Death To America Tour Live in Dublin

Here's one for you. Two guys leave England and go to Pakistan for a wedding. No wait, it gets better. See, they're not religious, claiming that when they left Tipton they weren't practicing Muslims. So, they go to Pakistan with a friend who's getting married. It's an arranged marriage. But these guys are just as Western as the rest of us. Except for the arranged marriage bit, but, you know, the folks are a little old fashioned and what's a guy to do? Keep the peace, son.

What's a young lad to do for fun in Karachi? Shafiq Rasul and Rhuhel Ahmed found interesting diversion in a mosque. But they're not practicing Muslims, mind you. There's just not much doing in Karachi. Appeals for humanitarian aid were made that evening, a call to help the poor people of Afghanistan who were suffering - war is nasty business for civilians, you see. Now, you'd think that a twenty-eight year old man would have some sense, but not our friend Shafiq. Ah, no, he was off looking for adventure and he went to Afghanistan with his friend. On a humanitarian aid mission. But he's not a practicing Muslim.

There they are in Afghanistan, using all their money to buy food and medicine for the suffering masses. Then along come the evil Northern Alliance forces, who spotted our boys by their foreign accents. Sort of like your man in Dublin, able to pick out the culchie at twenty paces. Not treated well by the Northern Alliance, were our noble lads.

"They survived a massacre outside Shebargan prison and appalling conditions. "We were covered with lice," Rhuhel said. He bled from scratching himself and lost a lot of weight," reports the Irish Times. Dreadful, isn't it? But it gets worse.

The Northern Alliance turned them over to American Special Forces, and that's when things got really bad. "They endured brutal interrogations and torture which extended from beatings, some especially severe, stress-inducing loud noise, being tied with their heads touching the ground "for six or seven hours" - as Rhuhel recalled it - and solitary confinement which could extend for three or four months." according to the newspaper report. Six or seven hours, was it? Three or four months? And all because they went to a wedding?

Now, they'd like to bring their Death to America Tour to America, but they're frightened, the poor wee lambs, because Shafiq is "...worried about being arrested. He remembered comments of Americans in the Guantánamo Bay detention centre: "You are in the US now. We can do what we want [to you]."

Since their experiences, the two have become religious - but they weren't religious before, oh no. And they want to come to America to tell everyone about Guantanamo? And they think that Americans are going to believe them? For further information on having one's bluff called, see also Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.