Woke up this morning to catch this really disappointing article claiming George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld covered up that hundreds of innocent men were sent to the Guantánamo Bay prison camp because they feared that releasing them would harm the push for war in Iraq and the broader War on Terror. Maybe I have been naive but that wasn’t the shocking part.

The shocking part, for me, came from a seemingly quick side comment (emphasis mine):

Colonel Wilkerson, a long-time critic of the Bush Administration’s approach to counter-terrorism and the war in Iraq, claimed that the majority of detainees — children as young as 12 and men as old as 93, he said — never saw a US soldier when they were captured. He said that many were turned over by Afghans and Pakistanis for up to $5,000. Little or no evidence was produced as to why they had been taken.

Children as young as 12? Dangerous terrorists? Men as old as 93? Not subject to a civil hearing or given legal notice as to why they are being detained? Children?! Treated as hostile enemy combatants who don’t deserve a court hearing? Little kids who never necessarily understood why they were being detained? Why doesn’t the article expand on this little comment? Does everyone know about this? Am I the only one shocked?

Please, someone explain this to me. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around it. Even if everyone there were guilty, dangerous terrorists it’s still a difficult fact to wrap my head around that a child doesn’t deserve a court hearing. According to the Colonel Wilkerson though we’re talking about innocent children. Ugh!