Posted by Kromey at 11:04am Jan 15 '09The Pentagon said on Tuesday that 61 former detainees from its military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, appear to have returned to terrorism since their release from custody.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said 18 former detainees are confirmed as "returning to the fight" and 43 are suspected of having done in a report issued late in December by the Defense Intelligence Agency.
But this all reeks of the same "secret intelligence" that in 2003 "proved" that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction:
Morrell declined to provide details such as the identity of the former detainees, why and where they were released or what actions they have taken since leaving U.S. custody.
"This is acts of terrorism. It could be Iraq, Afghanistan, it could be acts of terrorism around the world," he told reporters.
Morrell said the latest figures, current through December 24, showed an 11 percent recidivism rate, up from 7 percent in a March 2008 report that counted 37 former detainees as suspected or confirmed active militants.
Rights advocates said the lack of details should call the Pentagon's assertions into question.
"Until enough information is provided to allow the press and the public to verify these claims, they need to be viewed with a healthy degree of skepticism," said Jennifer Daskal, a Washington-based lawyer for Human Rights Watch.
But why would our trustworthy military commanders lie to us?
"The Defense Department sees that the Guantanamo detention operation has failed and they are trying to launch another fear mongering campaign to justify the indefinite detention of detainees there," said Jamil Dakwar, human rights director at the American Civil Liberties Union.
Here's another possibility that occurred to me as I was reading this article: Let's first assume that the Pentagon is being truthful (I know it's hard, but let's try) about the number of ex-detainees that have committed acts of terrorism since being released. Let's also assume that the Pentagon is telling the truth when they say that these are real acts of terrorism, not merely speaking out against the US.
Maybe these people weren't terrorists before, but their extended detention and brutal treatment at the hands of the US has lead them to take up arms against it. All it would take would be a single real terrorist in among the detainees - can you imagine how ripe a recruitment ground that place would be?