Enemy Combatant: My Imprisonment at Guantanamo, Bagram, and Kandahar: My Imprisonment by the United States at Guantanamo [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

This book, "Enemy Combatant," draws its power from simple, straight forward descriptions of what it was like for an innocent man to be arrested in the night as a suspected terrorist in Pakistan, torn from wife and children, and then spend the next years of his life in US prisons at Bagram, Kandahar and Guantanamo. No preaching or polemics. The author, UK citizen Moazzam Begg, even has compassion and forgiveness for the frightened young military police, soldiers and a few of the interrogators. Even for people who brutalized him physically and psychologically.

In 2002 or 2003, I heard the author's father, a British banker and other parents of Gitmo detainees, speak at an event sponsored by the Center for Constitutional Rights at Cooper Union in New York City. When I heard these parents speak, I and many others assumed all prisoners in Guantanamo, Cuba were probably terrorists. The Center held the event to increase our awareness that it was only humane for the prisoners to know the charges against them, contact their families, and get a (fair) trial even if military. I had worked daily on the 101-105th floors of World Trade One until March 01 and know hundreds of the dead, could have been with them, so I took terrorism threats very seriously. But I went to hear the parents of detainees speak because I believe Americans can protect ourselves from terror attacks without, in the process, destroying the Bill of Rights and our nation's commitment to fair treatment of every individual.

When the author's father told us why his son Moazzam had gone from the UK with his wife and children before 9-11 to work with a girls' school and a water project, I remember thinking, "This may be the lie of a terrorist's father or his naievete about his son, but it certainly sounds truthful." In the book, I have met many of those "enemy combatants" in Gitmo, many of whom even the US now says were not trying to attack Americans or the US. In the book, I met men who were arrested because they had been in Afghanistan training camps before 9-11 to fight the Russians... Men who were sold to Americans looking for terrorists... Or who went to Afghanistan before 9-11 to help impoverished people and got scooped up like the author who had gone to set up schools for girls, water projects and other charity services as part of Muslim charity similar to Christian missionary work... Or heard about the collateral damage - deaths of civilians after American started bombing the Taliban in Afghanistan in retaliation for 9/11 and went to help protect the Afghani people caught in the bombings. Much as Lebanese and Israelis are leaving the US to help their countrymen now.

Throughout the book, Moazzam Begg, with the help of former Guardian editor Victoria Brittain, invites us to become a part of his childhood in England, his family in Pakistan, Kashmir and India, and then his life as a prisoner without any legal protection from guards who were terrified that he had funded the 9/11 attacks and would kill Americans if left unguarded for a second. Through his book, he introduces us to the prisoners and guards he met throughout his years of shackled terror when he thought he would never see his beloved wife, children, father and friends again. I usually skim a book but I've been riveted to each page of this one.

Ann Tares

Neither the publisher nor Amazon have done well at posting useful details that would encourage the purchase of this book, so here are two right up front:

1) David Ignatius, the world-renowned editor formerly with the Washington Post and now with the International Herald Tribune, is the author of the Foreword. This alone is compelling reason to buy the book, for this author and this story not only pass the Ignatius smell test, Ignatious rings the bell on how this book documents the shameful misconduct resulting from a Presidential violation of all the tenets of both international treaties and moral democracy.

2) The table of contents is as follows: 1) Illegally detained, 2) The Lynx; 3) Underdogs; 4) Mercy Mission; 5) Spooks; 6) 'English 558' (Prisoner of War Number); 7) The Hardest Test; 8) Devil's Agents; 9) A Solitary Echo; 10) Trial of Strength; 11) The Teasing Illusion; 12) Chime of the Razor Wire; 13) Mockery of Justice; and 14) Do You Know Who I Am?

The book does not have an index which I believe to be an error that should be corrected in future editions. While this is a book of reflections, there are enough legal, military, torture, and other matters to merit indexing and ease of access to references via an index.

I put the book down after an intense morning with it with the following reflections:

1) I am ashamed that the American Congress and the American public has stood idly by as the White House has ursurped the power to make law and interpret law, while sinking to the lowest moral point in our recent history.

2) The author is quite balanced and most extraordinary in his personal telling of this history. I hope he files a wrongful imprisonment lawsuit against the government of the United States of America. As Senators Warner and McCain refuse to support the White House's idiotic and immoral attempts to justify torture, every American should be conscious that there is a price to pay for allowing our government to commit war crimes, and there is also a great strategic value to be gained by restoring "America the Good." This book should be translated into many languages, and will stand in history as a simple individual condemnation of the very worst abuses of power--while we have not gassed the millions that Hilter did, we have negligently killed hundreds of thousands, murdered hundreds and aided in the murder of thousands more--this is serious sick mis-behavior.

3) The author is to be admired for recollecting the goodness of those who ingored the illegal and immoral orders, and treated him humanely. Marines are taught to think for themselves and to disobey illegal orders, I am only sorry that our military is on rigid auto-pilot and lacking an understanding of the strategic value on inherent morality at every level of operations.

4) Lastly, this book confirms my worst fears about what happens when you give FBI and CIA personnel too much money and too much power without first giving them the education and experience they need to be balanced in the field. This book documents, at every turn, the incompetence of our whole system, while also documenting how torture causes prisoners to make things up just to stop it--and in turn wastes precious time and resources in following false leads.

There are many other books I have reviewed that could be helpful to Americans in search of wisdom and rehabilitation in relation to Islam, such as "Good Muslim, Bad Muslim," but I have to say, if there were one book that I would want to force on every good-hearted person in America who needs to understand just how badly broken the federal government is, how counter-productive this "war on terror is" (terror is a tactic, not an enemy, and the fear the White House seeks to inspire is a lie, not a solution), this is that book.

Although the author has not suffered the many years of prison that Nelson Mandela did, or Martin Luther King, I believe that in this book the author has earned a very special place in the literature of moral freedom.

I recommend Cornel West's "DEMOCRACY MATTERS: Winning the Fight Against Terrorism," itself a Nobel-level work, and going back in time, B. F. Skinner's "Beyond Freedom and Dignity." Indeed, throw in George Will's "Statecraft as Soulcraft," to make my final point: this White House, and the extremist Republican Party, aided by the inept and timid Democrats, Senator Byrd not-with-standing, has substituted ideological hypocrisy and high crimes and misdemeanors for legitimate governance. This book is George Bush's report card--he not only earns an F, he earns a one way ticket to juvenile detention. He has no business pretending to be an adult, and he must still be held accountable for stealing the 2000 and 2004 elections (see my reviews of three books on the substance of impeachment).

This book should be required reading for every single American. Moazzam shows us how American policies-policies most people don't even bother learning about-severely affect others. Moazzam, through this book, turns on a very bright light in the darkened closet of American apathy and makes it impossible for us to shut it off once we finish the book.