Why Was He Released?

The U.S. released Mohamed Saleban Bare from Guantanamo, despite the following:

his alleged ties with Al-Ittihad Al-Islamiya, a Somali Islamist movement which produced many of the current leaders of the Al Qaeda-linked Shebab

He was captured in Pakistan in 2001, and transferred to military prisons in Afghanistan, and then sent to Guantanamo. He's been there ever since, but now that we released him, he returned home to Somalia. 

Naturally, he makes the usual wild and hardly believable claims of torture. Despite describing himself as being "in good health," he claims the U.S. used extensive sleep deprivation, starvation rations of "one biscuit a day," and that some were tortured with "electricity and beating." He also makes the common Islamist charge that the U.S. insulted Islam by throwing Korans in toilets -- almost as if he's reading from the little handbook of anti-American propaganda. Bare called Guantanamo "hell on Earth," which is pretty funny coming from a Somali.

Let's see. We have a Somali with ties to a militant Islamist organization who just happened to be in Pakistan after 9/11, and who we felt was dangerous enough to transfer to Guantanamo and hold for eight years. And on his release he makes wild claims that sound like Al Qaeda propaganda. Could his capture have been a mistake? Maybe. We certainly made plenty of mistakes. But in this case it looks like we are probably releasing a terrorist.