Gitmo as OUR Recruitment Tool
The NYT is out with another report of the Pentagon stat that 14% of those released after being held in Gitmo subsequently engaged in terrorism.
An unreleased Pentagon report concludes that about one in seven of the 534 prisoners already transferred abroad from the detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has returned to terrorism or militant activity, according to administration officials.
[snip]
The report, a copy of which was made available to The New York Times, says the Pentagon believes that 74 prisoners released from Guantánamo have returned to terrorism or militant activity, making for a recidivism rate of nearly 14 percent.
There’s something that all of the discussion on so-called "recidivism" from Gitmo never considers.
What are the chances that some, or even most, of these "recidivist" terrorists are actually men we recruited to spy for us? That is, they may have "returned to terrorism or militant activity," but did so with our blessing, with the understanding they’d send back information on what those militant groups were doing.
We do know the US and its allies were using those captured as spies of a sort. Just last weekend, for example, newspapers in the UK reported that an "Informant A" was used by the Brits and Morrocco to try to get Binyam Mohamed to "cooperate" with his captives.
Mohamed, 31, says that in September 2002, after his ‘extraordinary rendition’ to North Africa, an agent known only as Informant A told him the torture would stop if he gave intelligence to the British.
The offer from the agent, a UK citizen of Moroccan descent, suggests that British security forces had the power to end his treatment, Mohamed’s lawyer claims.
Mohamed already knew the agent from London.
[snip]
Clive Stafford Smith said: ‘The Moroccans told Mr Mohamed that Informant A was working with the British Government and pressed Mr Mohamed to do the same if he wanted to end his torture.
[snip]
Informant A is said to have fought alongside Osama Bin Laden in the caves of Tora Bora.
He was said to have been captured and held at a U.S. base in Afghanistan in 2002, when he agreed to turn informant.
Terek Dergoul, held at the same base, said: ‘One of the guards was saying, "We’ve got another 007".’
The language here is particularly interesting: the reference to Informant A as "another 007" and the suggestions that Mohamed should "work with the British Government." Read more →