There is an article

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

There is an article in the Post tomorrow about our efforts to send most of the detainees at Guantanamo back to their native countries for imprisonment there. Nearly 70%, the article says, will be sent to Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Afghanistan. The countries have to “commit to taking steps that will prevent enemy combatants from re-engaging in hostile activity, and commit to treating the detainees humanely.”

(That last part must be a fun conversation, right?)

More specifically, the article says that most Afghan nationals (110 at Gitmo and 350 at Bagram) will be turned over to the “exclusive” control and custody of the new Afghan government. And if you read down further into the article what becomes clear is that this is being done because of mounting international and internal pressure to scale down if not shut down the extra-legal prison system we’re running at these various detention facilities around the world.

But isn’t this a tacit admission that we don’t consider the vast majority of the folks at Gitmo much of a threat after all? Either that or this is an amazingly reckless thing to do.

Face it. We can’t have any real confidence that the new Afghan government will even exist in a few years. And we’re turning these hardened terrorists over to them? Please.

We don’t think there might be some anmesty? Someone might lose the keys and a few might slip away?

Someone tell me with a straight face that an Afghan terrorist we turn over to the Afghan government isn’t one we aren’t particularly worried about.

Latest Editors' Blog
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: