Thanks, Huw. Good to have made contact with you — and the interview with Moazzam is excellent.

Here’s a link to my interview of Moazzam if you’re interested – the first “written-up” interview I’d ever done, and I’m still proud of it!
http://www.spannermedia.com/interviews/Begg.htm

I first encountered Moazzam at a talk he gave at the East London Mosque after the publication of his book. I think I was the only white non-Muslim man in the large audience, apart from an older Irish Republican, and Moazzam might not even have been aware that there were any non-Muslims present. There was a lot of anger expressed on the male side of the audience and it would have been so easy for him to play to that; but he didn’t. In fact, he was remarkably eirenic. I think he even said that he thanked God for his imprisonment, because it had made him a better man. When I read his book subsequently and saw that the Americans tried to represent him as a kind of Islamist James Bond, it would have been hilarious if it wasn’t also so intolerable.

It would be difficult to image a more eloquent spokesman for the injustices of Guantanamo than Moazzam, wouldn’t it? He’s singlehandedly done an extraordinary job humanizing the prisoners, which is so crucial when fear and dehumanization are so prominent. I’m also glad to have met other ex-prisoners, who have managed to overcome their experiences, and are also remarkably composed and lacking in anger or bitterness. A triumph for the consolations of faith and the strength of human dignity, I think!

Well, that would be a great day — though I would like to see it done soon enough for the political fallout to hit people like Cheney.

One never has much hope — I think I’m right that the US still owes Nicaragua the $2 billion it was fined for illegally mining Managua’s harbour in the 1980s — but the subconscious effect on everyone, both in the “free” world and the not-so-free world, seeing that the US is releasing people after years and years in cages without apology, let along restitution — just a (at best) “Let’s say no more about it” — the subconscious effect is surely very damaging.

By the way, I had the privilege to meet Moazzem Begg, to interview him for a couple of hours, and was amazed by his lack of bitterness.

Andy,
This is just another amazing tale of the absolute incompetence of the Cheney/Bush gang and the continuing foolishness of the Go-bomb-them group. This man has no business in any jail in any country at all. He was just doing his “duty” as a good Muslim to help relieve the suffering of his fellow Muslims in other countries. He was sharing his wealth with those less fortunate. For this he is in jail? Amazing. He was doing what any decent “Christian” ought to do. To treat the less fortunate as fellow human beings.
That absolute hypocrisy of the American administrations, our Congress, and the “media” among others is beyond belief.
It sickens me to see how far down my country has fallen. Yes, my time in the Marines and my tour in Vietnam did make me very wary of “my” government, but I never figured that “we” would ever stoop this low. As I have told you before, it is reports like this that make me ashamed to be an American.
“We” spend so much money on war and weapons, yet we have people in our own country who are hungry and who have no or very little health care. This is what happens when the “big money” people run the show. The “little people”, the working class and the poor bear the burdens of their empire. We are the ones who are dumb enough or pushed by the economy to enlist in the military and fight the damned wars of choice “decided” upon by our “betters”. What a shit system we have in America today.
Thank you very much for your continuing excellent reports on the abuses being done by “our” government. Maybe some day, some how, we the people of this country will ask the world for forgiveness. I doubt that we will have much success in that as we should have never allowed this to happen.
Thank you for your time reading this email reply.
charlie ehlen
Pineville, LA