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Were the Tipton Three innocent?


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A new docudrama has been released telling the story of the Tipton Three - three British muslims who were arrested by the Americans in Afghanistan and then spent over two years in Guantanamo Bay before being released by the US authorities. It then took the British authorities one day to process them and release them without charge.

 

The film concentrates on their side of the story - what they were doing in Afghanistan and their experiences in Guantanamo Bay, and is based on transcripts of interviews between them and the film directors. It even uses the real Tipton three playing themselves, which suggests that it is not entirely impartial.

 

Are they guilty of treason or were they just victims of a muisunderstanding? Should the film be considered a fair account of what happened or is it just empty propoganda?

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I haven't seen a documentary yet that didn't have an agenda, but on the other hand a large portion of people will consider them guilty simply because they're Muslims, never mind that they were in Afghanistan. They could have been nicked in Bradford and there would still be people going "Yep, knew they were terrorists, all them bloody ragheads are. Coming over here and taking our jobs, stealing our women and blowing up our public transport. We should ship the lot of them back to Africa"

 

The documentary at least publicises America breaking international law, but since when did America give a toss about that? Who's going to stop them? They'll go on doing whatever they like, exporting suspects to countries with lax interrogation laws for torture, invading countries whenever it feels like it, and so on and so forth, because they can.

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I think the main reason for that is the public have no confidence in the authorities ability to conduct proper investigations or even arrest the right people. We are forced into our own conclusions.

 

Take the release of certain IRA terrorists due to poor investigation techniques and bundled interviews. Some of these murderers went straight back to their 'Terrorist Cells' as soon as they came out of prison - much to the chagrin of the Intelligence Forces and all the people who risked their lives to arrest them in the first place.

 

Personally, I have no reason to believe that the investigators in this instance are any more competent than any that have gone before them so I have to assume innocence or guilt based on the information I have.

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Well, does it matter if they were innocent? They were still illegally arrested and held, I believe. Even if they were/are guilty of being the biggest terrorists to walk the Earth, on what charges were they arrested and detained? By what authority?

 

A lot of people will immediately categorise them as guilty, because they are Muslims, and they were in the Middle East. I think a slightly smaller number of people will believe them to be innocent, because America is quite indiscriminate when it's throwing its toys out of the pram, and would gladly arrest or kill any Muslim who looked at them funny.

 

Even if they were PROVEN to be innocent or guilty in a trial by jury, some people would still be going (respectively) "Oh, those terrorists are sly, slippery sons of bitches." or "Poor blokes, got set up. Wrong place, wrong time to be a Muslim. Terrible miscarriage of justice."

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Presumably the American and British authorities must have eventually decided that they were innocent, or they would never have been released.

 

The decision of the US government to deny their detainees any legal rights, and to ship some of them to countries where they can legally be tortured for information has backfired on Bush and his cronies. America has become so hated across the world that Al Qaeda has no shortage of volunteers.

 

Also, very few countries are now willing to cooperate with America. Most democratically elected national leaders know that cooperating with America will lose them the next election. Even dictators are punished for ignoring domestic public opinion; an unpopular dictator is soon overthrown or assassinated.

 

Blair is one of the few national leaders who still cooperates with Bush, and this is because he is after a highly paid 'consultancy' job with Bush's corporate allies when he gets kicked out of office. Well what did you think Blair with his £4 million mortgage was getting out of supporting the Iraq war against domestic public opinion?

 

The good news is that millions of Americans are fed up with the way Bush has bungled the War on Terror, so with a bit of luck the Democrats can find a presidential candidate who understands the importance of international public opinion in defeating Al Qaeda.

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The good news is that millions of Americans are fed up with the way Bush has bungled the War on Terror, so with a bit of luck the Democrats can find a presidential candidate who understands the importance of international public opinion in defeating Al Qaeda.

 

Well that's true here in Britain but what have we got to come? More of the same.

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