My letter is in response to Naudia Jawad's blatantly terror-sympathetic column entitled "Is there life for detainees after Gitmo?" in Wednesday's Alligator.
Therein, she states that any glimpse we get into the world of the prison at Guantanamo Bay shows harmless, "subdued" men who just mope around or sit against fences.
Jawad goes on to say, "They certainly don't seem like murderous masterminds…" While I must admit I'm impressed with her clairvoyance and insight into the minds of men at an institution so far away from her, I have huge problems with her facts and her position.
Photographs and forensic evidence like fingerprints and DNA have linked 61 previously released detainees from Gitmo to recent terror activity, according to Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell. This number is up from 37 as of March of 2008.
So much for their alleged innocence.
Next, Jawad belittles a terror suspect trained in the art of making detonators out of Sega video game cartridges, saying, "If his little terrorist buddies are as bad as he is, Guantanamo must be a horrid place indeed."
Yes, it is a horrid place. Perhaps she's never had a friend who was killed by a remote-detonated device. I have, and I take great offense to your unprofessional and irresponsible prattle about a subject in which you are not well versed.
Finally, this "local gang," as she calls them, would never have been "rounded up" if 2,974 American civilians had not been executed by their "alleged" affiliates in 2001.
