Tuesday, January 27, 2009

It's kinda like going through rehab in Hollywood

Don't think they are really trying hard to fix the problem:
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Nine graduates of an influential Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists, including some who had been imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay, have been arrested for rejoining terrorist groups since the program started in 2004, Saudi officials said Monday.
Saudi Arabia has been furnishing jihadists and al-Qaeda members around the world for more than a decade. Why would they stop now, doesn't it get their disaffected and restless youth out of the country?

Besides, being locked up and tortured in Gitmo makes a person become a terrorist whether he was one before or not. Even thinking about the injustices done in Abu Ghraib and Gitmo have made many sign up for revenge.

So Gitmo is a factory for producing terrorism, right?
Pentagon officials have said that 61 of the more than 525 Guantánamo detainees who have been released have returned to terrorism. That claim has generated some skepticism, and the Pentagon is expected to declassify portions of a report on the subject in the coming days.
Ah... the famous 61:
On the January 25 edition of NBC's Meet the Press, host David Gregory allowed House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) to repeat the falsehood that, in Boehner's words, "we've already found" that 61 detainees released from the detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay are now "back on the battlefield." In fact, the figure, which comes from the Pentagon, includes 43 former prisoners who are suspected of, but have not been confirmed as, having "return[ed] to the fight." Moreover, even the Pentagon's claim that it has confirmed that 18 former Guantánamo detainees have returned to the battlefield has been questioned by experts.

[snip]

Further, the Pentagon's definition of "returning to the fight" has been challenged by some analysts. As CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen noted on the January 23 edition of Anderson Cooper 360: "[R]eturning to the fight, in Pentagon terms, could be engaging in anti-American propaganda, something that's not entirely surprising if you have been locked up in a prison camp for several years without charge." Bergen further stated: "[W]hen you really boil it down, the actual number of people whose names we know are about eight out of the 520 that have been released [from Guantánamo], so a little above 1 percent, that we can actually say with certainty have engaged in anti-American terrorism or insurgence activities since they have been released. ... If the Pentagon releases more information about specific people, I think it would be possible to -- to potentially agree with them. But, right now, that information isn't out there."

Additionally, Seton Hall University School of Law professor Mark Denbeaux -- who has written several reports about Guantánamo detainees, including some challenging the Pentagon's definition of "battlefield" capture and published detainee recidivism rates -- has disputed the Pentagon's figures, asserting: "[The Defense Department's most recent] attempt to enumerate the number of detainees who have returned to the battlefield is false by the Department of Defense's own data and prior reports." He added that in "each of its forty-three attempts to provide the numbers of the recidivist detainees, the Department of Defense has given different sets of numbers that are contradictory and internally inconsistent with the Department's own data."
Update... Now it's only 2:
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia – Two Saudis formerly jailed at the US prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have joined Al Qaeda's Yemeni branch, and authorities here worry that two other ex-Guantánamo inmates may have strayed back to militancy because they have recently disappeared from their homes.

4 comments:

DB said...

Who can honestly say we are safer because of the previous administration's policies?

ellroon said...

But he kept us safe! Safe, I say! (Ignore the anthrax attacks and the two sniper guys and the open ports and the borders full of holes and bizarre airport security sippy cup and Icelandic tourist challengers ... )

DB said...

We should also ignore the many US Embassy attacks as well. Oh, and the deals to give the oil rich United Arab Emirates nuclear techonology "for fuel". If the policies of yesterday lead to attacks tomorrow, should we still tout how safe we are today?

ellroon said...

Apparently yes as of last week, but it looks like Obama is changing the rules...