A May 20th article in the New York Times reports that 74 of the 534 prisoners already released from the American detention center at Guantanamo Bay are currently involved in terrorism or militant activity. The report cites a Pentagon report a recidivism rate of 14%.
Most Detainees Returned to Normal Lives in Spite of Human Rights Abuses
Completely missing from the article and the report is information on the 460 people who are not engaging in militancy or terrorist activities. Those people make up 86 percent of people detained for varying periods of time and subsequently released with no charges filed.
The mass detention, often for years, without charge of people who appear, as a resounding majority, factually innocent raises the question of whether the 14% who have gone "back" to terrorism did, in fact, go "back" to terrorism or whether their experiences at the hands of people now proven to have engaged in torture created or reinforced a hatred of the west that resulted in the creation of new militants and terrorists.
If U.S. Personnel Were Declared Unlawful Combatants
The stark reality that 6 of 7 people held at Guantanamo Bay simply went back to their lives, often as broken men as a result of harsh interrogation techniques, seems to have escaped not only the New York Times, but also the U.S. Congress. As a comparison, if the roles were reversed and the U.S. military personnel in Iraq, some 156,000, were declared "unlawful combatants," the Iraqis would be "justified" in holding 1.09 million Americans indefinitely and without charges.
Effects on American International Reputation
By kidnapping, torturing, and killing, through collateral damage, people innocent of crimes, the United States creates far more enemies than would be otherwise created. The attitude appears to many people outside of the U.S. to be paternalistic and imperialistic.
According to a 2004 article by Sergio Fabbrini, the unilateralism of the 2003 invasion of Iraq increased anti-Americanism in Europe. A Pew Research Center report from June 2006 showed more than 70% of Middle Easterners viewing Americans as selfish, violent, and greedy. Attitudes that support the indefinite jailing with no charge of 7 people in the interest of catching one have been at the root of Latin American anti-Americanism for decades.
Justice Delayed is Still Justice
If the United States wants to fight terrorism, it must stop using illegal and immoral techniques against large populations of people in the interest of capturing the occasional person involved in anti-American insurgency. By detaining, torturing, and killing innocents, the U.S. becomes part of an international feedback loop that increases anti-American sentiments.
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