Topic: The US Military
The U.S. military likes to report the number of "captured" insurgents. Consequently, every day American news also stories focus on the number of captured insurgents. It's a shame that the military and the press focus on the number of captured insurgents because it is a very misleading statistic. The military captures lots of suspect insurgents, but many of these suspected insurgents aren't guilty.

I have a friend up in Mosul who recently told me that the military captures dozens of suspected insurgents every night. Within 24 hours of their capture, most of them go through a quick judicial proceeding to determine if they are real insurgents or merely average Iraqis in the wrong place at the wrong time. Most of the time, the presiding "judge" determines that the captured Iraqis can go free. When the court determines that a suspected insurgent is a real security risk, the U.S. military sends the suspect to a long-term detention center where American intelligence officers can conduct more thorough interrogations.

Sadly, some American soldiers in Mosul recently made a mistake and forgot to separate the "suspected insurgents" from those who were deemed to be serious security risks. Now, because they military can no longer determine who belongs to what group, it has decided to simply hold all of them indefinitely.