A bit of reality on this Gitmo detainee Jumah al-Dossari letter that has the main-stream media -which printed it verbatim as if what he wrote is fact and Gospel. Before anyone starts to think of this individual of being some sort of victim or martyr, consider his record first before you just believe what he writes. Then consider what several investigations into his and other detainee allegations revealed.

In 2002, al Qaeda operative Jumah al-Dossari was arrested in Pakistan for his terrorist activities. The US accuses al-Dossari of being present during the battle of Tora Bora in late 2001, the operation to capture Osama Bin Laden. He is also accused of fighting with Bosnians against Serbs in 1995 and fighting with the mujahedeen against the Russians in Afghanistan in 1989. Of course, he denies these allegations. One of the lawyers that he has, Colangelo-Bryan said his client was in Afghanistan in 2001 to "oversee a mosque building project but that he was not present at Tora Bora."

Yea right, he has nothing to do with al Qaeda, just so happens to be present at all al Qaeda hotspots. In other words, it’s his friends and not him.

Now as for his allegations...

Time again, these rumors about GITMO soldiers desecrating the Quran have proven to be false. This rumored story which was taken as a given truth before the US military had time to investigate started with a May 9, 2005 Newsweek article that US interrogators had desecrated the Quran (Koran) at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Separate investigations by the govt have all revealed them NOT to be true. Even Newsweek, realizing the story was FALSE, retracted the story on May 16, 2005. But it lives on in the detainee letters and their helpers.

"Based on what we know now we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Koran abuse at Guantanamo Bay."

-Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker, May 16, 2005

Don't let truth get in the way of a good story...

Never mind this, the story is out there and is being repeated by the anti-Bush newspapers: LA Times, Washington Post, NJ Star-Ledger, etc. In fact, the NY Times, hardly a paper to shy away from criticizing the Bush administration, reported that four interrogators interviewed by The Times said they never saw intentional mishandling of the Koran, or even its use as a prop during an interrogation.

The US military conducted their own investigation, conducted by Brig General Hood. His investigation resulted in this statement:

"investigation revealed a consistent, documented policy of respectful handling of the Koran dating back almost 2 1/2 years."-The Hood Inquiry

What the Hood Inquiry did find was 15 cases of detainees mishandling their own Korans.

"These included using a Koran as a pillow, ripping pages out of the Koran, attempting to flush a Koran down the toilet and urinating on the Koran," Hood's report said. It offered no possible explanation for the detainees' motives. In the most recent of those 15 cases, a detainee on Feb. 18, 2005 allegedly ripped up his Koran and handed it to a guard, stating that he had given up on being a Muslim. Several guards witnessed this, Hood reported.

So who are we to believe?

Should we believe the US military or the detainees? The US military is hardly a propaganda brainwashed arm of the Bush administration as we saw with all these officers attacking Sec Rumsfeld over the past few years.

Without evidence to the contrary, I would tend to believe our brothers, sisters, sons and daughters down in Guantánamo, Cuba protecting our freedom by guarding the likes of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the mastermind of 9/11 and his associates.

"a model prison, where people are better treated than in Belgian prisons."

- Belgian Police official Alain Grignard (who came last year with a delegation from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) after visiting Guantanamo just before Christmas. (Belgium you may recall is the country that wanted to charge Sec Rumsfeld for "Crimes against Humanity")