Monday, March 30, 2009

Gitmo Updates


I'm wondering how the folks around Alexandria, VA feel about the Gitmo terrorists coming soon to their neighborhood, including Abu Zubaydah, Al Qaeda's operations chief, or Abd Al-Nashiri, the alleged planner of the U.S.S. Cole attack.

Sheriff Dana Lawhorne tells FOX News it is a real possibility; previously, the jail held Al Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui.

Holding these guys who have promised to kill Americans at any chance they get is not the same thing as holding your common street drunk or burglary suspect. Soldiers at Gitmo learned very quickly that any and everything can be made into or used as a weapon by these guys. They are very resourceful.

Another part of the problem in holding them in American prisons is that some of these enemy combatants worked as bodyguards, for example. Men in this kind of position would have access to critical information - anything from money laundering information, explosives design, recruiting info, and so on. This makes them an attractive target to reprisals.

Holding enemy combatants on American soil is dangerous on many levels and one is that it puts unnecessary risk on the community that holds them. This is one reason why Gitmo has been such a viable alternative. Why close it; if it helps keep one single American safer, why close it? Why expose one single American to unnecessary risk?

Meanwhile, the Obama administration has agreed to release Ayman Saeed Batarfi, the al Qaeda doctor who treated mujahideen fighters in the Afghanistan caves during the battle of Tora Bora. He'll be released just as soon as we can find a country willing to take him. If nobody wants him, he can restart his lawsuit in thirty days. Any takers?

He's a doctor - maybe he can sign on to help Team Obama with their health care agenda.

Update: Here is more from Thomas Joscelyn at Weekly Standard.

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