Obama’s Making America Safer? Sure Thing! Just Ask These Former Gitmo Detainees
As the number of Guantanamo military detention facility detainees continues to shrink, some may wonder, “Who exactly is being released from Guantanamo, and where are they going?”
In keeping with President Obama’s agenda, the administration is continuing to forge ahead with the goal to shut down Guantanamo’s military detention facility in Cuba, and Vice President Biden said Thursday the facility would likely be terminated by the end of Obama’s term.
At the rate Obama is releasing detainees from the facility, it appears very likely he will reach his goal, and detainees will be interspersed throughout the world.
“Keeping this facility open is contrary to our values,” Obama said earlier this year. “It undermines our standing in the world. It is viewed as a stain on our broader record of upholding the highest standards of rule of law.”
But is he jeopardizing the safety of Americans?
Since Obama took office in 2009, he has released 177 detainees — 46 in this year alone. Many of these are from Yemen and connected to al Qaeda in some way.
One of the conditions that must be met to release a detainee is that the individual no longer poses a threat to the U.S., its interests, or its allies. Sounds legit. However, the screening process for this is not 100 percent fool-proof.
Just last month, Congress raised concerns about the process for transferring detainees, due to the fact Obama administration officials could not track some of the detainees and who may still be dangerous to the U.S.
After a prisoner affiliated with al Qaeda was released to Uruguay, he disappeared in June. Previously, Congress had been told that Uruguay was an acceptable location to release detainees. But in actuality, Uruguay doesn’t view detainees as former terrorists, but rather as “refugees.” As a result, the Uruguayan government doesn’t restrict their travel or check up on them.
Furthermore, the Obama administration earlier this month released a whopping 15 detainees — the most the administration has ever released. All 15 are affiliated with al Qaeda and were sent to the United Arab Emirates.
One of those 15 Mahmoud Abd al Aziz Abd al Mujahid had knowledge of planned terrorist attacks and is listed on al Qaeda documents. Another, Mohammed Ahmad Said al Edah, was a supervisor in Osama bin Laden’s security force. And then there’s Abdel Qadir Hussein al Mudhaffari, who happened to be the former bodyguard to bin Laden.
Not only do the Department of Defense memorandums from 2008 recommended the continued detention of all 15 men, but they also listed them as “high risk” and that they were likely to pose a threat to the U.S., its interests, and its allies.
So with this in mind, do you feel safer with these terrorists back on the loose? (For more from the author of “Obama’s Making America Safer? Sure Thing! Just Ask These Former Gitmo Detainees” please click HERE)
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