So John Simpson Alleges...

That the Guantanamo inmates are mostly innocent, in this article. He throws impressive statistics around like confetti. He brandishes the fact that most of the 'enemy' were not captured by the US; he tosses up the US' reward in Afghanistan for informers as though to invite jaundiced outrage.

Let's focus for a moment. When the professor and lawyer Simpson cites argue that the vast majority of inmates were not Al-Qaeda, why can't Simpson simply point out that the US' reward to informers was offered in return for members of the Taliban as well as Al Qaeda? Afghanistan's government provided a terrorist haven; to support terrorists you could simply be a loyal part of the Taliban. The whole question Simpson raises should not be about the headline Al-Qaeda point, it should be about the definition of a terrorist organisation, and the definition of involvement. I feel pretty confident that has received some thought on the US' part; pity about the BBC.

Then again, why doesn't Simpson point out that many have been released from Guantanamo? There has been a rationale at work there, for sure, differentiating between inmates of different sorts. Why not analyse that? No, he's not interested. Not interested at all.