# Released Guantanamo Detainees Planned Fizzled Plane Explosion **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 29, 2009, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/released-guantanamo-detainees-planned-fizzled-plane-explosion/522903 "2009-12-29T13:44:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/released-guantanamo-detainees-planned-fizzled-plane-explosion/522903/1 "2009-12-29T13:44:34Z")
ABC News says that two of the four leaders said to have planned the al Qaeda attempt to blow up a jet plane over Detroit with a suicide bomber were former Gitmo detainees, released into a “rehabilitation program” run by the Saudis. Will this news, if true, cause the Obama administration to revisit its approach to Gitmo detainees? I’m thinking it might. These guys weren’t released on Obama’s watch, so even if the plot had succeeded, Obama’s administration could not be credibly blamed for the disaster… but surely if some future detainee released by the present administration goes on to plan or commit a successful attack of some kind, there will be a chorus of blame-the-White-House. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/released-guantanamo-detainees-planned-fizzled-plane-explosion/522903/2 "2009-12-29T13:52:08Z")
It is certainly worth looking into, but let’s remember that because someone was in Guantanamo and released isn’t evidence that the person deserved to be incarcerated in the first place. I would say that if 100 people are thrown into a gulag for no good reason (whether it is run by the Soviets, Chinese, Americans, or the Swiss) and kept for years, at least a few of them will take up arms against their captors. Furthermore, not that I’m drawing personal comparisons to Al Qaeda, or the justness of either one’s cause, Nelson Mandela was kept for decades at Robbin Island, which became known to the ANC as the University. That’s because petty criminals were indoctrinated into the ANC political agenda, so when released, they would take up the cause. Would it surprise me at all if Guantanamo is Al Qaeda’s University? Not a bit. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/released-guantanamo-detainees-planned-fizzled-plane-explosion/522903/3 "2009-12-29T13:55:56Z")
Surely that consideration is already on the table. It occurs to me that it’s an unavoidable consequence of arresting and detaining anyone for any cause. It’s a consequence of failing to imprison every suspect for anything for life: if you let them go while they are still alive, they might come back to haunt you. There is no perfect way to treat naughty–and potentially naughty–people. The best you can do is the best you can do. Ever since the spectacularly successful hoopla around Willie Horton, this seems to be a concern that focuses on the released individual. But whattya gonna do: lock up every suspect for life? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/released-guantanamo-detainees-planned-fizzled-plane-explosion/522903/4 "2009-12-29T14:07:10Z")
I’m sure the would be bomber was sent also to Guantanamo… Wait. > **[washington independent game](http://washingtonindependent.com/)** > > home made city upgrade game about boarding houses, telegraph offices, casinos, federal offices, printing presses, docks, land, carriage works, munitions, hotels. > [@](#): > > So Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the alleged would-be bomber of Northwest Airlines Flight 253, is being detained and questioned in a federal prison in Michigan. He’s expected to appear in court today, after federal authorities indicted him yesterday. If convicted, he’ll be imprisoned in a federal prison. A federal civilian prison. Just like the one that Republican politicians said would leave American communities vulnerable if Guantanamo detainees were sent there. Well, so much for being against the approach of moving them here, what about the issue of freeing the ones that we found that we had no good evidence to keep in Guantanamo or other jails? Unless we decide to assume that “Minority Report” was a documentary and not a movie we will have to accept that pre-crime is not a good reason to keep people in prison forever. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/released-guantanamo-detainees-planned-fizzled-plane-explosion/522903/5 "2009-12-29T14:12:51Z")
I don’t have a cite, but this is not the first bunch of terrorists released from Gitmo who were recidivist terrorists. I remember reading about this in Time magazine (of all places). Capture a terrorist on the battlefield, let him go, and he continues to be a terrorist. Imagine that. These people are not citizens, not criminal defendants, _and_ not traditional POWs. This has been pointed out for years. Maybe now this will sink into Obama’s head. I have no hopes that it will ever do so for the SDMB. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/released-guantanamo-detainees-planned-fizzled-plane-explosion/522903/6 "2009-12-29T14:13:50Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I’m thinking it might. These guys weren’t released on Obama’s watch, so even if the plot had succeeded, Obama’s administration could not be credibly blamed for the disaster… but surely if some future detainee released by the present administration goes on to plan or commit a successful attack of some kind, there will be a chorus of blame-the-White-House. Right. It is clear that we have no choice but to keep the remaining detaineees locked up for life, not because they might necessarily have been guilty of terrorist activities in the past, but because they might in the future, and most importantly, because that might eventually result in political embarrassment for for some administration or another. The term “Kafkaesque” comes to mind. