Torture leads to terrorism? Who knew?

The Washington Post today ran an article about Abdallah al-Ajmi, a Kuwaiti man who spent four years in Guantanamo prison on unconfirmed terrorism charges and became a suicide bomber shortly after his release. Some may take his post-release actions as confirmation that he was held with good reason and that the initial terrorism charges were correct. But the Washington Post asks in its headline, with good reason, Did Guantanamo Turn an Accused Low-Level Taliban Fighter Into a Suicide Bomber?

I think it did.

Al-Ajmi was 23 when he was first interned. Twenty-three. The age of can’t-quite-graduate college fratboys and just-graduated-and-can’t-find-a-job interns. He was arrested in Pakistan on unconfirmed charges that he fought for the Taliban. Even Gitmo officials say that he probably had no connections whatsoever with Al-Quaeda. He was basically a young adult with an eighth grade education who couldn’t get any work outside the military. So he joined. No one knows exactly why he went to Pakistan, or why exactly he was arrested. But even if he did fight for the Taliban as a footsoldier, he was far from a criminal mastermind, and his lawyer described him as “one of the least dangerous people I’d seen at Gitmo.”

So how, once he was released, did he turn suicide bomber so quickly? Well, let’s be logical here. He was held without knowing his charges for an indefinite length of time at one of the most notorious US military prisons in the world. He had no contact with friends or family, no possessions other than a Koran and a blanket which were often confiscated for minor behavioral infringements, and he was often mistreated by the guards. If you were suddenly arrested, stripped of all your rights and possessions, and kept in a concrete cell for four years, wouldn’t you be angry? If you knew that the people who were keeping you prisoner could do anything they wanted, including torture you, without any real fear of recrimination, wouldn’t you become sullen and paranoid? And if you were then suddenly released, as mysteriously as you’d been arrested, wouldn’t you want revenge? Guantanamo turned a young, low-level footsoldier into a terrorist. I don’t understand why anyone would be surprised.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/22/AR2009022202384.html