Adult Ed. Marco Cruz
Lucas 03/05/09
Enemy combatant
As the U.S. was created, our forefathers had visions of a wonderful nation that gave people rights, freedom, and happiness. Today, the U.S. continues to be a great nation to the naked eye. If we look beneath hospitality, we see a nation that, because of its fear of being inferior, is manipulative and very poorly governed. Moazzam Begg is an example of this, as he was a prisoner in Guantanamo Bay and many other prisons until his past release in 2005. His book, Enemy Combatant, has begun to really question the U.S.A.
Moazzam Begg, a British Muslim, was living a normal life when the interrogations began. In 1996 he was visited by MI5, an intelligence unit of the UK. Begg never knew that 6 years later he would be arrested, without knowing for what, in his own home. After 9/11, the U.S. began a mission of capturing and imprisoning any “suspects” that may be responsible for acts of terrorism. Begg was arrested for having been to Bosnia, where there was war going on, to Pakistan, to see what it was like for soldiers, and to Afghanistan, to live with his family there. The U.S. thought he was fleeing from someone or trying to hide something by going to all these places. Yet it was after 9/11 that they decided to act. Why until then? If the U.S. where suspicious of Begg, then why was it that they didn’t do something about it?
It took beg nearly 3 months to find out what he was detained. They told him he was detained for “support and facilitation of terrorism”. The CIA wanted to know everything. They were especially suspicious of 50,000 euros that got Begg the house for his family in Birmingham. Begg told them it was a gift from Zaynabs, his wife, parents wedding gift. The CIA used methods of torture to obtain this information, even though the interrogators were nicer with him because he was fluent in different languages. Begg recalls that at the first prison he stayed in, there was a man who was held for getting away with $90,000 of hajji money that was supposed to help the Saudi Embassy to give visas to Afghans. Begg had heard constant thumping noises every night. Until he saw the man, Begg thought it was workers. However, it was soldiers torturing this man to admit that he was the one who stole the money and ran off with it. He kept insisting that it wasn’t he who took the money until the man couldn’t take the tortures any more. He admitted to taking the money just so the tortures would stop. Begg never saw this man ever again.
The Essay on Wang Lung Land Man Money
Every human being is the author of his own health or disease. In the book, The Good Earth, the writer Pearl S. Buck wrote this amazing story about an honest farmer, Wang Lung. The book follows the life of its principal character from his marriage day to his old age. In this book, Wang Lung it's definitely a dynamic character because he goes through a lot of changes. He changes from a loving, hard- ...
The fact that the CIA took Begg without a warrant is illegal. According to our government laws, a man cannot arrest a man and take him be imprisoned, unless there is a warrant. Begg never had an attorney. As a matter of fact, he was denied speaking to the British embassy to see if he could get an attorney. Isn’t the U.S. all about spreading democracy? Wasn’t that one of the reasons we invaded Iraq? Iraq executed Hussein because we spread ideas of democracy.
If we look under the curtain, the U.S. is the very thing it promised not to be. The U.S. justifies its action by saying that these prisoners were not arrested and detained on foreign soil thus the laws of the U.S. are not in play. I think the U.S. should work on its government laws and intervene less on international issues, unless it really concerns us.
