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Per FOX news:
The Pentagon said Tuesday it has fingerprints, DNA, photos or reliable intelligence to link 27 detainees to the battlefields since their release from the prison on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
That’s about 5 percent of the 540 terror suspects released from the prison. Another 9 percent of freed Guantanamo detainees are suspected to have rejoined the terror activity. That’s 74 detainees in all.
"What this tells us is, at the end of the day, there are individuals, that if released, will again return to terrorist activities," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Tuesday.
Both President Obama and President Bush have made it clear that they intend to detain in perpetuity (without trial if need be) anyone who poses a risk to the U.S. So, it’s inappropriate to claim that the Gitmo almuni that Bush freed have "rejoined" terrorist activity.
It is however quite rational to conclude that at least 14% of Gitmo’s nonterrorist guests convert to terrorism during their stay. And, who wouldn’t?
3 Comments
The way that I parse the statement, the rationality of your conclusion would depend on what “rejoin” means.
I’d be very surprised if listening to Al Jazeera didn’t count as “rejoining terrorism”–anything but out and out CIA-blessed Manchurian Candidate behavior probably counts. Be that as it may, I’m all but certain that you don’t have to shoot an AK-47 or strap on a bomb vest to be counted as a recidivist terrorist.
For that matter, writing this reply probably counts–and I haven’t even been locked up yet.
Well said. Thank you. What a catch-22. Torture an innocent person and then don’t free him or her, because you have made them justifiably angry, if they can rally serious anger through the psychic trauma. Only a sane person would be driven insane and to violence for such abuse and malice. Therefore we must protect ourselves from them. They are now dangerously enraged.
This thinking is on a par with we had to destroy the village in order to save it. Or maybe throw the witch in the lake and if she drowns she is not a witch. If she survives she is a witch, so burn her.
It is however quite rational to conclude that at least 14% of Gitmo’s nonterrorist guests convert to terrorism during their stay.
This is a very irresponsible way of “correcting” Pentagon’s claim. In addition to what robspierre said – what counts as terrorism? – you seem to be assuming that all those suspected of ‘terror activity’ are in fact participating in ‘terror activity’, and you are buying the claim that all anti-US insurgents are terrorists.