CULPRITS WITHOUT CRIMES

ISLAND PRISON NIGHTMARES

600 people picked up from around the world.

Sent off to an island prison in the back of beyond.

Most of them were without a hint of crime in their past but the US said they were ‘enemies’ of the US. Most of them fortunate enough to be released into fresh air never led normal lives after that.

Life became hell for them. It was NOW that they became criminals and indulged in breaking federal law. Now they actually became dangerous threats to the society which previously had thought them to be ‘guilty’.

600 people from all over the world were put under bars by US forces at Guanatamo Bay, a US island territory near Cuba controlled by Naval Forces. Most of them never saw their families again. They were ‘fed on filth’ and they ‘slept on vermin’.

Outside the prison, America had started a literal war with the world. It installed full body scanners which cared the least about passengers’ privacy. It only had one thing on its mind – it wanted Osama, and anything in exchange for it.  Anything.

Amnesty International once went to Guanatamo Bay and was reported to have told that the US treated the people in ways that violated various treaties signed by the US. They were treated even more badly than Prisoners of War. The United Nations had even ordered a closure of the island prison.

America Inc. paid a deaf ear to all of them. It only wanted to lay its hands on 9/11 terror mastermind and Islamist outfit Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden – at any cost. It staked everything it had into the terror hunt.

It was only until recently did USA succeeded in the capture of the world’s most talked of terrorist the terror mastermind Osama, thanks to Obama administration. Mr. Obama also won laurels after he ordered closure of the prison as soon as he became president in 2009.

Obama’s shout of ‘Geronimo Ekia’ as US SEALS shot down Osama in his Abottabad residence was echoed throughout the press. Geronimo Ekia being a military cry meaning – ‘we got, we got the man we were looking for’.

Pentagon thus finally avenged the hijacking of three planes on the unfateful day, the third planned at that time to bomb the defence HQ. With Osama bin Laden’s death America breathed at ease.  It ended ages of desperate international outcry and manhunt for the greatest terrorist of all time.

The island prison had long since been closed.

It was also a relief to them and to all those who had been affected by terrorist attacks, not forgetting even 26/11 at Mumbai. Mumbai attacks were the most dreadful to ever take place as a dozen or so terrorists held hundreds hostage at Taj President Hotel at Mumbai. Taj along with the Trident Oberoi, the Jewish home Nariman House and the Mumbai CST was one of the many sites that were terrorized that day.  Indian soldiers were successful in the capture of Ajmal Kasab, one of the many who were behind the attacks. Kasab was executed recently.

One thinks that why we have so many terrorist attacks all the time. Is it because of weak protection? Or weak resolve? Only we and we can stop such attacks if they happen in near future with a pinch of vigilance and some courage.

Because what we do, affects the nation.