If You’re Old Enough to Be Tortured, You’re Old Enough to Sue for Being Tortured

One-time child Guantanamo Bay inmate of Mohammed Jawad — he’s believed to be 21 years old, though it’s unclear, and was detained for about seven years — was returned home to Afghanistan earlier this week. (As The Associated Press put it, a military judge ruled he had been “coerced into confessing to wounding United States soldiers with a grenade.”) What’s the first thing he plans to do? Adam Serwer talks to his lawyer in Kabul:

Lawyers for Mohammed Jawad, the Afghan national who was a minor when he was first detained by the U.S. government and was recently released to Afghanistan after spending seven years in detention based on evidence gained through torture, intend to sue the U.S. government in part to prevent torture from being ever used again.

Speaking from Kabul, Maj. Eric Montalvo, Jawad’s military commissions defense lawyer, said that “From a policy standpoint, it’s a disincentive for the United States to engage in that type of conduct…you have punitive damages, you have a lawsuit that creates precedent…and it may create a pause for the U.S. government should they decide to do this in the future.”

In light of the claims about Guantanamo “recidivism,” who’ll be the first to claim that Jawad’s lawsuit represents an act of war by other means?