Gitmo Detainees—Coming Soon To a Neighborhood Near You?

Let me first begin by saying how delighted I am to post as one of the guest bloggers here at This Ain’t Hell, which has been among my favorite blogs since I found it during Gathering of Eagles in March 2007.  Thank you, Jonn, for this opportunity.

As has been done here, I’ve also been following at my blog the systematic dismantling by the Obama Administration of the tools which have been used since 9/11 to prevent another terrorist attack in this nation.  In the last couple of weeks, I’ve watched with outrage and concern at how this Administration acts as if their political opponents and returning veterans who have served this nation honorably are a greater threat than the terrorists or their ideology that attacked us on 9/11.  They’ve gone further, releasing CIA documents telling the world (and our enemies) what supposedly horrible things we’ve done, following up with the promise to release photos of these interrogations.

If you think it can’t get any worse, think again. As a result of the executive order to close Gitmo without thinking of what to do with the terrorists being held there, Gitmo detainees may be coming to a neighborhood near you, either in an existing prison or released into the general population.

The City Council in Hardin, Montana, approved a resolution to use an abandoned jail in the area, convert it from a minimum security to a maximum security prison and that could be the new Gitmo.  The rationale behind this idea?  The area is not heavily populated and, if the terrorists were to escape, they would not blend in with the community.

That idea is not faring well with Montana’s Congressional Delegation, according to USAToday:

Sen. Max Baucus, a Democrat, said “we’re not going to bring al-Qaeda to Big Sky Country – no way, not on my watch.”

Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat, said he is “against any proposal to bring Guantanamo detainees to Montana.

Rep. Denny Rehberg, a Republican, said the detainees are terrorists and “we should be doing everything possible to keep them out of our country, let alone our state.”

Then why didn’t Congress raise Holy Hell when Obama signed the order to close Gitmo?  I find it funny too, that the two Democrat senators from Montana were silent and didn’t think about the consequences of the closure, until the idea is floated to move the detainees to their state.

That’s not all. Gateway Pundit links to an LA Times story that tells of a group of Uighur terrorists from China, trained by al-Qaeda and being held at Gitmo, that the Obama Administration wants released.  But not into a prison, they want to release them in areas where Uighur immigrants live, including the area where my family and I moved to from California: the Washington DC suburbs of Northern Virginia.

There are 17 Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gers) at Guantanamo. A U.S. official familiar with the discussions over their release said that as many as seven could be resettled in the U.S., possibly in two or more small groups.

Officials have not said where in the United States they might live. But many Uighur immigrants from China live in Washington’s Virginia suburbs, and advocates have urged that the detainees be resettled near people who speak their language and are familiar with their customs.

Why the plan to release them into the general population?  Some in our government no longer consider them enemy combatants and fear that, if returned to China, they could be tortured.

The Uighurs oppose the Chinese government but do not consider the U.S.government a direct enemy. Still, many of the Uighurs hold strict views of what is permitted under Islam.

Within the prison, Uighurs are not considered a grave threat and are allowed greater freedom, such as television privileges, than other detainees.

But the TV privileges underscored potential difficulties to come, according to one current and one former U.S.official. Not long after being granted access to TV, some of the Uighurs were watching a soccer game. When a woman with bare arms was shown on the screen, one of the group grabbed the television and threw it to the ground, according to the officials.

Let me get this straight, they’re not a threat but destroyed a television when a bare-armed woman came on the screen?  So what happens if, say, in their Northern Virginia neighborhood, they happen to come upon a neighbor who is unwinding in front of the TV on a Friday night with a beer while watching some adult cable channel on TV?

Is this absurd or what?  These liberals are acting under the delusion that the Gitmo detainees are the equivalent of petty criminals who broke into a house or stole CDs from Wal Mart.  These are people who were trained by and have committed acts of terrorism for al-Qaeda.  Remember, also, anywhere from 61 to 102 released Gitmo detainees have returned to the battlefield to kill more Americans.  Given a chance to be either imprisoned or released within America, only a misguided fool would think they won’t jump at the chance to commit an act of terrorism here.

Now that the naive navel gazers in the Obama Administration are in charge, they’re acting in ways which will not only put all American citizens in greater danger, but put our troops at greater risk.  As much legitimate outrage came out of the tea parties, this tearing down of our national security for the sake of political correctness needs to generate even greater protest from citizens, and opposition from those who represent us, before it’s too late.

Category: Politics