Does anybody out there know who (if anybody) has done the best reporting on whom exactly we're detaining in Guantanamo Bay? My sense is that we basically outsourced the job of "rooting out terrorists" to the disparate factions of the "Northern Alliance" in Afghanistan and took them at their word that the people they brought back were al Qaeda fighters captured on the battlefield--but I'm not sure why that's my sense. If it's right, though, then in addition to both being a dubious way to collect prisoners of war and to advancing a picture of what al Qaeda actually is that's not really accurate, it's also another great reason to demand that our "allies" in the inmates' home countries repatriate them and shut down the detention facility altogether.
My recollection is that both the CIA and Army paid bonuses to folks who produced a body who was a bad guy - with the very predictable result that most of those turned in were nobodies that were not valuable in themselves to the turners-in. Many of those turned in were from Southern/Eastern Afghan tribes (Pashtun), or outsiders from Saudia Arabia, the EU, and former Soviet south asian countries. and turned in by their own people, not the Northern Alliance. No sourcing though.
The best info I've read are here and here - in regard to what has been leaked by a trusted insider.
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | July 23, 2007 at 12:13 PM