Boumediene Interview

ABC News has an interview with Lakhdar Boumediene, the accused terrorist who is now free and living in France, after being held for 7 and a half years at Guantanamo. Boumediene is seeking money from the U.S. government, and naturally says he was tortured -- a claim that should be taken with a grain of salt. But he had one particularly interesting thing to say.

he understands, to a degree, how the attacks of Sept. 11 prompted strong reactions from the U.S. government. 

"The first month, okay, no problem, the building, the 11 of September, the people, they are scared, but not 7 years. They can know whose innocent, who's not innocent, who's terrorist, who's not terrorist," he said. 

"I give you 2 years, no problem, but not 7 years."

Unlike many of our own leftists and other terrorist rights supporters, even Boumediene understands that the U.S. had to take strong action against suspected terrorists. Jake Tapper has a post up called, "Guilty Until Proven Innocent?" Yes. That's exactly the policy the U.S. should follow with regard to suspected alien terrorists. But Boumediene is correct. It should not have taken 7+ years to figure out whether he was or was not a terrorist. That's just incompetence. 

I don't know what if any evidence we had against Boumediene other than his identification as a terrorist by the Bosnian government. Unlike Binyim Mohamed, who was clearly associated with Al Qaeda, it appears possible that Boumediene may actually have been completely innocent. If he was tortured he shouldn't have been. And if the U.S. government truly believes that he was innocent, he should be entitled to significant compensation.