Face to face with the war on terror

Ali Shah Mousovi is standing at attention at the far end of the room, his leg chained to the floor. His expression is wary, but when he sees me in my embroidered shawl from Peshawar, he breaks into a smile. Later, he’ll tell me that for a split second he mistook me for his younger sister.

I introduce myself and Peter Ryan, a lawyer for whom I’m interpreting. I hand Mousovi a Starbucks chai, the closest thing to Afghan tea I’ve been able to find on the base. I open up boxes of pizza and cookies. He doesn’t reach for anything and urges us to share the food we have brought for him.

Mousovi is a physician from Gardez, where he was arrested by US troops two-and-a-half years ago. He tells us that he had returned to Afghanistan in August 2003, after 12 years of exile in Iran, to help rebuild his watan (homeland). He believes someone turned him in to US forces just to collect up to $25,000 being offered to anyone who gave up a Talib or al-Qaeda member.

As I translate from Pashto, Mousovi hesitantly describes life after arrest. Brought to Bagram air base, he was thrown—blindfolded, hooded and gagged—into a 3 1/2-by-7-foot shed. He was beaten regularly by Americans in civilian clothing, deprived of sleep by tape-recordings of sirens that blared day and night. He was dragged around by a rope, subjected to extreme heat and cold.

He had hoped he would be freed at his military hearing in December 2004. Instead, he was accused of associating with the Taliban and of funneling money to anti-coalition insurgents. When he asked for evidence, he was told it was classified. And so he sits in prison, far from his wife and three children. When he talks about his 11-year-old daughter, Hajar, his eyes fill with tears. His head droops.

I don’t know what I had expected coming here, but it wasn’t this weary, sorrowful man. The government says he is a terrorist and a monster. When I look at him, I see simply what he says he is—a physician who wanted to build a clinic in his native land.

A guard knocks at the door. Time’s up. Mousovi signs a document agreeing to have Peter represent him before US civilian courts. ‘‘I pray to Allah,’’ he says, holding his palms together, ‘‘for sabar.’’ Patience.

It was Google that got me to Gitmo. My interest in the US military base in Cuba was sparked by an international law class I took last year . So I Googled the names of the attorneys on the 2004 Supreme Court case Rasul vs. Bush, which held that the US court system had authority to decide whether non-US citizens held at Guantanamo Bay were being rightfully imprisoned.

Maybe part of my interest had to do with my heritage. My Pashtun parents are doctors who met in medical school in Peshawar, a city in northwest Pakistan near the Afghan border. They came to the United States to continue their medical educations. I was born in America in 1978, but I grew up speaking Pashto at home, and am a practising Muslim.

As an American, I felt the pain of 9/11, and I understood the need to invade Afghanistan and destroy the Taliban and al-Qaeda. But I also felt the suffering of the Afghans as their country was bombed. And when hundreds of men were rounded up and thrust into a black hole of detention, many with seemingly no proof that they had any terrorist connections, I felt that my own country had taken a wrong turn.

The attorneys I e-mailed eventually put me in touch with Peter Ryan at Dechert LLP, which represents 15 Afghan detainees. I’ve now been down a total of nine times. Over three months, I’ve interpreted at dozens of meetings with detainees and heard many stories.

I’ve listened to Wali Mohammed protest that he was just a businessman trying to get along in Taliban-run Afghanistan. I’ve watched Chaman Gul, crouched in his 7-by-8-foot cage, weep for fear that his family will forget him. I’ve marvelled at the pluck of Taj Mohammad, a 27-year-old goat herder who has taught himself English while here.

As we leave our meeting with Mousovi, I pull the heavy shawl off my head. Primo, our military escort, is outside the fenced compound, puffing off a Marlboro Red. Over a steak dinner, they joke with us. Primo gives me pointers on shooting pool, everyone brings them beer and cigarettes.

But Tom Wilner, a partner in Shearman & Sterling LLP, retorts: ‘‘Yeah, they’re nice. But the face of evil often appears friendly.’’ Tom gets angry talking about the conditions under which the detainees live. Most are held in isolation in cells separated by thick steel mesh or concrete walls. Every man eats every meal alone in his small cell. The prisoners are allowed out of their cells three times a week for about 15 minutes to exercise, often in the middle of the night, so many don’t see sunlight for months at a time.

I think of Ali Shah Mousovi when he says that. Even the presiding officer at Mousovi’s hearing declared that he found it ‘‘difficult to believe’’ that the United States had imprisoned Mousovi and flown him ‘‘all the way to Cuba.’’

Two-and-a-half years, in a 3 1/2-by-7-foot shed, a prisoner of terror.

Mahvish Khan