Imagine opening up the morning paper and finding that there's a terrorist living in your neighborhood. No one told you, not a warning. But in this insane world of ours, does that make sense? Especially with an administration in Washington that has wiretapped Americans illegally, lied into a war, hijacked the Supreme Court, threatened social security and medicare, outed covert agents for political payback, laughed at global warming, and duped a malleable and compliant press. Today I saw that OBL's bodyguard, the one credited with diversion tactics that allowed Bin Ladin's escape from Tora Bora - a Moroccan by the name of Tabarek Abdallah - had been sent back to Morocco in August 2004 after 3 years in Guantanamo. Released from Moroccan prison 5 months later, according to the Washington Post, Tabarek returned to his old neighborhood on the outskirts of Casablanca. That just seemed a bit incredible to me, yet worrying as well. I noticed the picture accompanying the Post article is credited to a French language Moroccan weekly news magazine, Le Journal. Going to their website I found the article that contained the photo - written in July 2005 to describe the release and the current situation of the case. Morocco has felt the impact of terrorism - the attacks of May 16, 2003 elevated the conflict of the discourse as a moderate country finally began to confront the fundamentalist threat. There is zero tolerance from the authorities for terrorism and for this reason today's Post article was disconcerting to say the least. But when I read the archives from Le Journal's July article it seemed that - as usual - this story was not really clear. According to Le Journal it was the Moroccan authorities who had identified Tabarek to the US as the OBL bodyguard that had aided the escape in Tora Bora, and the US, all too willing to herald rounding up another usual suspect, placed him in Gitmo. I'm not saying the guy is totally innocent, but the fact that he'd be sent back to Morocco and then a few months later quietly released, just sounds a bit suspicious. Especially since the coverage in the Moroccan press after the Le Journal's piece in July has not taken this up as a cause. Morocco's press, as far as political reporting goes, is quite open. Who knows where reality exists in this nightmare world that the junior George Bush has wrought upon us all, but it is time to try to come back to it. |