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/released-guantanamo-detainees-planned-fizzled-plane-explosion/522903/7 "2009-12-29T14:30:13Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I don’t have a cite, but this is not the first bunch of terrorists released from Gitmo who were recidivist terrorists. I remember reading about this in Time magazine (of all places). > > Capture a terrorist on the battlefield, let him go, and he continues to be a terrorist. Imagine that. > > These people are not citizens, not criminal defendants, _and_ not traditional POWs. This has been pointed out for years. Maybe now this will sink into Obama’s head. I have no hopes that it will ever do so for the SDMB. > > Regards, > Shodan > **[FAIR](https://fair.org/?page=3788)** > > FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation. > [@](#): > > The remarkably credulous Times story, under the headline “1 in 7 Freed Detainees Rejoins Fight, Report Finds,” was based on a Pentagon report leaked to the paper before its release yesterday evening. The article emphasized the notion that former prisoners “returned to terrorism or militant activity”–without adequately explaining the definition of either term, or examining whether those former detainees were ever “terrorists” in the first place. > And as Talking Points Memo has noted (5/26/09), the Times’ front-page headline claiming that “1 in 7” detainees had returned to the fight glossed over the DOD’s own distinction between “confirmed” and “suspected” cases. > > And missing from Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller’s account was a full explanation of the Pentagon’s long history of releasing similar studies, which have been widely challenged and debunked. Attorney H. Candace Gorman, who represents some Guantánamo detainees, has challenged the Pentagon’s findings (Huffington Post, 3/13/07), as has journalist and terrorism analyst Peter Bergen (CNN, 1/24/09). As one prominent critic, Mark Denbeaux of Seton Hall, explained (Washington Independent, 1/23/09): > > Every time they have been required to identify the parties, the DOD has been forced to retract their false IDs and their numbers. They have included people who have never even set foot in Guantánamo–much less were they released from there. They have counted people as “returning to the fight” for their having written an op-ed piece in the New York Times and for their having appeared in a documentary exhibited at the Cannes Film Festival. The DOD has revised and retracted their internally conflicting definitions, criteria, and their numbers so often that they have ceased to have any meaning–except as an effort to sway public opinion by painting a false portrait of the supposed dangers of these men. Will this ever sink in some of the SDMB heads? 🙂 > [@](#): > > More fundamentally, can the Times be sure that the Pentagon knows that the detainees were ever “terrorists” to begin with? As Denbeaux explained in one report (12/10/07 [PDF]), “Implicit in the Government’s claim that detainees have ‘returned to the battlefield’ is the notion that those detainees had been on a battlefield prior to their detention in Guantánamo.” He concluded, based on reviewing the Pentagon’s own Combatant Status Review Tribunal records, that just 4 percent of the available summaries “alleged that a detainee had ever been on any battlefield.” Only one detainee was actually captured by U.S. forces on a battlefield. And, of course, fighting U.S. forces on a battlefield is not in itself an act of “terrorism.” ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/released-guantanamo-detainees-planned-fizzled-plane-explosion/522903/8 "2009-12-29T14:59:22Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I don’t have a cite, but this is not the first bunch of terrorists released from Gitmo who were recidivist terrorists. I remember reading about this in Time magazine (of all places). > > Capture a terrorist on the battlefield, let him go, and he continues to be a terrorist. Imagine that. > > These people are not citizens, not criminal defendants, _and_ not traditional POWs. This has been pointed out for years. Maybe now this will sink into Obama’s head. I have no hopes that it will ever do so for the SDMB. > > Regards, > Shodan Wonderful Stalinist type analysis you have there mate. Worthy of the kind of “preventive” thinking that sent millions off to the Gulags. Impervious to factual analysis even. Bravo. I think the next great step is stripping your own citizens of citizenship and sending them off to the gulag, you just can’t be sure after all. Nothing could possibly be wrong with that. All for Mother America and the Great Freedom Party. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/released-guantanamo-detainees-planned-fizzled-plane-explosion/522903/9 "2009-12-29T15:11:26Z")
The bulk of the replies above seem to center on whether it’s wise or just to let this incident inform future policy. Now, I realize that many people may believe that naturally, an Obama administration decision could not be other than wise and just, but it’s worth noting that I didn’t invoke either of those criteria in my question. I asked what would actually happen. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/released-guantanamo-detainees-planned-fizzled-plane-explosion/522903/10 "2009-12-29T15:17:13Z")
Well, of course you did! Who could ever gaze into those limpid, brown innocent eyes and detect any hint of political snark? ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/released-guantanamo-detainees-planned-fizzled-plane-explosion/522903/11 "2009-12-29T15:19:35Z")
Do we know why the planners mentioned in the OP were released? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/released-guantanamo-detainees-planned-fizzled-plane-explosion/522903/12 "2009-12-29T15:20:47Z")
> [@](#): > > Will this news, if true, cause the Obama administration to revisit its approach to Gitmo detainees? I expect not. Trying those two Gitmo inmates in US courts, rather than releasing them to the Saudi’s might well have resulted in convictions. We’ll never know, but the fact that Bush’s apparently _ad hoc_ approach failed here has little bearing on the application of a systematic approach to dealing with the Guantanamo detainees. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/released-guantanamo-detainees-planned-fizzled-plane-explosion/522903/13 "2009-12-29T15:23:05Z")
