Two interesting pieces of news concerning the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay:
The first is a report from the Pentagon that about one in five detainees who have been released from Gitmo have joined (or are suspected of joining) militant groups like al Qaeda. This includes two released prisoners who went on to help plan the Christmas day underwear bomb attack.
So, if 20% of the released prisoners “go back” to belonging to a terrorist organization, does that mean that 80% of the “terrorists” at Gitmo are innocent? Or even worse, was Gitmo’s main outcome the creation of new terrorists?
But the second article is the real stunner, about a macabre reunion of sorts after a former prison guard at Gitmo, Brandon Neely, contacted two former prisoners to apologize after he was haunted by their poor treatment. The BBC invited Neely to fly to London, where he met with the former prisoners (who are both British subjects) to ask for their forgiveness. Says Neely:
The news would always try to make Guantanamo into this great place, like ‘they [prisoners] were treated so great’. No it wasn’t. You know here I was basically just putting innocent people in cages.
The reunion will be televised tonight on BBC Two.
