Lies my Government Told Me: "The Worst of the Worst"

Read an extremely interesting article today telling the story of Haji Sahib Rohullah Wakil. Wakil was detained in Guantanamo Bay for five years and released in October 2007. Back in May when Obama was talking about shutting down the prison and moving the prisoners to supermax prisons, Obama and Dick Cheney gave dueling speeches about what to do with these people. The Worst of the Worst. A highlight was this article from the New York Times, relaying a report that 1 in 7 of the people that had been released from Gitmo had returned to terrorism. Not only was this found to be patently false (good job factchecking and not just listening to an anonymous source there NYT!) by including people that were dead or still in prison, but the list included and still does include people like Wakil.

So who is this guy?

At the time he was picked up, he was a strong candidate for governor of his home province. And when he was initially picked up was going to a US army base in Afghanistan on his own volition to talk to US armed forces about coordinating better with local government so as to not raise tensions.

Oops.

Wakil was never given a trial of any sort, and despite the support of Afghan president Hamid Karzai, is still on the Pentagon's list of those who have returned to terrorism. But considering the people I've heard about getting out of Gitmo, from Wakil to the group of Uighers we just spent millions of dollars to ship out to a remote Pacific island I'm not buying this Worst of the Worst stuff.