The Guantanamo disgrace.
Dahlia Lithwick's new Slate piece summarizing three new reports out of Guantanamo is very good and quite appalling. The reports suggest that the Gauntanamo detainees constitute less a collection of "the worst of the worst" than a random sample of the Afghanistan and Pakistani male populations.
The big question about Guantanamo for me, though, has always been why. Why did the U.S. begin rounding people up and putting them there in the first place -- not soldiers captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan, mind you, but the 86% of current detainees who were rounded up by Northern Alliance or Pakistani forces after the U.S. offered "large bounties for capture of suspected enemies". And why does it keep holding them more than four years after 911 even though it would actually be impossible to bring credible charges against most of them and most of them must have depleted their interregation value years ago? Lithwick's response:
The only real justification for the continued disgrace that is Guantanamo is that the government refuses to admit it's made a mistake. Releasing hundreds of prisoners after holding them for four years without charges would be big news. Better, a Guantanamo at which nothing has happened in four years. Better to drain the camp slowly, releasing handfuls of prisoners at a time. Last week, and with little fanfare, seven more detainees were let go. That brings the total number of releasees to 180, with 76 transferred to the custody of other countries. Are these men who are quietly released the "best of the worst"? No. According to the National Journal one detainee, an Australian fundamentalist Muslim, admitted to training several of the 9/11 hijackers and intended to hijack a plane himself. He was released to his home government last year. A Briton said to have targeted 33 Jewish organizations in New York City is similarly gone. Neither faces charges at home.
Nice to know our "freedom" is in such good hands.
The big question about Guantanamo for me, though, has always been why. Why did the U.S. begin rounding people up and putting them there in the first place -- not soldiers captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan, mind you, but the 86% of current detainees who were rounded up by Northern Alliance or Pakistani forces after the U.S. offered "large bounties for capture of suspected enemies". And why does it keep holding them more than four years after 911 even though it would actually be impossible to bring credible charges against most of them and most of them must have depleted their interregation value years ago? Lithwick's response:
The only real justification for the continued disgrace that is Guantanamo is that the government refuses to admit it's made a mistake. Releasing hundreds of prisoners after holding them for four years without charges would be big news. Better, a Guantanamo at which nothing has happened in four years. Better to drain the camp slowly, releasing handfuls of prisoners at a time. Last week, and with little fanfare, seven more detainees were let go. That brings the total number of releasees to 180, with 76 transferred to the custody of other countries. Are these men who are quietly released the "best of the worst"? No. According to the National Journal one detainee, an Australian fundamentalist Muslim, admitted to training several of the 9/11 hijackers and intended to hijack a plane himself. He was released to his home government last year. A Briton said to have targeted 33 Jewish organizations in New York City is similarly gone. Neither faces charges at home.
Nice to know our "freedom" is in such good hands.
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