I heard this news on the BBC today (I can’t find the actual storuy on the BBC site. Sorry.) You can read the story now although I will rekay most of the facts below.

The story states how the US has release figure stating that this year it has released 11,000 Iraqi ‘detainees’.
Most were held without charge (the BBC World Service stated this morning that many had been held for more than 1 year without charge) and were considered security risks but could now lead more productive lives.
They were offered vocational training and the chance to:

‘obtain what is described as a better understanding of Islam during their detention’

A spokesman aso stated that the reoffending rate is less than 1% for these ‘detainees’.

I see several problems with this:

1. How can predominantly Chrisitian country with only 0.6% Muslim population (accoring to their own figures) be properly equiped to offer these people a ‘better understanding’ of their own relgion.
2. The reoffending rate may be less than 1% but:
   • Someone who has not been charged has not been proven to have committed a crime
   • Someone who has not committed a crime cannot reoffend at all
3. The prisoners were only prevented from leading productive lives by their unjustified imprisonment by the US

I should qualify my comments:

Although I do agree that those who are religious extremeists do not have any understanding of the true teaching of their religion (that applies to all religions). Therefore a monkey could surely teach them more about the true teachings of their religion than they are aware. However I also think that it is unlikely that more than a few (if any) of the uncharged innocent ‘detainees’ have these veiws or lack a proper understanding of their religion.

Further we have the issue of the very low reoffenring rate, for those of you that have not already realised  the statement is nothing more than a massive case of political spin designed to sound good but is in fact bullshit.

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