Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one.

-C.S. Lewis

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Hostages

Buried in a story about Sunni dissatisfaction with the draft constitution was this little gem.

In a bid to placate Sunnis, the U.S. military announced Saturday that nearly 1,000 security detainees — virtually all believed to be Sunnis — had been released from Abu Ghraib prison the past several days. It was the largest release to date.
Josh Marshall has touched on this topic before regarding mass prisoner releases, saying essentially that one of two bad things must be true. Either prisoners are not guilty of any crimes, not dangerous and a patent non-threat, or they are indeed guilty of crimes and a threat to the general peace as well as U.S. soldiers. Therefore, to release them en masse does one of two things: proves incontrovertibly that the prisoners were being needlessly incarcerated and might as well be on the outside, or this is about as irresponsible as unlocking the gates to Arkham Asylum.

But to release detainees with an obvious and stated ulterior motive, in this case in order "to placate Sunnis," what else can you call these guys but hostages?

This blog is based on a true story.