I read today about a former Gitmo prisoner who has blown himself up in a suicide attack in Mousul. Doubtless many people will say, “Ah-ha! We were right to hold him, and others, without trial or charges! The government knew what they were doing!”
Well… perhaps.
Or possibly we made a horrible mistake. Perhaps the thing that finally made this guy willing to blow himself up was the fact that he had been held at Gitmo. Maybe if we hadn’t held him prisoner for several years he wouldn’t have wanted revenge against us and blown himself up.
The point is, of course, we can never know. Yeah, probably the guy was total scum and might well have attacked Colition forces anyhow. Maybe. But maybe he was just someone caught up in all the hype of the Taliban and, had we left him alone, he might’ve just returned home in peace.
We can’t know. Since we don’t know, we need to err on the side of caution and treat people decently, like human beings. We need to charge them and try them if we think they’ve done something. We need to get past the idea that “we think he might someday become a terrorist” is a good enough reason to hold someone.
To do any less is to violate the very principles of our country, where we like to say, “It is better for a thousand guilty men to go free than to keep one innocent man in prison”. We don’t like to actually believe it, but we do like to say it.
Perhaps we need to start believing it?
