Thanks, Obama.
Two more of the prisoners released from Guantanamo Bay under the present White House’s watch – and not just watch, but insistence – have returned to the battlefield, it seems.
Just to recap: This is the same Guantanamo Bay that Obama vowed during both presidential terms to close, and that he’s been busily emptying of some of terrorism’s most notable intel catches.
Fox News has the story:
“Two more prisoners who were released from the Guantanamo Bay detention center in the first six months of the year have returned to the battlefield, the White House said. …
“A report from the Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) revealed that nine people who have been released from Guantanamo have rejoined militant groups since President Barack Obama took office in 2009, according to Reuters.”
Quite an accomplishment – opening doors for nine to jump back into the terrorist game, no doubt, with even more entrenched hatred for the country that hosted their prison stays.
Reuters also noted that Former president George W. Bush released more Gitmo detainees than Obama has. But here’s the difference: Bush didn’t announce to the radical Islamic terrorist world that he was going to shutter Gitmo and send ’em all home.
Obama did, since his first year in office, thereby passing along the Hope and Change mantra that marked his domestic campaign trail to those overseas, of terrorist bent.
Here’s a statement he made during his State of the Union in 2015 that sums his views pretty concisely, printed in the Guardian:
“As Americans, we have a profound commitment to justice, so it makes no sense to spend $3 million per prisoner to keep open a prison that the world condemns and terrorists use to recruit,” Obama said. “Since I’ve been president, we’ve worked responsibly to cut the population of Gitmo in half. Now it’s time to finish the job. And I will not relent in my determination to shut it down. It’s not who we are.”
Right. It seems “who we are” as a nation, at least under Obama, is a safe haven for enemies.
So once again: Thanks, Obama. Thanks not only for freeing dangerous anti-American prisoners to go back home and strategize anti-American attacks with their fellow anti-American radicals. But thanks, too, for telecasting to the world your plan to continue a not-catch-but-only-release policy for the world’s most dangerous, so that said dangerous don’t have anything to fear from America.