The Gift That Keeps Giving

Via Andrew Sullivan, another dispatch from my favorite war:

Swedish citizen Munir Awad, 25, who was only released three weeks ago, told Der Spiegel that he had travelled with his 17-year-old girlfriend Safia Benaouda, also a Swedish citizen, to Mogadishu in December. He says that after the Ethiopian troops invaded they fled to Kenya, where they were arrested by local militia and US soldiers and sent to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

Awad claims that they were held on a military base and interrogated, sometimes for 12 hours at a time or longer, and were not given access to a lawyer. He says that they were accused by the Americans of being al-Qaida fighters. DNA samples were taken and they were questioned about Swedish Muslims. He says they were sometimes beaten or choked and only those who cooperated were allowed to sit or were given something to eat.

Questioned about Swedish Muslims? What did they want to know?

Comments

The treatment is reprehensible, of course, but I think it's perfectly sensible that they were detained for a long period and questioned about al-Qaeda ties. Two European Moslems just decide to travel to Mogadishu, Somalia just as an Islamist movement attempts to take over the country, and claim they had never heard about that news? This is particularly relevant given the Somali encouragement of foreign fighters - witness the young man from New Hampshire who joined their cause and was arrested a few months ago. I'm afraid I can't have much sympathy here.

(Also, I know Sweden's a liberal place and all, but letting your 16 year-old daughter fly to Yemen and Somalia with her 24-year-old boyfriend?)

Posted by kb | June 13, 2007 10:12 AM

Detained and questioned about al-Qaeda ties? Sure. Investigated a bit? Sure. Detained without a lawyer on no particular charges for five months? No way.

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | June 13, 2007 10:23 AM

Believe it, a lutefisk eating Swedish speaking Muslim would make an awesome terrorist. Especially if they were female and bared their breasts in public. On several occasions in our history such an event has been known to drive us into temporary insanity. It's the social equivalent of putting LSD in the water, I tell ya, and as with any possible threat we must assume the worst has already occurred (or will soon) and we are all doomed to die.

Unless, of course, American soldiers are allowed to "search" any Swedish women they meet and make sure they are not concealing breasts. Only this can preserve our safety!

Posted by serial catowner | June 13, 2007 10:36 AM

Questioned about Swedish Muslims? What did they want to know?

"Were there any?"

Remember, Sweden is not one of this administration's areas of expertise.

Posted by Anderson | June 13, 2007 10:50 AM

If they were fighting bin Laden in Pakistan they'd have plenty of opportunity to behave badly to possibly good effect, but since they 'can't' it's like they've got to find a country, any country, to behave badly in.

m, soviet history remains the best guide here

Posted by max | June 13, 2007 10:50 AM

I must say what makes this whole situation seems pretty peculiar to me. After all, throughout the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and later, American society was filled with all sorts of fully legal Communist (and "Communist") publications, organizations, and activists.

Now all these Communists were certainly the sworn enemy of American democracy and freedom and had also killed about 50 million innocent people during that period (which is roughly 50 million more than the total number of Islamicist victims). So methinks they should have all been rounded up on "suspicion," endlessly tortured into revealing their secrets, then executed in secret and buried in mass graves. And they really couldn't have much objected much to such treatment, since that's exactly what their great role-model Stalin was doing to all the anti-Communists (and also all the Communists) in Russia during that same era.

Also, since the parents and grand-parents of today's neocon troublemakers were pretty much all of them either Communists or "Communists" during that period, such forthright and decisive American actions would have also saved our society from much of its current political difficulties.

Posted by RKU | June 13, 2007 10:59 AM

@kb -- Sweden actually has a relatively substantial Somali population (~12,000). Most likely these two were heading home to visit family, then the fighting broke out while they were there. It happens. Not everything is suspicious if you just know a little bit.

Posted by km | June 13, 2007 11:13 AM

I am interested in hearing more serial catowner's ideas on this subject.

Posted by AJ | June 13, 2007 11:39 AM

Wait a second, we have troops cooperating with "local militia" in *Kenya*? First I've heard of that.

Posted by rd | June 13, 2007 11:40 AM

We have troops in, I believe, over a hundred countries around the world. Places the public (except the tiny sliver that reads the Economist and similar papers) wouldn't dream we're involved in -- Mali, Georgia, the Philippines, Colombia, Oman, etc.

Many times it's only advisors a la Vietnam, or a company of special forces. Add that to the fact that we have something like 600+ bases worldwide, and it's not too hard to believe we're working with local militia in Kenya.

It's time to dismantle the Empire; it brings us nothing but grief.

Posted by Ben Cronin | June 13, 2007 12:48 PM

why is there no outrage over the beating, choking and starving? The level of comfort with torture nowadays is scary.

