not so random links

1.
Two years ago the US military invited Mr Mujahid, a former Afghan police commander accused of plotting against the United States, to prove his innocence before a special military tribunal. As was his right, Mr Mujahid called four witnesses from Afghanistan.

But months later the tribunal president returned with bad news: the witnesses could not be found. Mr Mujahid's hopes sank and he was returned to the wire-mesh cell where he remains today.

The Guardian searched for Mr Mujahid's witnesses and found them within three days. One was working for President Hamid Karzai. Another was teaching at a leading American college. The third was living in Kabul. The fourth, it turned out, was dead. Each witness said he had never been approached by the Americans to testify in Mr Mujahid's hearing.

The case illustrates the egregious flaws that have discredited Guantánamo-style justice and which led the US supreme court to declare such trials illegal.

read the complete article

2.
Moazzam Beg, 35, from Sparkbrook, Birmingham, was arrested in Pakistan last February on suspicion of links with the Taleban regime or the al-Qaeda terrorist network. Here is a talk by him on his gitmo experience and opinion on torture.

3.
Eric Saar, a masters student, along with Viveca Novak, a Washington correspondent for Time magazine, wrote a book about Saar's experience in guantanamo bay prisons as a Arabic linguis and intelligence analyst of US army.

"Within the course of six months in 2003, I went from being an eager volunteer - happy to use my skills to contribute to the fight against terrorism - to believing the camp represented a moral and strategic failure."

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i wanted to change the world but found her problems too big to handle.
then i focused on changing my society; that too was too mammoth a task for the poor me.
finally i resorted to changing myself, and this itself, i realise, isnt childs play!!

[cross posted at scattered words]