He’s not going to change his mind about shutting down the prison camp. It’s possible some policies could be changed relating to who gets repatriated and who is put on trial or held in detention, but I don’t know what the guidelines are (or if they have even been established) at the moment. It’s not that surprising that this would happen. While they have to try to prevent it, I’m not sure how that can be done. Oh, right- there’s the option of not having these kinds of camps in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/released-guantanamo-detainees-planned-fizzled-plane-explosion/522903/14 "2009-12-29T15:24:24Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > [FAIR — Page 3788 — FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.](http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3788) > Will this ever sink in some of the SDMB heads? 🙂 Do you have a real cite for this? FAIR is not exactly the most impartial cite in the world, and denial is not refutation. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Silverstreak\_Wonder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Silverstreak\_Wonder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silverstreak_Wonder)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/released-guantanamo-detainees-planned-fizzled-plane-explosion/522903/15 "2009-12-29T15:25:29Z")
You need not worry about preventing anything, just take a new prisoner, extract information right away, put on a ship where a quick 5 minute tribunal would decide if he shot at our American forces. If he did, death for murder, carried out right on the ship with the body overboard. Problem solved, there should never have been a place like Gitmo. Where are all the prisoners we take TODAY anyway, I never hear anything about that? Are we just letting everyone go walk away or what? Why do we never hear how many we capture and kill for Pete sake, we are at war. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/released-guantanamo-detainees-planned-fizzled-plane-explosion/522903/16 "2009-12-29T15:27:38Z")
Never mind. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/released-guantanamo-detainees-planned-fizzled-plane-explosion/522903/17 "2009-12-29T15:30:21Z")
The issue is as simple as it’s always been: is it just to lock up a hundred people because one of them might be guilty of a crime? ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/released-guantanamo-detainees-planned-fizzled-plane-explosion/522903/18 "2009-12-29T15:31:05Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I don’t have a cite, but this is not the first bunch of terrorists released from Gitmo who were recidivist terrorists. I remember reading about this in Time magazine (of all places). > > Capture a terrorist on the battlefield, let him go, and he continues to be a terrorist. Imagine that. > > These people are not citizens, not criminal defendants, _and_ not traditional POWs. This has been pointed out for years. Maybe now this will sink into Obama’s head. I have no hopes that it will ever do so for the SDMB. > > Regards, > Shodan of course, to be recidivist, you actually had to be an offender prior to incarceration, but don’t worry, we won’t let logic get in the way of your politicking. Wrongfully accuse someone, incarcerate him for a half a decade without any communication with the outside world, let him go, and he will expeditiously attempt retribution in whatever way is available to him. Imagine that. yes, they aren’t “normal” in the sense of some community college criminal justice textbook definition of what a bad person is. This hasn’t been a point of debate, ever. Maybe it will sink into someone’s head that the best way to simultaneously prevent non-offenders who have been erroneously incarcerated from becoming aggressors, punishing actual offenders with life incarceration, and preserving our moral clarity in this situation, is by channeling them through the systems we already have? Regards, Rumor\_Watkins ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/released-guantanamo-detainees-planned-fizzled-plane-explosion/522903/19 "2009-12-29T15:34:01Z")
> [@Silverstreak\_Wonder](#): > > You need not worry about preventing anything, just take a new prisoner, extract information right away, put on a ship where a quick 5 minute tribunal would decide if he shot at our American forces. If he did, death for murder, carried out right on the ship with the body overboard. Problem solved, there should never have been a place like Gitmo. Why don’t we do this to common domestic criminals, while we’re at it, since this sounds like an absolutely perfect solution with absolutely no drawbacks. You should win the Nobel Prize for Fightin’ Crime in a Future Time for this. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/released-guantanamo-detainees-planned-fizzled-plane-explosion/522903/20 "2009-12-29T15:35:44Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > Do you have a real cite for your assertion that all (or is it nearly all?) detainees were captured on a battlefield of some sort? As a general rule of thumb, I wait until I actually say something before I attempt to back it up. For instance, if I say “a terrorist” and some unfortunate person changes it to “all”, more often than not I merely laugh at the transparent stupidity of such a post and move on. > [@wmfellows](#): > > I think the next great step is stripping your own citizens of citizenship and sending them off to the gulag, No, the next great step would be to laugh derisively at the various attempts to distort the incident of the OP into something it is not. Regards, Shodan [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/released-guantanamo-detainees-planned-fizzled-plane-explosion/522903.md?page=2)