Gitmo's Ghosts

IBD
Friday, January 23, 2009

A Gitmo detainee released at Saudi Arabia's request has re-upped with al-Qaida and is now its chief of operations in Yemen. So, again, why do we want to empty the place?

If we bounce the rest of these terrorists out of Gitmo, as the president wants to do within a year, we risk recycling even more dangerous fanatics back into the jihad against us.

These people like to commit suicide. Why are we so anxious to do the same?

Gitmo terrorist Said Ali al-Shihri was released to Saudi in 2007. Within no time, he was back on the terror circuit. In fact, the FBI now suspects he helped plan last year's deadly bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Yemen's capital.

He's one of at least 30 former Gitmo inmates who have resumed terrorist activities as part of the Taliban or al-Qaida, despite signing pledges to renounce violence. (Yes, we're really that dumb.)

The releases have come amid a steady stream of complaints from the media, the ACLU and the Saudis (who have a disproportionate number locked up there) about the treatment of the detainees, who are tortured daily with a limited menu of halal meals, paperback-only copies of the Quran and hard plastic soccer balls.

The Saudis assured us we could trust these hardened killers in their care, because they had a rehab program to turn them into nonviolent, productive members of society.

But the Saudi "reintegration program" for repatriated Gitmo terrorists conditions their release on an agreement not to attack the Kingdom. It's OK, however, for them to attack the West.

And that's exactly what al-Shihri did — after he went through the Saudi rehab program, which includes monthly stipends, cars, jobs and resortlike housing featuring pools and volleyball courts.

Sounds more like a resort: If we didn't know better, our ally is actually rewarding our enemies, and rehabbing them for future battle.

Many of the remaining 245-plus Gitmo detainees are Saudis and Yemenis. But fear not, Yemen also has a rehab program for terrorists that's similar to the Saudis. And one that's partly funded by the U.S. (as if these rich oil countries swimming in petro dollars can't finance their own anti-terror programs).

Yemen is the same government that secretly released a USS Cole bombing suspect not too long ago. "The lesson here is, whoever receives former Guantanamo detainees needs to keep a close eye on them," a U.S. official was quoted saying.

That clearly is not going to happen. We can't even trust ally Kuwait, which recently freed a Gitmo terrorist we'd released to its custody only to watch him attack innocents in Iraq. Not long after renouncing jihad, Abdullah Salim Ali al-Ajmi turned around and blew up a police station there in a suicide mission.

The real lesson is: Don't release these killers into anyone's care. Keep them locked up in Cuba or they'll just resurface with al-Qaida or the Taliban and attack us again.

Some argue that there's a new commander in chief now, and new rules in the war on terror. So deal with it.

While it is his prerogative to change the rules, the enemy is operating under old rules — 1,400-year-old rules, to be exact — and it's not changing its tactics. And it would like nothing better than to have 245 more of its battle-hardened dogs return to the front line.

If the new commander in chief is not careful, Gitmo's ghosts may come back to haunt us all.


I have one postscript to this article, I don't believe Gitmo's ghosts MAY come back to haunt us I believe they WILL come back to haunt us!

Think, if possible, like a terrorist for a moment, if you just heard that the new untested president thinks that releasing the enemy is the right thing to do, wouldn't that give you the green light to your next attack?

When Bill Clinton pulled out of Mogadishu after our troops were attacked and the dead bodies of our soldiers desecrated, Osama bin Laden saw this as a sign of weakness and began to plot 9/11.

In a October 2001 interview between Al-Jazeera television correspondent Tayseer Alouni and Osama Bin Laden just one month after 9/11 Bin Laden states:

BIN LADEN: We experienced the Americans through our brothers who went into combat against them in Somalia, for example. We found they had no power worthy of mention. There was a huge aura over America -- the United States -- that terrified people even before they entered combat. Our brothers who were here in Afghanistan tested them, and together with some of the mujahedeen in Somalia, God granted them victory. America exited dragging its tails in failure, defeat, and ruin, caring for nothing.

America left faster than anyone expected.

Bin Laden never believed George Bush would respond with a show of force because Bill Clinton retreated as the response in Mogadishu.

After 9/11 Bin Laden knew he was wrong. However George Bush is longer our president. If you recall, during the election it was Joe Biden, Barack Obama's own running mate who said, that Barack Obama would be tested.

This is the first test on the WOT for his administration and to our enemies, he passed with flying colors!

Be on the alert, friends