The Blame Game of Who's a Terrorist Now

A report released by the Pentagon on May 26, 2009 disclosed some interesting facts pertaining to the release of Gitmo detainees. As of the date of the report, 530 detainees had been released from Gitmo. According to that report, “14% of those released had turned to or are suspected of having turned to” acts of terrorism.

Now this information has been used by some people to draw negative conclusions on President Obama’s plans to shut down Gitmo, and the on going legal review of the detainees still held there. But there are some facts buried here that need a closer look.

To start with those released, either directly by the U.S., or indirectly through third party countries, were found to have had no credible connection to acts of terrorism. To put that in plain language, they were innocent of the charges against them after years of detention, mistreatment, and out right torture.

In a side point: Mind you this detention was based on the thinnest of excuses, i.e., that we were “at war with terrorism”, and therefore normal justice (and apparently common sense) did not apply. However, terrorism is technically a criminal act when perpetuated by individuals or groups, and a military act when perpetuated by a government or country – but illegal in any sense. In the past, we investigated and arrested criminals and went to war with countries and governments.

So the only way this “war” can be maintained, there by justifying (among other things) detention outside of the justice system, is by focusing on one group instead of the dozens of religious nut jobs waging war against unbelievers. We don’t have a country to wage war against – we did not them and we still do not. Hence, to give us a boogie man to wage war against, its all blamed on Al-Qaeda.

Just after 9-11, Al-Qaeda was a fractured (and according to some failing) group that was, after the act of terrorism called 9-11, denounced by most Jihadist leaders. If only we had let them alone, and hunted them down as criminals. But we did not and we invaded a country, and then another. Within a very short period of time, the very people who refused to take any note of Al-Qaeda to start with, suddenly found Al-Qaeda was a global organization against whom we should wage war. Rather convenient if you ask me. Suddenly, every Islamist faction trying to gain ground in every backwater country around the world, was linked to Al-Qaeda and we are looking at waging “war” in almost every country around the globe. The simple fact is that this should never have been viewed as a war, but as a criminal act and investigated as such. But war fit rather nicely in the plans of some.

But I wander from my point, which is the interesting language used by the Pentagon with regards to the detainees, i.e., “14% of those released had turned to or are suspected of having turned to” acts of terrorism. What that language means is one of two things. Either some one was unable to obtain credible evidence against the detainee, therefore the detainee was released having been a terrorist all along. Or the detainee was actually innocent all along of the charges laid against them, was released accordingly, and then for some reason – oh I don’t know, perhaps they were water boarded one too many times – they turned to terrorism.

One last point is a problem with the numbers. The number of 14% represents both detainees who were confirmed to be acting terrorist after release and those suspected of acts of terrorism. The actual number is 5% of those released have actually been confirmed to have turned to terrorism after their release.

So the question that begs to be asked is were these people terrorist who got away with their crime, or are these terrorists that we created? The language used by the Pentagon would appear to suggest the latter, that these people “turned to” terrorism subsequent to their release. That is a very important point since the accusation is that the Obama administration is releasing terrorist back into the wild – not technically true since Bush released most of them and the reverse (and silly) argument could be made that statistically Bush released the terrorists and not Obama.

The argument is no less thin even if you use the number of 14%. The fact still remains that nothing was found to hold these people and legally and morally, they had to be released. They were found to be innocent, and something happened to change these people’s minds and set them on the path of the terrorist. Humm, what could that have been?

I think it is high time for America to take responsibility for its actions. We cannot hold people for years and expect to avoid the consequence for that action. We cannot invade a country with no valid reason and expect to avoid the consequences of that action. America has, for over 233 years, through one administration after another, continued with the same failed policies in the Middle East. It is time for a new approach to a very old problem.