Robert Spencer
National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said last Thursday that some of the 240 prisoners who are still being held at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base may be released into the civilian population in the United States. AP reports, contradictorily, that this would only take place in the case of prisoners who are “deemed non-threatening” and yet whose “home countries…won’t take them.”
If they’re “non-threatening,” why won’t their home countries allow them to come back?
Others will be released into a neighborhood near you if they are in danger of being tortured if they are sent back home. So apparently the prospect of Americans being tortured by the detainees is just fine, while the thought of the detainees being tortured by their own governments is too horrible to contemplate. Blair made a humanitarian case, saying that the released prisoners would even receive welfare benefits, and explaining, “We can’t put them out on the street.” Why, of course not – unless, apparently, it’s a street in an American city.
But Americans won’t really be in any danger, will they? After all, the only detainees who will be on their way to your town will be the “non-threatening” ones, right? “Blair,” AP noted, “said the U.S. government is building dossiers on each of the prisoners at Guantanamo.” Well, then, the folks in Des Moines and Dubuque can rest easy! After all, if the government is compiling dossiers, what could go wrong? Surely they won’t allow any potentially harmful jihadist to roam free in the United States, will they?
Well, let’s look at the record. How have others released from Gitmo turned out? In December 2007 the U.S. government released an Afghan citizen named Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul and returned him to Afghanistan. Social workers will be happy to learn that since his release from Gitmo, Rasoul, now known as Mullah Abdullah Zakir, has found gainful employment: as the new chief operations officer for the Taliban in the southern part of Afghanistan, he is keeping busy waging jihad warfare against American troops.
Likewise Abu Sufyan al-Azdi al-Shahri, formerly Guantanamo prisoner number 372, is now a leader of Al-Qaeda in Yemen. Abu al-Hareth Muhammad al-Oufi, once found at Gitmo as prisoner number 333, is now an Al-Qaeda field commander in the same country. However, another former inmate, Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi, will not make the Gitmo detainees’ reunion bash: he blew himself up in a suicide attack in Iraq in May 2008.
Pentagon spokesman Commander Jeffrey Gordon revealed several years ago that Guantanamo prisoners captured in Afghanistan had claimed to be anything but jihad fighters – they had all been picked up by mistake, and were humble cooks, farmers, truck drivers, small businessmen, and the like. “Non-threatening” occupations all! Once released, however, “we are aware of dozens of cases where they have returned to militant activities, participated in anti-US propaganda or engaged in other activities,” said Gordon. The Pentagon announced in January that 61 former Guantanamo inmates had returned to the jihad – not just to distributing “anti-US propaganda,” but to involvement in outright terrorist activity.
Even rehabilitation programs for Guantanamo inmates haven’t worked. According to a UPI report last February, “Saudi officials said the 11 former Guantanamo Bay detainees underwent a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists and are thought to have fled the country, joining terrorist groups elsewhere.” Apparently Saudi rehab for jihadists isn’t exactly the Betty Ford clinic.
The plan to release Guantanamo inmates in the United States as free men has to be evaluated in light of the fact that the government’s track record on releasing prisoners from Gitmo has not been exactly stellar. The Obama Administration’s solicitude for the plight of these prisoners fails to take into account the fact that nothing is done now or has been done in the past at Guantanamo to disabuse detainees there of the beliefs and assumptions that led them to wage war against the United States in the first place. Accordingly, what assurance can Obama or Dennis Blair give us that these men will not return to the jihad in the American city in which they’ve been released?
They can give us no such assurance. And the American people deserve better than that.
Mr. Spencer is director of Jihad Watch and author of “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)”, “The Truth About Muhammad” and “Stealth Jihad”.
UPDATE: BREAKING NEWS: Obama To Release Another GITMO Terrorist
Dear Military Families United Member and Supporter,
Last night, the Obama administration agreed to release yet another terrorist currently being held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center.
Ayman Saeed Batarfi, a Yemeni doctor, is a member of al-Qaida, supported the Taliban and has been an official of al-Wafa - another organization identified by the U.S. Government as a terrorist supporting group.
The U.S. government had charged him with providing medical support to al-Qaida terrorists and he has freely admitted meeting with Osama bin Laden. As a medical doctor, he also worked closely with senior al-Qaida microbiologists while in Afghanistan and purchased medical equipment for al-Qaida.
He’s not the first
This is not the first terrorist that President Obama has set free. On February 23rd Obama released Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed. Mohamed was captured in Pakistan in April, 2002 and has admitted to training at various al-Qaida camps. He is alleged to have plotted multiple attacks on American soil and now he is free in England.
This frightening development means that we need your help more than ever. Please consider signing our petition below. If you’ve signed it already, please consider forwarding this email to friends and family.
Why is he being released?
Batarfi is being released not because he has been deemed innocent or no longer a threat, but because the evidence against him is not admissible in a civilian court.
In other words, without your help, this could be the beginning of a disturbing trend that will prevent many of the remaining 240 GITMO detainees from standing trial and being brought to justice for their activities.
As Americans and military families we cannot stand quietly by and allow President Obama to endanger our national security by putting campaign promises above protecting our homeland and our brave men and women in uniform.
If this is frightening to you, please consider helping us fight once again.
No timetable has been set for the Batarfi release so we have to take action now before he rejoins the fight to kill innocent people. We ask you to do three things:
Please visit www.DontFreeTerrorists.org and sign the petition that lets President Barack Obama know that we need to protect our country and keep terrorists locked up.