Enemy Combatant by Moazzam Begg
with a foreword by David Ignatius

a book review ......  by Susan Crane

Everyone who is concerned about human rights, indefinite imprisonment, the US policy of torture at off-shore prisons, and the now defunct right to a writ of habeas corpus would benefit from reading this book.

Moazzam Begg gives a disturbing first hand account of how the United States is treating large numbers of people in conditions that violate human dignity. But, despite being kidnapped, subjected to torture and unjust treatment throughout his imprisonment Moazzam maintains an attitude of compassion for those around him. This attitude is remarkable in the face of revenge and vindictiveness that is, in our culture, the accepted response to violence.

Moazzam Begg grew up in Birmingham , England . His father, an immigrant from Pakistan , was a banker and able to provide an excellent education for his son in a Hebrew school. As a young adult, Begg felt compassion for impoverished Muslims struggling to live under war.

Begg was conscious of the discrimination against Muslims in his own flesh and bones. He realized that most of the people who were being killed, raped, and losing their homes in conflicts in Bosnia , Chechnya , Afghanistan , and Palestine were Muslim. His first response was to send money. But he knew that that wasn't enough. So he traveled with the Convoy of Mercy delivering aid to Bosnia . That wasn't enough. While in Bosnia , he visited an army camp, with an openness to join, but decided against it. When he returned to Britain , he left his job at Social Security, thinking: “How can I sit quietly in an office all day after what I had seen?” With a friend he started a bookstore in Britain where Islamic books, clothing and artifacts were sold, and where people came for study groups. He started to learn Arabic.

He and his wife, Zaynab wanted their children to experience life in a Muslim country and so lived in Pakistan for five months. During that time, Begg traveled to Afghanistan , and visited a camp of men who had fought against the Soviets and Saddam Hussein. Again, Begg didn't join them, but returned to Britain with his family. He began working with people in Afghanistan building water wells and a school for girls, and in 2001 he and his wife and children moved to Afghanistan .

On Oct 17, 2001, a US cruise missile landed so close to their home in Afghanistan that shock waves broke their windows. Begg arranged to get his own and two other families to a compound near the Pakistan border. He drove back and forth from that compound to Kabul to get food and news. As the fighting intensified, roads were blocked, and it wasn't safe to travel; one day he could not return. In agony of worry about his family, he joined a group of people who walked through snow over the mountains to Pakistan . It was three weeks before Zaynab and he found each other. With help from their families, they set up a home in Pakistan and planned to help refugee families from Afghanistan .

On the evening of Jan 31, 2002, the children and Zaynab were asleep and Begg was at the computer writing a letter. The doorbell rang, and American and Pakistani men entered and put a gun to Begg's head. They put him in a hood and cuffs and carried him into a vehicle. Later the Pakistanis told him that he was being held to appease the Americans, so that they wouldn't be attacked by Bush's army.

Held in what seemed to be an intelligence service facility, not allowed to call family or contact lawyers, he saw prisoners tortured; hit with pipes, subjected to sleep deprivation, and beaten. Begg realized that the truth didn't matter to the guards; prisoners were tortured until they said exactly what the torturers wanted to hear.

He was soon handed over to the US military and transported to Kandahar , hooded, in shackles, unable to breathe. In the cell, in shackles, cold, hearing the screams of prisoners, he suffered for months, and wrote: “The most humiliating thing was witnessing the abuse of others, and knowing how utterly dishonored they felt.” Throughout his detention he was interrogated often, day or night. Interrogators asked the same questions over and over.

Begg was asked every detail of his life, his travel and friends. The interrogators wanted Begg to admit to events that he wasn't involved in: training, financing and planning al-Qaidah operations.

He was then moved to the Bagram Air Base detention facility in Afghanistan . Begg continued to say to his interrogators: “All of you know that I haven't committed any crime, nor have I been involved in one. I have done nothing to harm any American at all, and you've shattered the lives of my family and me for nothing.”

In Bagram, the routine of being shaved, beaten and hog tied, the dread of the hood, the darkness, the kicks, the stress positions and sleep deprivation continued.

In January 2003 Begg was moved to the US base in Guantanamo , Cuba . At this point he had been isolated from other prisoners for two years. He was told he would never see his family again and that he could be executed by a firing squad at any time. With these threats, and under continued humiliating treatment, he signed a confession written by the FBI. He felt he had signed his life away.

Begg befriended many guards assigned to him, and often was able to share deeply with particular soldiers who felt marginalized themselves. Because he was able to speak English, Arabic and Urdu and because he was willing to listen to people, he was able to translate for the Red Cross and the guards, and was able to help other prisoners negotiating for their needs. Any of us who has been in prison knows that these relationships are possible, and a real gift for both prisoner and guard. People are searching for meaning, for truth, for hope, and heart-to-heart relationships happen; a gift of the spirit. Soldiers spoke of their opposition to this new war being waged - “a war that they believed over-stepped the boundaries of what they had been taught was permissible. A few admitted to feelings of guilt and remorse at what they called a black page in the history of the USA .”

During his detention, Begg witnessed the murder of two prisoners. He heard screams during the night. He saw men beaten, and was beaten himself. Anyone who has been in prison in the US while another prisoner was executed knows the feeling when the reality strikes home: “They could do this to me.” Such feelings have staying power. We know that the wounds from physical torture can heal, but the psychological effects remain with us – often scarring a person for life.

Enemy Combatant was written after his release from Guantanamo and return to England with his wife and children in January of 2005. Despite being held without cause, interrogated, subjected to torture, Moazzam Begg writes his story, not, as I expected, with revenge and hatred in his heart, but “ to find some common ground between people on opposing sides of this new war, to introduce the voice of reason, which is so frequently drowned by the roar of hatred and intolerance.” Begg's conducted himself inside prison in a spirit of nonviolence, despite the hatred and fear that he encountered.

The book needs to be read. The prisoners need to be released. We, as people living in this empire, need to resist. The solution isn't revenge or hatred toward anyone; the solution is understanding and respect for all people and nonviolent resistance to the empire that continues to dominate, imprison and torture.

You may have wondered how the people of Germany let the concentration camps happen. These torture camps are our concentration camps. No one who reads this book can say they didn't know.

Susan Crane