I’ve been keeping up with your Guantanamo reporting and find much interest in the subject since my father, John Downs, is an American geologist currently imprisoned in Qatar for life. My two brothers and I (all in university/high school) recently returned from a trip to Washington, DC where we met with our representatives in the Senate and State Department asking for help on our father’s behalf. Like all previous trips to DC, we returned home with little hope and less support.

During the past 4 years of my father’s unjust incarceration he’s been writing novels and short stories to occupy his time. We’re currently looking for a reporter/author who finds interest in our story and might be inclined to help us get it published.

You can find more information on our website at http://www.johnwdowns.com or my blog margaretdowns.blogspot.com. Thank you so much for your time and dedicated reporting.

Margaret Downs

Bush and Cheney just like to hurt people. It’s not complicated.

The Bush administration’s entire conception of justice was entirely Manichean. To them, crimes weren’t something you DO, they’re something you ARE. Thus, to the president torturing prisoners was OK, because he was on the side of Jesus, and because the tortured had to be on the devil’s side.

So when they’re deciding who to try to convict, if they’ve decided that so-and-so “is al Qaeda”, then he’s guilty of terrorism, period.

What’s lost in all this are any comments on the courage and basic decency of Portugal to help us unravel this mess.

It puts to shame the governors of those states crying NIMBY to proposals to transfer any of the prisoners to their solitary confinement high security facilities in response to their loudest chickenhawks. As if these guys have small nuclear devices secreted up some secret Arab orifice that went undiscovered at Gitmo.

Thanks arcticredriver and Texas Aggie for pointing out some shamefully overlooked facts about (a) the reasons why Muslim refugees may have traveled to Afghanistan under the Taliban, and may not have been there because of “terrorism” (as the cases of so many of the men released from Guantanamo have confirmed without a doubt), and (b) for highlighting the charitable obligations of Islam, as one of the five pillars of the faith. An underreported, and disturbing story, concerns the Bush administration’s paranoia about the supposed terrorist connections of Muslim charities (which I’ve previously compared to attempts to shut down the Catholic church because of the activities of the IRA), which were used to justify holding men in Guantanamo (even if the organizations in question were not regarded as “terrorist entities” in the US), and which have also led to some dubious convictions within the United States of individuals attempting to raise money for humanitarian purposes.