When Murat Kurnaz was flown back to Germany from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (blindfolded and shackled)in late August, both Washington and Berlin breathed a sigh of relief. This was the end of an ugly chapter that had clouded Chancellor Merkel’s efforts to make nice with the Bush administration. Kurnaz could return to the bosom of his family in Bremen and move on with his life, thanking Allah that he would no longer be subjected to waterboarding or other "alternative interrogation techniques" (torture). The young man would be grateful for the efforts at the highest level of the German government to secure his release. Except that Murat Kurnaz is not grateful and cannot forgive the fact that more than four years of his life were stolen. He won’t or is not able to "move on" with his life – not until he receives some measure of justice.
The New York Time has a well-done piece on Murat and some of the uncomfortable issues he has brought up since his return to Germany:
"Now back home in Bremen, and recently cleared by his own government, he is struggling to make sense of his odyssey. He blames not just his American captors but also the German government, which according to internal intelligence documents turned down an offer by the United States to send him home in late 2002."
"Yet his account pointedly calls into question Germany’s role, suggesting that the Germans decided to abandon him because he was a Turkish citizen, though born and living in Germany, and that they even contributed to his ordeal. His case has ignited a political firestorm in Germany, raising questions about whether this country sacrificed its principles in supporting the American-led campaign against terrorism."
"Lawyers for Mr. Kurnaz are considering lawsuits against both the American and German governments. But he said a financial settlement alone would not compensate for what was taken from him."“I left all those years in prison,” Mr. Kurnaz said. “Nobody could give them back, even if they gave me several million dollars. Cars and houses, you can buy. Freedom, you can’t buy.”
In Germany, the case of Murat Kurnaz raises serious questions concerning the government’s complicity in illegal US tactics in the "War on Terror" as well as concerns about the activities of the elite KSK unit (Kommando Spezialkräfte ). In the US, the Bush administration has moved to silence all detainees and limit their access to legal counsel so they cannot speak out about the torture techniques that have been used in their interrogation.
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Cases like this one should not be used to produce a moral panic and divert attention from the Holocaust of Iraq – by now there have been over 650.000 deaths thanks “America”.
The country of Iraq is about to be broken up and its elites have largely fled to safer havens. The place has largely been reduced to a pre-industrial soceity and handed over to the Islamists, the best allies of “America” since they started sponsoring them in Afghanistan.
We must put everything into the fight against Anglo-Fascism and its horrific racist crimes.
“Nobody could give them back, even if they gave me several million dollars. Cars and houses, you can buy. Freedom, you can’t buy.”
But wait. Don’t those Guantanamo inmates hate “our freedom”? They don’t share our values (G.W.B.)!
I think the parliamentary investigation is going very well: they are pushing his case as far as possible while “not doing anything” about the case they say they want to deal with first (Khalid Al-Masri) and not caring at all about several other issues, that this “war on terror” has brought including illegal computer-aided search based on religion or descent (Rasterfahndung, of course they are NOW illegal, after they have been completed in most of the districts..).. all in all, everything is going well (after all, at last we get revenge in form of the human sacrifice (Saddam)) ! (i know i should stop being so cynical..)