The Guantanamo Bay Facility - Revolving Door
Another important aspect of Gitmo, one deserving of treatment in a separate column, is that the process of determining whether someone is there wrongfully or needlessly has resulted in information that turned up other al-Qa’ida operatives and prevented a number of attacks. Questioning of Abu Zubaydah and Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, for just two examples, produced identifications and arrests of a good number of terrorists, most notably in and around Indonesia and Pakistan, and reportedly included selectees for a follow-on attack to 9-11.
Finally, it should be remembered by critics and neutral readers alike that this is not solely a US problem. Gitmo is not the only facility from which terrorists have been released, terrorists who returned to carrying out terrorist acts, and the US is not the only nation that has released prisoners to its regret.
** Just the day before 9-11, a member of a Turkish Marxist group, Ugur Bulbul - who had been released from prison just six months before - killed two Turkish Policemen, injured 17 more, and injured four bystanders, including an Australian tourist who lost her left arm.
** Ayman al-Zawahiri, from whom you hear every few months via al-Jazeera TV, was released by Egyptian authorities in 1984. You can bet they have since debated the “wisdom” of that decision innumerable times.
** Literally hundreds of Palestinians released from Israeli prisons over the years have returned to carrying out acts of terrorism.