Fuck Whitey?

"Fuck Whitey." That's the only thing one can think to say, according to one of my readers, after reading about the case of Bisher al-Rawi.

Mr. al-Rawi is a British resident who worked for the MI5 (UK equivalent of the CIA) for several years on anti-terrorism intelligence. American terrorists - I mean, soldiers - kidnapped him from Gambia in 2002 and sent him to Guantanamo, where he spent the next four years. In March 2007 he was released after found not to be related to terrorism in any way.

Mr. al-Rawi's family fled Saddam Hussein's oppressive regime in Iraq in the 1980s. Later, Mr. al-Rawi worked with the MI5 and was given "cast-iron assurances" from the organisation that if he ever needed their help, they would provide it. However, the MI5 did nothing to free Mr. al-Rawi from extraordinary rendition and illegal detention forced upon him by the United States.

This is a man who spied on British Muslims in order to help the British government and keep his nation safe. He was rewarded with four years of imprisonment and torture. What do you make of a people who would do that?

And then they ask, "Why aren't Muzzlims more cooperative with law enforcement agencies? Why don't Muzzlims use their A-rabic speaking skills to help the FBI and CIA?"

Fuck Whitey, indeed. But what does that mean?

Link to shorter article (Associated Press): http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/29/asia/rendition.php#end_copy

Link to longer article (The Guardian): http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,,2137161,00.html

Shorter Article Text Below:

British Iraqi denounces U.S. and British officials after 4 years at Guantánamo

The Associated Press
Published: July 29, 2007

LONDON: A British resident who was seized by the CIA, transported on an "extraordinary rendition" flight and held at a U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, sharply criticized U.S. and British officials in an interview published on Sunday.

Bisher al-Rawi, who moved to England as a teenager after fleeing Saddam Hussein's Iraq, reportedly had served as an intelligence source for MI5, the British domestic spy agency, and had helped it keep track of Abu Qatada, a Muslim cleric in London accused of being Osama bin Laden's "ambassador in Europe."

But the MI5 did little to protect Rawi, 39, when the CIA detained him in Gambia in November 2002. He was taken to the U.S. base in Bagram, Afghanistan, and held there for about a month before being transferred to Guantanámo.

Rawi was released in March, after more than four years in U.S. captivity.

Last week, a British parliamentary report criticized U.S. intelligence agencies for ignoring British concerns and sending Rawi and Jamil el-Banna, another British resident, to Guantánamo.

The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament said the incident had "serious implications for the intelligence relationship" between the two countries.

The committee said British spy agencies passed on intelligence about Rawi and Banna on the understanding that no action would be taken by the U.S. authorities.

In an interview with The Observer, Rawi said he was bundled onto one of the illegal "extraordinary rendition" flights chartered by the CIA to take terror suspects to other countries.

He said he was stripped naked by U.S. agents, clad in diapers, a track suit and shackles, blindfolded and forced to wear earmuffs, then strapped to a stretcher on board a plane bound for a secret CIA jail in Afghanistan, according to The Observer.

"All the way through that flight I was on the verge of screaming," Rawi was quoted as saying.

"At last we landed. I thought, thank God it's over. But it wasn't; it was just a refueling stop in Cairo. There were hours still to go."

Rawi added that he was kept from moving while on the flight.

"My back was so painful, the handcuffs were so tight. All the time they kept me on my back. Once I managed to wriggle a tiny bit, just shifted my weight to one side. Then I felt someone hit my hand. Even this was forbidden."

He said he was thrown into the CIA's "dark prison," deprived of all light 24 hours a day in temperatures so low that ice formed on his food and water. He was taken to Guantánamo in March 2003 and released this year after a tribunal cleared him of any involvement in terrorism.

Rawi alleged that the CIA told him it had been given the contents of his MI5 file, information he had given his British handlers as their source.

He criticized Britain's spy services for this, saying an MI5 lawyer had previously given him "cast-iron" assurances that anything he told them would be treated in the strictest confidence and, if he ever got into trouble, the MI5 would do everything in its power to help him.