Our Detention Policy at Work

In the WashPo today the tale of Abul Rahim, a runaway United Arab Emirates citizen who was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2000 and tortured because he would not fight for al Qaeda. According to the Post:

In one of the bizarre twists of war, the 22-year-old college student was taken from the Taliban prison to another prison run by Americans after the invasion of Afghanistan. And the U.S. military's chief reason for holding Rahim for the past five years, according to newly declassified records, is the false confession Rahim gave to placate his Taliban torturers.

So Rahim has sat in Guantanamo Bay military prison for the past five years guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was denied a fair trial. That was five years ago...today the Administration has the legal power -- thanks to Congress -- to lock up anyone it thinks is an enemy combatant.

Like Rahim.

As Rahim's attorneys say in their legal brief:

"No conceivable definition of enemy combatant would include a freed political prisoner who had been subjected to brutal torture and confinement by the enemy prior to the declaration of war"