If a 19 year old was snatched off the street, held without charges or the review of his crime by a neutral magistrate, and kept in detention for the next 8 years, we would all go nuts.  Americans of every stripe would be outraged that such a thing could happen.  It violates every notion of propriety.

Well, it happened, and nobody cared.  The reason why is simple.  The government slapped a title on this 19 year old kid, enemy combatant, otherwise known as terrorist, and we let our shoulders droop and walked away. 

Via Radley Balko, Glen Greenwald posts about Mohammed Hassen, who was ordered released by a federal judge pursuant to the Supreme Court’s decision in Boumediene, a 5-4 ruling that allowed judicial review to overcome Congress’ 2006 Military Commissions Act which denied the detained any chance to question or challenge indefinite detention.

The latest detainee to win his habeas hearing, Mohammed Hassen, is a 27-year old Yemeni imprisoned by the U.S. without charges for 8 years, since he was 19 years old.  He has “long claimed he was captured in Pakistan studying the Quran and had no ties to al Qaida,” and that “he had been unjustly rounded up in a March 2002 dragnet by Pakistani security forces in the city of Faisalabad that targeted Arabs.”  Hassen is now the third consecutive detainee ordered freed who was rounded up in that same raid.  The Obama DOJ opposed his petition even though the Bush administration had cleared him for release in 2007.  He has now spent roughly 30% of his life in a cage at Guantanamo.

When we allow rhetoric to create a war without parameters, we end up with fuzzy fear, which then justifies crazy conduct like approving the detention of anybody nabbed without regard to whether they are terrorists or, well, some poor Yemeni kid swept up as somebody who may be a bad guy. In the name of safety, we’re prepared to sacrifice Mohammed Hassen.  If his name was John Smith from Cincinnati, we might feel differently.  Thank God for Muslim names, which allows us to ignore their detention without concern or regret.

But Hassen isn’t the first to be cleared, even though we don’t hear much about him or any of the Gitmo detainees who were cleared before him.

What’s most significant about this is that Hassen is now the 36th detainee who has won his habeas hearing since the Supreme Court in 2008 ruled they have the right to such hearings — out of 50 whose petitions have been heard.  In other words, 72% of Guantanamo detainees who finally were able to obtain just minimal due process (which is what a habeas hearing is) — after years of being in a cage without charges — have been found by federal judges to be wrongfully detained.  These are people who are part of what the U.S. Government continues to insist are “the worst of the worst” who remain, and whose release is being vehemently contested by the Obama DOJ.

It’s phrases like “the worst of the worst” that do the trick.  We surely don’t know who’s bad and who’s in there by accident.  Whatever double secret info the government possesses, they aren’t telling us.  It’s understandable, since they need to keep their top secret anti-terrorist info top secret, so the terrorists don’t know that they know.  I’ve got it.  I understand about keeping things secret so the enemies of our nation can be stopped.

It’s not like the government is necessarily wrong about every person they put into a cage at Gitmo.  Some are no doubt very dangerous people, bent on destroying America and inclined to take lives without regret.  But when 72% of Guantanamo detainees have prevailed on habeas, the “worst of the worst” rhetoric seems to better reflect the government’s ability to figure out who to cage rather than the oddly-named men.

What we allow in the name of safety is shocking.  It’s a great joke, to repeat the phrase, “Trust me, I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”  Hah!  We all laugh at it. The truth, unfortunately, is that we continue to trust the government despite this funny, funny joke.  The government tells us that these detainees are terrorists, and we believe.  The government tells us that these aren’t merely terrorists, but the “worst of the worst,” and we believe.

For those of us who remember the Reagan presidency the first time around, he was a great actor.  And he was given a great script, with brilliant lines like “Trust, but verify.”  What’s wrong with following these words?  It’s not that we must distrust the government’s claim that they would never indefinitely detain someone just because their mother gave them a first name of “Mohammed”, but if he’s the “worst of the worst,” why not verify?  Then maybe some poor kid seized off the street in Pakistan might not have to spend almost a third of his life in Cuba, just in case.

I’m neither a fan of, nor apologist for, terrorists.  Not by a long shot.  I’m just not inclined to presume that anyone who believes in the faith of Islam is necessarily a terrorist.  I’m similarly disinclined to accept the word of the Pakistani police any more than I am of our own.  I believe that there are terrorists out there, and that they mean to do us harm.  If you’ve ever read one of my 9/11 posts, you would know how that event affected me personally.  Yet, I’ve chosen not to be blinded by anger and fear.

Based upon the 72% failure rate of habeas corpus review of Gitmo detainees, and the realization that these are human beings who have families, loved ones, just like we do, there is no amount of heady rhetoric that allows me to ignore what we have done, what we continue to do, to them.  Don’t tell us that they are the “worst of the worst” and expect us to shrug and say, “well then, do whatever you have to do, America.”  If you’re right, prove it.  Otherwise, let them go home.  It’s not a crime to have a first name “Mohammed”, punishable by the loss of a third of a life.