – not an ethnic – conflict. Your charges of ethnocentrism are not only gratuitous, they are incoherent.
Finally, as far as Falkoff and his poets are concerned, the fact that none of the detainees had been accused of harming US soldiers or been charged with committing a crime does not mean that they are not affiliated with al Qaeda and/or the Taliban. Falkoff’s elusive legalese and his attempts to present his clients in a sympathetic manner are precisely what one would expect from a defense lawyer. In no way do his statements establish the innocence (or guilt) of the detainees.
Since you made the mistake of bringing up George Orwell, I’ll leave you with this observation from “Politics and the English Language”:
“…if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
Putting words in people’s mouths and deliberately distorting their comments is for intellectually dishonest people who can’t form an argument that stands on its own merits. Congratulations, Willers – you’ve earned yourself a place alongside Marc Falkoff in the Pantheon of Asshats.