Obama Orders Gitmo Closed Same Day Freed Gitmo Terrorist Named As Al Qaeda Chief

Barack Obama is the top fool of what has become a nation of fools.  Nothing can be a clearer demonstration of that fact than his order to close the Guatanamo Bay terrorist detention facility.  He’s ordering it closed before anyone knows what to do with the remaining 245 detainees – many of them the hardest of the hard cases.

Bush, too, had said he wanted to shut down Guantanamo. It never happened on his watch, amid the questions that must be answered to do so: Can other countries be persuaded to take some of the 245 men still be held there? Under what authority should remaining detainees be prosecuted? And, most difficult, what happens to the handful of detainees who are considered both too dangerous to be released to other nations and for whom evidence is deemed either too tainted or insufficient for a trial?

Obama has to answer those same questions.

As to that tough, third category of detainees, a senior administration official said “everything’s on the table” as a possibility, including the use of military tribunals that were much criticized by Obama. The official would brief reporters only on condition of anonymity, contending that was necessary in order to speak candidly about details.

There are three options: 1) Hold them in the United States – and allow them to radicalize the American prison system; 2) Repatriate them to their own countries – many of which have refused to take them, while other countries would simply let them go; and 3) Just recognize what would largely happen under 2) above and simply free them.

If we try to hold them in the United States prison system, we will almost certainly have to give them full U.S. rights and full legal protection and representation, according to legal experts.  These 245 terrorists will amount to walking-and-talking hand grenades with beards for our legal system.  I am awaiting the mockery these men will justifiably make of our court system.

Further, modern jihadist terrorism began in prisons in Egypt, and prison has been a breeding ground for terrorism ever since.

Nietzsche Is Dead has a humorous and informative article entitled “Hyperpower and Hypocrites” that reveals what blatant moral and intellectual hypocrites Europeans – who have demanded Gitmo closed down even as they refuse to take their own people we’ve been holding – have been throughout the Bush years.  We can’t count on the Europeans.  They are double-minded and self-protecting cowards.

And we’ve already seen too many cases of many Muslim countries almost immediately releasing the terrorist suspects we’ve repatriated to their custody.

In general, we’ve got a major “repatriation problem” which has been growing worse.  61 terrorists have now returned to terrorism after being released of the 520 released to date.  That’s nearly 12%.

cnn.com

Jan 14, 2009

61 former Gitmo detainees still involved in terror acts, according to Pentagon Since 2002, nearly 520 detainees have been released from detention facility President-elect Barack Obama wants to shut down Guantanamo upon taking office WASHINGTON (CNN) — Dozens of suspected terrorists released by the United States from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are believed to have returned to terrorism activities, according to the Pentagon. Since 2002, 61 former detainees have committed or are suspected to have committed attacks after being released from the detention camp, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said at a briefing Tuesday. The number is up since the Pentagon’s last report in March 2008 when officials said 37 former detainees had been suspected of returning to the battlefield since 2002. Since 2007, more than 100 detainees were released,… [read full story]

It is despicable to force our U.S. servicemen to have to risk their lives yet again against enemies that they have already captured.

But the 62nd “Gitmo-detainee” terrorist to return to terrorism against the United States is the one that should really make us realize that we are being led by a fool.  On the SAME DAY that Obama signs the order closing Gitmo, we learn that a former Gitmo-detained terrorist has not only returned to terrorism, but has become a big-wig terrorist to boot.

Freed by U.S., Saudi Becomes a Qaeda Chief

By ROBERT F. WORTH
Published: January 22, 2009

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year.

The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen.

His status was announced in an Internet statement by the militant group and was confirmed by an American counterterrorism official.

“They’re one and the same guy,” said the official, who insisted on anonymity because he was discussing an intelligence analysis. “He returned to Saudi Arabia in 2007, but his movements to Yemen remain unclear.”

The development came as Republican legislators criticized the plan to close the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detention camp in the absence of any measures for dealing with current detainees. But it also helps explain why the new administration wants to move cautiously, taking time to work out a plan to cope with the complications.

This is insane.  But it gets worse, because it is total insanity:

WASHINGTON – Breaking forcefully with Bush anti-terror policies, President Barack Obama ordered major changes Thursday that he said would halt the torture of suspects, close down the Guantanamo detention center, ban secret CIA prisons overseas and fight terrorism “in a manner that is consistent with our values and our ideals.”

“We intend to win this fight. We’re going to win it on our terms,” Obama declared, turning U.S. policy abruptly on just his second full day in office. He also put a fresh emphasis on diplomacy, naming veteran troubleshooters for Middle East hotspots.

“A new era of American leadership is at hand,” Obama said.

We are being led by fools, and we will suffer a fools’ fate as a result.

We’re going to install a career liberal ideological political hack with absolutely no intelligence experience to head our intelligence system.  We’re going to close down the only place that makes any sense whatsoever to detain terrorists out of a desire to look good for world opinion.  And we’re going to stop interrogating terrorists and make sure that terrorists know that they have absolutely nothing to fear from us whatsoever because we would rather see 10 million Americans die than see a single terrorist have his civil rights violated.

We wanted to give Democrats total control of our country, so I presume we wanted to bear our throats to terrorism, as well.

Republicans are trying – probably in vain – to protect the United States from Obama’s stupidity:

Criticism surfaced immediately from Republicans and others who said Obama’s policy changes would jeopardize U.S. ability to get intelligence about terrorist plans or to prevent attacks.

House Minority Leader John Boehner was among a group of GOP lawmakers who quickly introduced legislation seeking to bar federal courts from ordering Guantanamo detainees to be released into the United States.

Boehner, R-Ohio, said it “would be irresponsible to close this terrorist detainee facility” before answering such important questions as where the detainees would be sent.

Bill O’Reilly, writing on the Panetta nomination, had a warning for Obama:

Besides his lack of experience, Panetta opposes many of the CIA’s anti-terror measures. He’s against any kind of coerced interrogation, wants the FISA overseas wiretap law repealed, and would completely disband the rendition program whereby the CIA sends captured terror suspects to be held and interrogated in other countries.

Without those tools, which former CIA Chief George Tenet and others say have been very effective in uncovering terror plots, the agency’s ability to disrupt potential attacks would be gravely damaged. In fact, it was just last February when 68 senators, some of them Democrats, voted the FISA wiretap strategy into law. For the record, Obama declined to vote on the issue.

But now Obama can’t sit these things out. He must decide how to wage the war on terror, and by selecting Panetta as his point man he’s taking a huge gamble. If terrorists again attacked the United States, Obama’s soft intelligence-gathering approach would also come under attack. Simply put: A successful terror mission could bring President Obama down.

I don’t know whether we’ll be attacked by terrorists or not.  All I do know is that – like the French deserved to be overwhelmed by the Nazis because they stupidly undermined their own defenses – we will fully deserve it if and when such an attack occurs.

President Bush kept us safe for seven years.  President Obama is in the process of dismantling every protection President Bush built for us.  If we are attacked again, it is entirely Obama’s fault.  And ours, for voting for him.