Beyond any doubt, the biggest story of last week was the deserter-for-five-terrorists swap. That particular horse has been beaten to death multiple times (here, here, and here, for example), but I would like to toss out one tidbit for your consideration.
The detainees at Guantanamo Bay have been evaluated by two seperate groups: Joint Task Force Guantánamo (JTF-GTMO), composed of primarily military and intelligence personnel; and the Guantánamo Review Task Force, a group of lawyers, diplomats, military officers, and intelligence analysts created by obama after his election in 2008 to determine how to handle individual detainees as Gitmo was closed 'within one year' (remember that campaign promise?).
Below is an analysis of the decision to release the five specific individuals. It comes from an excellent summary and discussion of the whole sordid affair. I strongly encourage you to read it in its entirety.
The other side of (the opportunity to trade for Bergdahl) was the transfer of five senior Taliban commanders from captivity in Guantánamo to relative freedom in Qatar. The Taliban had been seeking the release of these five officials—plus another who died in prison—for more than three years. The assessments of the men conducted by Joint Task Force Guantánamo (JTF-GTMO) found that each one presented a “high risk” of returning to the battle if he were released. Other detainees had been assessed as lesser threats, and some had even been cleared for release. Not these prisoners.Read those last three paragraphs again. Think about what they mean.
“All five of those guys are exceptionally dangerous,” says Paul Rester, the former lead interrogator at Joint Task Force Guantánamo. “These are men who ran entire regions for the Taliban, they had thousands of fighters under their command. They survived the Soviets, they survived the civil war, they survived us, they survived Sam Scott’s Gitmo chicken.”
Rester and his team were responsible for the threat assessments of the detainees. An experienced interrogator, Rester got his start during the Vietnam war and first interviewed mujahedeen in the 1980s when the United States saw them as allies against the Soviet Union. Rester interrogated many of those at Guantánamo and in some cases got to know them well. He and his team rewrote their assessments every year.
“Those assessments only tell the story of how they constitute a risk to us,” he says. “They don’t tell you how they are revered in the population. They can think rings around us in that environment.”
When Obama came to Washington, he made clear that one of the immediate goals of his presidency would be to close the facility at Guantánamo. So the president set up his own team, the Guantánamo Review Task Force, made up of lawyers, military officers, intelligence analysts, and diplomats, who would make recommendations to the president about how to handle individual prisoners.
JTF-GTMO’s job was to assess each detainee’s intent and ability to harm the United States, its interests, and its allies. Its assessments were done by men and women who were chiefly concerned with prosecuting a war. The Guantánamo Review Task Force’s mandate was different. It was established simultaneously with President Obama’s order to shutter the facility in one year. That deadline proved impractical, but the task force was formed for the purpose of closing Guantánamo. Clearly, the task force was willing to accept more risk in detainee transfers than JTF-GTMO. Indeed, the task force recommended that dozens of detainees who were deemed “high risk” by JTF-GTMO be transferred.
But even the Obama team recommended that 48 of the remaining Guantánamo detainees be held indefinitely. All five Taliban commanders that Obama released last week were in this group.
For Rester, that’s significant. “We had the best military analysts on the planet look at these guys and recommend against transfer,” he says. “And then Obama’s team—this administration’s most knowledgeable, courageous, and liberal legal minds came to the same conclusion. They could not bring themselves to recommend these guys for transfer or release.”
Many of the intelligence officials who have worked on Guantánamo agree with them. In a hearing on June 4, Clapper was asked to assess the likelihood that these individuals would return to the fight on a scale of 1 to 10. Clapper gave one of the men an 8 and the other four a 9.
But Obama and his team are telling the public a different story. “I will not sign off on any detainee coming out of Guantánamo unless I am assured . . . that we can sufficiently mitigate any risk to American security,” said Hagel on Meet the Press.
Those risks are not mitigated. They’re enhanced.
“Unless the goal is to increase the combat power of the enemy, they should have remained under U.S. government control,” says one former intelligence official who worked on Guantánamo issues. “Those five in particular should have remained at Guantánamo at least until the last U.S. military person [in Afghanistan] has been withdrawn.”
In other words, barack hussein obama made a deliberate and calculated decision to release five die-hard terrorists who are a clear and present danger to the United States in exchange for an individual about whom there are serious and substantial doubts concerning his allegiance to his country. The trade was made purely for political reasons, the primary one being to distract the populace from the ongoing VA scandal.
If that isn't an impeachable offense, I don't know what is. (More below the cartoon.)
Speaking of releasing terroists:
Obama to free Gitmo terrorist ‘because he took up yoga’
If you thought President Obama’s release of five top Taliban commanders in exchange for POW Bowe Bergdahl was bad, wait until you see what his Gitmo parole board plans.Yeah, right. And I'm going to lose weight and cut back on my drinking.
Desperate to empty the Guantanamo Bay prison by the end of his term, Obama quietly is giving “get out of jail free” cards for the flimsiest of excuses.
One al Qaeda suspect captured in Afghanistan is considered reformed because he took up yoga and read a biography of the Dalai Lama. Another is eligible for release because of his “positive attitude.”
And one longtime detainee, a former bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, is now harmless because he’s going to start a “milk and honey farm.”
The Periodic Review Board already helped clear 78 of the remaining 149 prisoners for release, documents show, and has scheduled more hearings for this summer.Go here for the rest of the story, if you can stomach it.
Many of these men were dubbed “forever prisoners” because of the threat they posed to the US — with intelligence officials warning that, if free, they would return to the jihad to kill Americans.
Based on past cases, that’s a good bet.
In a report on detainee recidivism, Obama’s own director of national intelligence this year documented that 178, or 29 percent, of the 614 prisoners already transferred from the prison have been confirmed to have, or are suspected of having, re-engaged in terrorism.
That means for every three freed from Gitmo, one has rejoined the war against us. Intelligence analysts admit their ability to track all former detainees is limited, so the recidivism rate may, in fact, be much higher.
3 comments:
This WILL come back to haunt us...
A relative, career Navy. is stationed at Gitmo. Not wanting to hurt his career, I won't go into detail. What we hear in private family conversations is sickening.
His solution? Take them all five miles offshore, then let them swim to freedom.
NFO - there's so much wrong with this, from setting a bad precedent to putting targets on Americans. But IMO the worst is the despicable calculated decision to make the trade for purely political reasons.
Toejam - Crematorium, giant garbage disposal, bottomless pit, any of the above...
WSF - I have no doubt that what you hear would sicken us all. Please pass along my thanks to your family member.
I like the 'freedom swim' idea. It's very environmentally friendly...
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