2 Ex-Detainees in Qaeda Video

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/world/middleeast/25yemen.html?scp=1&sq=ex-detainees&st=cse

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From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 6:55 PM
Subject: re: 2 Ex-Detainees in Qaeda Video
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  In the next few days, we will hear arguments that the new Al Qaeda video, showing two ex-detainees from Guantanamo have joined the cause in Yemen justifies keeping their fellows indefinitely. No civilized country will accept that argument.  Although a few heroic figures--Mandela and Gandhi come to mind--have emerged from abusive incarceration to preach peace and reconciliation, rage is the more likely response. I daresay more than a few of the readers of this paper would harbor a grudge against any government that had treated them as these men have been treated. To keep their fellows indefinitely to forestall an attack that they haven't yet made or conceived would be to instituted Orwell's nightmare. To do so in the name of "freedom" would be obscene.

Barry Levine