[Marxism] Guilt by Association & the Guantánamo Spy Hunt

[Brian Shannon]

[The now discredited prosecutions of Captain Yee and Airman Ahmad I. Al  
Halabi are reviewed in today's NY Times. Look how far these charges got  
and consider that they were about Americans on U.S. soil in the English  
language and where all the information was available, and still they  
completely unraveled. Now consider the case of the kidnapped Muslim  
defendants in Guantanamo, who have language barriers, whose attorneys  
and families are unable to visit them, and against whom no (or perhaps)  
few charges have been lodged. --Brian Shannon]
____________

Even now, Defense Department officials refuse to explain in detail how  
the investigations originated and what drove them forward in the face  
of questions about much of the evidence. Military officials involved in  
the case have defended their actions, emphasizing that some of the  
inquiries continue.

But confidential government documents, court files and interviews show  
that the investigations drew significantly on questionable evidence and  
disparate bits of information that, like the car report, linked Captain  
Yee tenuously to people suspected of being Muslim militants in the  
United States and abroad.

Officials familiar with the inquiries said they also fed on petty  
personal conflicts: antipathy between some Muslim and non-Muslim troops  
at Guantánamo, rivalries between Christian and Muslim translators, even  
the complaint of an old boss who saw Airman Al Halabi as a shirker.
. . .
Ultimately, Air Force prosecutors could not substantiate a vast  
majority of the charges they brought against Airman Al Halabi, a  
translator at Guantánamo, who had faced the death penalty. He pleaded  
guilty in September to four relatively minor charges of mishandling  
classified documents, taking two forbidden photographs of a guard tower  
and lying to investigators about the snapshots. He was sentenced to the  
10 months imprisonment he had already served, and is appealing a  
bad-conduct discharge.

Captain Yee, 36, a West Point graduate from Springfield, N.J., was held  
for 76 days in solitary confinement, charged with six criminal counts  
of mishandling classified information and suspected of leading a ring  
of subversive Muslim servicemen. He was found guilty only of  
noncriminal charges of adultery and downloading Internet pornography.  
That conviction was set aside in April, and his punishment was waived.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/politics/19gitmo.html? 
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http://makeashorterlink.com/?H2B21401A