A former Guantanamo detainee on the death of Osama bin Laden

After my return from Guantanamo in 2005, I joined the human rights group Cageprisoners to campaign against extrajudicial captivity and killing. We are often called upon to defend the rights of people whose actions we do not necessarily agree with. If bin Laden had been captured, he probably would have been one of them.

I believe the killing of bin Laden — and those with him in Abbottabad — was extrajudicial, like the U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan. At the end of World War II, Nazi leaders captured by the Allies were not executed summarily. They were tried at the Nurembergwar tribunals, and the world saw the full extent of their crimes. In contrast, extrajudicial captivity and killing have became hallmarks of American-style justice in the era of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

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• The daughter: Carie Lemack, whose mother was killed on September 11
• The Marine: Dario DiBattista, who was sent to war
• The detainee: Moazzam Begg, who was held in Guantanamo
• The Muslim American: Arshad Chowdhury, who was mistakenly put on a no-fly list

According to U.S. authorities, the intelligence that led to bin Laden came from Guantanamo detainee Abu Faraj al-Libi — in­cred­ibly, more than six years ago. Supporters of the prison have said this is another reason to keep it open. I believe it offers further arguments to shut it down. How can information be described as credible if it took six years to act upon and was quite possibly obtained by coercion?

Today Guantanamo remains open, even though Obama promised to close it soon after taking office. Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan, but the war in Afghanistan continues. Drone attacks have become the more efficient way of fighting the war on terror, and I cannot see any change in the near future simply because bin Laden is dead.

On a trip to Egypt and Libya a week ago, I met former prisoners tortured by the regimes of Hosni Mubarak and Moammar Gaddafi, as well as men who had, like me, once been held at Guantanamo. They were now involved in the momentous revolutions in their countries, uprisings that have been unsuccessfully portrayed by the likes of Gaddafi as an al-Qaeda plot. On the contrary, you can see on the streets of Benghazi graffiti that says: “No to al-Qaeda” as well as “No to foreign troops.”

Since I began reading the book about bin Laden, the president of the United States has announced that the al-Qaeda leader is dead. There is clear jubilation and excitement in the United States about eliminating America’s most wanted man. But, in labeling him the arch-villain of modern times, America may be distorting the bin Laden narrative somewhat.

Scheuer, former chief of the CIA’s bin Laden unit, writes: “As to bin Laden himself, Americans have been told that he is many things, but virtually none of the portraits of him feature his piety, generosity, personal bravery, strategic ability, charisma and patience.”

Such characteristics can be admirable in any human being.

Bin Laden and his legacy were born out of a conflict — the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan — that saw the United States and the nascent al-Qaeda on the same side. The path that bin Laden followed afterward put him on a violent collision course with the United States; the way that nation responded to that violence continues to shape its perception in the world.

The vast majority of Muslims did not agree with bin Laden’s targeting of civilians. Yet many will remember him as the man who made the United States tremble — prompting it to unleash a war on terror in Muslim lands and thus strengthen al-Qaeda as a global idea, instead of an organization whose numbers could once be counted.

Moazzam Begg, a British citizen, was never charged by the United States and was released from Guantanamo by order of President George W. Bush in 2005. He is the author of “Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim’s Journey to Guantanamo and Back,” and the director of the human rights group Cageprisoners.

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