Posted by 2cynicalbyhalf | June 13, 2007 12:53 PM

@km: They weren't visiting family; both, as far as I know, are of Lebanese ancestry. The man was a recent convert to Islam. A much fuller picture than the article above was in the Times earlier this year: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/21/world/africa/21benaouda.html?ex=1334808000&en=feb76065711a17a7&ei=5088&partner=rss

I'm with Matt that Guantanamo-style detainments and treatment are outrageous, especially given that many Guantanamo detainees are innocents who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I just don't think detaining someone as suspicious as the man in the story, in a warzone, for five months before release is particularly egregious. There's a world of difference between five years with no real plans to ever hold a legitimate trial, and five months in Somalia while evidence is sifted. And I'm as civil libertarian as anyone.

Posted by kb | June 13, 2007 12:53 PM

kb,

But why detain him for even five months? If they had suspicions, why not investigate the situation? Send him back to Sweden and request his passport be surrendered ...

What would we do with criminal suspects? Pretty much this, nu? So why treat terrorist suspects any differently?

It galls me, if only from a rhetorical point of view, that we treat terrorists different than common criminals. That we even consider Al Qaeda members to be "enemy combatants" rather than common criminals is to admit that they do have a possibly legitimate cause for combat (would we admit this of Bloods or Crips?). That we even consider terrorists to be so terrifying means that the terrorists have accomplished their goal by definition.

So why are those who at the most fundamental level capitulate to Al Qaeda, et al., considered to be "serious" about national defense and those of us who refuse to do so are not taken seriously? Something is seriously bass-ackwards about our foreign policy and those who punditize on the subject.

Posted by DAS | June 13, 2007 1:56 PM

Oh, and as to the strategic wisdom of "law enforcement techniques", which some -- especially chickenhawks out to use our shiny new military 'cause when you got a hammer (especially if you are not the one who'll get your fingers smacked) everything looks like a nail -- claim are not sufficient tools for the job:

How many terrorist plots foiled using old-fashioned (i.e. not even requiring the new police-state powers un-constitutionally granted under the Patriot Act) law enforcement techniques(*)? How many using military intervention, etc?

Hmmmm ...

(*) N.B.: to foil a terrorist plot it's not necessary to actually convict a person or even hold them indefinitely: if the plot is disrupted, it's disrupted whether or not the disruption leads to anybody being actually put in jail/prison for an extended period ...

Posted by DAS | June 13, 2007 2:01 PM

DAS...I agree with you in general. If we picked the guy up in Stockholm, I'd see no reason to use procedures other than what we use for every normal criminal. The difference is that he was picked up in a war zone - not a "War on Terror" zone, but a legitimate, active war zone. The trouble with treating what is effectively a POW as a common criminal is that we have no way to do traditional evidence collection, witness sequestering, etc., in such a setting. There is no possible trial that could find the man guilty beyond a reasonable doubt because the evidence could not be uncovered. Given that we'll likely never charge such a man, I don't think a five month detainment, until the situation in Somalia had calmed somewhat, is entirely out of line. It is a slippery slope, though, for sure.

The other difference between five months and five years is that we routinely hold suspects for major crimes (murders, etc.) for that long in jail during trial preparation and the course of a trial. We don't hold people in such a situation for five years.

Posted by cure | June 13, 2007 2:05 PM

I wouldn't be surprised to find that 24 was designed to promote acceptance of torture. (It probably wasn't, since it aired well before the torture started, but it has certainly made it more palatable.

Fox. Moral vacuum. Step right up.)

"I'm so tired of America."

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | June 13, 2007 2:49 PM

"except the tiny sliver that reads the Economist and similar papers..."

It's one thing when The Economist calls itself a "paper", but why humor them? I have a subscription and it's pretty clear The Economist is a magazine.

Regarding the length of time some of the folks have been held in Guantanamo, isn't it a little dishonest to blame the administration for not giving them a speedy trial when they have had to wait for the resolution of Supreme Court challenges to their proposed method of trial?

Posted by Fred | June 13, 2007 2:53 PM

Regarding the length of time some of the folks have been held in Guantanamo, isn't it a little dishonest to blame the administration for not giving them a speedy trial when they have had to wait for the resolution of Supreme Court challenges to their proposed method of trial?

"So having said, a while he stood, expecting
Their universal shout and high applause
To fill his ears, when contrary he hears
On all sides, from innumerable tongues
A dismal universal hiss ... "

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | June 13, 2007 3:05 PM

what is effectively a POW

so you're saying that US forces can detain people worldwide without charge indefinitely as a POW?

Posted by novakant | June 13, 2007 3:07 PM

"I wouldn't be surprised to find that 24 was designed to promote acceptance of torture."

