The following is specifically posted for those "professional" anti-Americanists, who will never espouse anything, no matter how truthful, pro-American... Please read.... "I Had a Good Time at Guantánamo, Says Inmate." So reads the jaw-dropping headline in today's Sunday Telegraph (London). It tells the story of Mohammed Ismail Agha, 15, an Afghan boy who spent 14 months in detention as a terrorist suspect at the Guantánamo Bay base. In the first interview with one of the three juveniles held there, Mohammed spoke to a reporter in southern Afghanistan, close to his home village:
They gave me a good time in Cuba. They were very nice to me, giving me English lessons. … At first I was unhappy … For two or three days [after I arrived in Cuba] I was confused but later the Americans were so nice to me. They gave me good food with fruit and water for ablutions and prayer. The American soldiers taught him and the two other underage captives to write and speak a little English and supplied them with books in their native Pashto language. As the three boys departed the base, U.S. soldiers gave them a send-off dinner. "They even took photographs of us all together before we left," Agha said.
As the Sunday Telegraph notes, these words of praise echo those of Faiz Mohammed, an elderly Afghan farmer released in October 2002 after spending eight months at Guantánamo: "They treated us well. We had enough food. I didn't mind [being detained] because they took my old clothes and gave me new clothes."
These testimonies need to be remembered at a time when so-called human rights agencies insist that the U.S. detention of prisoners in Guantánamo is immoral, contravenes international law, and so on. (February 8, 2004) Permalink
