An audiotape purported to be by the second in command of the al-Qaida terror group has been broadcast on an Arab television station. It warns there will be retaliation if any harm comes to the detainees from Afghanistan being held at a U.S. naval base in Cuba.
This probably goes without saying, but consider: if we line up and shoot the detainees, al-Qaida will try to attack us. If we provide each detainee with clean clothes and a Koran, al-Qaida will try to attack us. If we provide each of them with a generous lifetime pension and tickets to Disneyland and throw them a ticker-tape parade in New York, al-Qaida will try to attack us.
In short, what we do with the detainees will be based on their utility to us and on our moral limitations. Tapes "purported to be" from al-Qaida are irrelevant.
