At 2:13 PM -0500 18/2/09, Charles Bennett wrote:
>>Hardly anyone raised an eyebrow. More alarming, Cheney recently
>>said "at least 61 of the inmates who were released from Guantanamo
>>during the Bush administration - "that's about 11 or 12 percent" -
>>have "gone back into the business of being terrorists."
>>
>
>
>>This is a shocking admission that 88 or 89% of the people released
>>from Guantanamo were innocent non-terrorists. Yet no one in either
>>the liberal or conservative punditry or the MSM expressed any shock.
>>
>
>You cannot draw that conclusion. For all I know, 11 to 12% of
>people that get out of jail go back to being criminals. That does
>NOT mean that the other 90% were innocent.
Charles is right. The 88% figure is an upper bound on the
number of Gitmo inmates who were innocent.
On the other hand, we do know that many of them seem pretty
clearly to be innocent of any crime. Some of them have been released
uncharged, and compensate. So some of them were innocent. If the
number of people incarcarated illegally while innocent is only, say,
30% or 20%, then GItmo is clearly still part of a system that
routinely incarcarates and tortures the innocent routinely and by
design. That remains appalling, and a high crime far worse than than
any committed by most Gitmo inmates, and a cause for national shame
in the US.
Quibbling over the exact numbers just doesn't cut it as a
defence, like trying to defend a murderer on the basis that he killed
less people than he might have.
>It just means that they are no longer committing crimes. Perhaps
>Gitmo, caused them to re-think their priorities in life.
Indeed, desperate acts of grotesque inhumanity often have
that effect. They are probably now occupied with, say, rebuilding
their shattered lives, recuperating from torture, or maybe
campaigning for justice.
Cheers
David
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