So, would America be doing such a thing if there was still a cold war and we had to put on a pretty face for the rest of the world compared to the terrible KGB and Soviet detention? We should have seen this coming when the Republicans began to write their House bills in Soviet Agit-prop language. "Homeland Security Act" no less. Next we will have the "Patriotism for nice people only act." Democrats need not apply. I will not forget this and forgiveness will come very hard.
REH December 5, 2003 Guantánamo Chaplain and His Wife Speak Out By SARAH KERSHAW SEATTLE, Dec. 4 - At noon last Sept. 11, Huda Yee arrived at the Seattle-Tacoma airport for a long-awaited reunion with her husband, Capt. James J. Yee, a Muslim chaplain who was supposed to return home from Guantánamo Bay for a one-week leave. Mrs. Yee, a 29-year-old Palestinian from Syria, had gone to Syria almost a year earlier with her 4-year-old daughter, Sarah, to be with her family while her husband, an Army chaplain permanently stationed at Fort Lewis, south of here, ministered to detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The two had arranged to fly home on the same day. But by evening, when there was still no sign of her husband, and after she went to their home in Olympia, 60 miles south of here, to look for him and found their furniture still covered in plastic, she concluded that something was terribly wrong. "I didn't know if he was alive," Mrs. Yee said in Arabic. "But I knew there were troubles." That day at the airport was the beginning of a bizarre and frightening three-month odyssey for Mrs. Yee and her husband, who quickly became a cause célèbre for advocacy groups across the country who accuse the government of trumping up an espionage case against him. On Thursday, Captain Yee spoke publicly for the first time with some of those supporters, many of whom have likened his case to that of the Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee, to thank them for letter-writing campaigns and protests on his behalf. "The case is still ongoing and there are still some battles that need to be fought," he told them. Sometime after that day at the airport, the F.B.I. came to search her house but would not give her any information, Mrs. Yee said. It was not until Sept. 20 that she learned from a television news report that her husband, 35, was arrested on Sept. 10 in Florida on his way home and was being held by the military on suspicion of spying. "I saw all the news," she said. "All the bad news about my husband. I didn't believe it. I fell down. I got sick." Captain Yee was held in solitary confinement in a South Carolina Navy brig for nearly three months while he was under investigation, permitted only two 15-minute telephone calls a day after a month and, his lawyers said, barred from speaking Arabic to his wife, whom he met while studying Islam in Syria in 1997. He was released last week without any espionage charges brought against him. But in a twist that Mrs. Yee said was more devastating than the espionage investigation, the military has charged him with adultery - a violation of military code - and possession of pornography, in addition to charges that he had disobeyed orders by taking classified information home. Mrs. Yee, Sarah and Captain Yee's parents are staying at a hotel near Fort Benning, Ga., where Captain Yee was transferred after he was freed and where he is scheduled to appear for a hearing Monday on the new charges. Mrs. Yee said she did not believe that her husband had had an affair or was guilty of the other charges. But still, she said in a telephone interview Wednesday from the hotel, with her husband in the room, she is filled with shame and embarrassment. It was her first public comment since her husband was released. "All my family is shocked," she said. "My mother cried, and she still cries." Shaheed Nuriddin, a close friend of the Yees, said: "The adultery was worse. The Army had come to her and said, `You don't know the man you married.' And this was after they kept trying to get her to identify her husband as a terrorist." Captain Yee, whose civilian lawyer, Eugene R. Fidell of Washington, has not permitted him to discuss the case, spoke publicly for the first time Thursday since his arrest, when supporters at a news conference in San Francisco called him in Georgia and put him on a speaker phone. "All of the concern and issues you have raised in regard to my situation have surely helped to create more public awareness and bring further support," Captain Yee said. "I believe all of your efforts were significant in helping my legal defense team secure my release from pre-trial confinement last week as it was an enormous blessing for me to spend Thanksgiving with some of my family members." The group that organized the news conference, New Americans for Justice, first formed in response to the case of Wen Ho Lee, who was suspected of spying but was freed from jail in 2000. It was at the center of a national groundswell of support for Captain Yee. Captain Yee's supporters say the government has charged him with adultery and keeping pornography - a fairly unusual move by the military justice system - to save face and trump up what has always been a weak case. "He was defamed and smeared and accused of being a spy," said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington advocacy group whose Seattle chapter was in close contact with Captain Yee's relatives during his detainment. "Then all of sudden, they're not even sorry. They're saying, `You can go now, and for good measure we'll throw in a few charges to further damage your reputation.' It's a very suspicious scenario that developed." Military officials would not comment on the accusations by Captain Yee's supporters, saying the proceeding starting at Fort Benning on Monday, to determine whether Captain Yee should face a court martial or whether the charges should be dropped, would answer any questions. "This proceeding will determine the charges, if they are correct, if they are in the correct form and if the correct person is charged with the allegations," said Lt. Col. Bill Costello of the Army, a spokesman for the Southern Command. Colonel Costello said Captain Yee had been in the Navy brig because commanding officers considered him a flight risk and so the investigation could continue unabated. He said Captain Yee was restricted to administrative duties now at Fort Benning and was barred from speaking to anyone who was with him at Guantánamo Bay or is stationed there. Otherwise, he said, Captain Yee was free to spend time with his family off the base. Mrs. Yee said that it was a joy to see her husband at last but that she was still deeply troubled by what had happened. "Many American people came to me and said, `Do not be angry with us,' " she said. "I cannot blame all the American people. Praise God, I love America and I want to live here, but in better times." Jason George contributed reporting for this article. _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
