Habeas Scmabeas

[FourScore]

This PBS show is a little long...which is a shame because it will probably cause this to not get widely noticed here at DU. My husband and I listened to it this morning. We were both so spellbound.

It is a Peabody Winner and definitely deserves the recognition. You can download this onto your podcast or listen while you work. PLEASE take the time to hear this show.

You can also read the transcript.

Here is the link:

http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=310

An Excerpt:

HITT: As best as we can tell, Badr Zaman Badr and his brother were imprisoned in Guantanamo for three years for telling a joke. Actually, for telling two jokes. They ran a satire magazine in Pakistan that poked fun at corrupt clerics. Sort of the Pashtu edition of “The Onion.” The first joke that got them into trouble was when they published a poem about a politician called “I Am Glad to be a Leader.” Here’s Badr:

BADR: Let me translate a few lines for you.

HITT: Sure.

BADR: “Before, I was so thin and weak. Now, I have big stomach.” Uh, stuff like that. (Laughs)

HITT: So, the guy with the big stomach called up Badr and his brother. He threatened them, and, as best as they can tell, told authorities that they were linked to Al Qaeda, which landed them in Guantanamo, and which leads us to the second joke. This one was in an issue of Badr’s magazine that came out in the ‘90’s, after our government set a $5 million reward for Osama bin Laden. Badr’s magazine issued its own bounty for the capture of an American leader.

BADR: President Bill Clinton, giving the details of how to identify that he has blue eyes, and he’s cleanshaven, and the most important thing is the recent scandal going on between Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. (Laughs) Yeah. If someone finds that man, he will be rewarded 5 million Afghani, that’s Afghanistan currency, which was equal to $113 at that time. That’s impossible (unintelligible, laughing.)

HITT: In Guantanamo, were you interrogated about your Clinton satire?

BADR: Exactly. They were serious, if we really wanted to kill President Clinton, and we said “No” that it was only satire, and only a way of expression. It’s allowed, it’s protected, in your country, in American law.”

HITT: How many times were you interrogated…about the Clinton article?

BADR: Many times, many times. Me and my brother, each one of us, have been interrogated more than 150 times.

HITT: So after hearing the punch line explained 150 times, we finally got the joke, and sent Badr and his brother home. It had been three years since the Pakistani army surrounded their house in Peshawar, came into their living room which is lined with wall-to-wall bookcases, and arrested them. That’s Badr’s version of why we jailed him; here’s President Bush’s:

PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH: These are people that got scooped off a battlefield, attempting to kill U.S. troops. And, uh, I want to make sure before they’re released that they don’t come back to kill again.

HITT: The administration has never wavered on this point. Here’s Dick Cheney on Guantanamo:

VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: The people that are there are people we picked up on a battlefield
primarily in Afghanistan. They’re terrorists. They’re bomb makers, they’re facilitators of terror, they’re members of Al Qaeda, the Taliban.

HITT: We’re told over and over that these prisoners are so terrible, that we need an offshore facility, away from U.S. laws, to hold them. But then there’s Badr, and every day more stories like his are coming out. And they raised the question: Is Guantanamo a campful of terrorists, or a campful of mistakes? In a new study by Seton Hall’s law school, researchers simply went to the trouble of reading the 517 Guantanamo case files released by the Pentagon. Here’s what they found:
Only 5% of our detainees at Guantanamo were “scooped up” by American troops, on the battlefield or
anywhere else. Five percent. The rest? We never saw them fighting. And here’s something else: Only 8% of the detainees in Guantanamo are classified by the Pentagon as Al Qaeda fighters. In fact, Michael Donleavy, head of interrogations at Guantanamo, complained in 2002 that he was receiving too many “Mickey Mouse” prisoners. In 2004, the New York Times did a huge investigation, interviewing dozens of high level military intelligence and law enforcement officials in the US, Europe and the Middle East. There was a surprising consensus: that out of nearly 600 men at Guantanamo, the number who could give us useful information about Al Qaeda was “only a relative handful.” Some put the number at about a dozen. Others more than two dozen.

TO THE ADMIN: I know this excerpt is a little longer than the usual 3-4 paragraphs. Since it is a radio interview I was hoping that I could put in a few more lines so that one gets a sense of what this show is like. I hope it is okay to do that. If not, please accept my apologies in advance and edit it as best you can. Thank you.

[FourScore]

1. Actually, it should say Habeas Schmabeas

Still, I find it sad that the prostitute story gets 26 recs and habeas corpus gets none.

[Staph]

2. I was listening to this on the radio this evening

on my way to a hotel out of town. I sat in the car for 20 minutes in order to hear the whole thing. Frightening. Horrifying.

There is no punishment for the perpetrators of this horror that can make up for the way that lives have been ruined. I want Bush, Cheney, and the rest of their cabal tried at the Hague. Today. Now.

[FourScore]

3. I feel the same way.

This is one of the best radio programs I have EVER heard.

Bush has ruined this country.

[Bucky]

4. Why on earth would I want to load this onto my ipod?

I heard the whole show this morning. It was as depressing as the last time I listened to it. Hard to believe it was all of two years ago. How time flies when you watch the Constitution being shredded.

[FourScore]

5. Kick