Sounds like a comment by someone who hasn't watched much of the show. 24 never promotes torture for torture's sake: in nearly all cases, Jack Bauer tries to get the info he needs without torture, sometimes by appealing to the self-interest of the detainee by offering immunity, sometimes through deception. When he does have to use torture, the Bauer character has been shown to pay a price for it. 24 has also highlighted the risk that an individual being tortured might be innocent. Torture is also shown to be a favored technique of the terrorists.

So, altogether, I don't think this adds up to a ringing endorsement of torture. Insightfully though, 24 has also portrayed human/civil rights activists with some nuance. In the most recent episode, the leader of the CAIR-type Muslim advocacy group was portrayed as a dignified, brave patriot. On the other hand, in a previous season (the great season 4), a clever terrorist calls "Amnesty Global" to challenge the detention of one of his accomplices before the Counter Terrorism Unit can interrogate him for information about a pending plot.

Posted by Fred | June 13, 2007 3:24 PM

Certainly not. But can they hold people picked up on a battlefield in Somalia in a neighboring country for a few months while making some effort to ascertain why exactly two Swedes, one recently converted to Islam, wound up in the middle of an Islamist insurrection thousands of miles from home? Surely the answer is yes.

There are few options here. Let's start with the assumption that the two have some preponderance of guilt when they're picked up near Kisamayo:
1) Keep them in a Kenyan refugee camp until a trial can be arranged or more evidence found
2) Hold them in a local jail and try to figure out why they were in Somalia
3) Send them back to Sweden with a hold on their passport
4) Send them to a Swedish jail
5) Let them go free

I think 1 and 5 are out of the question. 2-4 are fine, but I think 2 makes the most sense given that, if they are to have a trial, you want witnesses to be able to identify them, etc. They weren't held indefinitely: they were let go after a few weeks (the girl) and five months (the guy), which I don't think is out of line for someone charged, but in the end released, for murder in the United States.

The physical abuse seems to me out of line, but the five-month detention does not at all.

Posted by cure | June 13, 2007 3:25 PM

Yeah, when the Heritage Foundation hosts panel discussions lauding "24," moderated by none other than Rush Limbaugh, you can be quite confident that the show presents an evenhanded, nuanced portrayal of the issues.

Posted by Steve | June 13, 2007 3:27 PM

Sounds like a comment by someone who hasn't watched much of the show.

It gets the idea of torture a comfortable resting place in consciousness. It trivializes it.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | June 13, 2007 4:31 PM

cure - what is the legal basis for detaining them in Kenya? what are US troops doing in Kenya anyway? why are us officials running detention centers in Somalia? why is all of this accpeted as perfectly normal?

and finally, could you please for only one second imagine a situation where someone had killed 3000 people in China or Russia and as a consequence they would be randomly detaining people and running prisons worldwide six years after the deed, accountable to no one.

Posted by novakant | June 13, 2007 5:04 PM

"It gets the idea of torture a comfortable resting place in consciousness. It trivializes it."

Sounds like another comment by someone who hasn't watched much of the show.

Posted by Fred | June 13, 2007 6:54 PM

BTW, why are folks here concerned by violence on 24 but not on The Sopranos? I could see if Bauer were presented as some untarnished Captain America type, but he's not. He's a former heroin addict whose personal life is a mess and whose acts of violence end up damaging him. Bauer is presented more as a necessary and difficult-to-control evil than as a role model.

Posted by Fred | June 13, 2007 7:11 PM

I don't have a problem with fictional violence at all and if there weren't (supposedly) real human beings advocating torturing people I wouldn't have a problem with 24.

His moral hand wringing is a sop that makes him even more appealing. He does what needs to get done, but he feels bad about it unlike the nasty terrorists.

Posted by Ed Marshall | June 13, 2007 7:16 PM

"His moral hand wringing..."

You don't get any moral hand wringing from Bauer. That would be ridiculous. The show's writers are smart enough to let other characters do the moral hand wringing (e.g., in the last series the President's sister, an attorney married to the leader of a Muslim-American civil rights group).

And by the way, some of terrorists get better portrayals than you might expect.

Posted by Fred | June 13, 2007 8:07 PM

@kb: Touche.

For anyone interested, there's a documentary about a Swedish guy who was held at Guantanomo that gives some perspective (not much, actually) on Swedish Muslims and the war on terror.

It's called Gitmo, and it's on Google Video.

http://tinyurl.com/2p4hfj

Posted by km | June 13, 2007 8:44 PM

Questioned about Swedish Muslims? What did they want to know?

"Are lingonberries halal? What is the relationship between Abu Abbas and ABBA?"

Posted by brooksfoe | June 13, 2007 10:14 PM