Man-Caused Disasters

…and the men who cause them.  The disasters are no big deal, certainly aren’t actual terrorism, so the men who cause them also are no big deal; certainly they’re not terrorists.

Of course we should continue to release them from Guantanamo.  That’s what President Barack Obama said last May at the National Defense University.

I am lifting the moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen, so we can review them on a case by case basis[.]

Never mind that the ones he has in mind are Saudi citizens, and that they’ll go to Yemen.  Or these minor details:

  • Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen…is now the greatest al Qaeda threat to the US homeland according to US intelligence
    • formed in part by several former Guantanamo Bay detainees who were released in 2006.
  • Merger between former GITMO detainees from Saudi Arabia and the AQ escapees in Yemen formed al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
  • Recent spate of prison breaks across the Middle East and North Africa…such escapes by al Qaeda often lead to the formation of the next affiliate
    • July 21 in Iraq at Abu Ghraib, many of the most hardened al Qaeda prisoners [escaped]
    • Second prison north of Baghdad was breached at about the same time with similar results
    • 1,000 inmates in Libya, many incarcerated on terrorism charges, escaped in late July from a Benghazi prison in an operation coordinated with gunmen from outside the prison walls
    • July 30 Taliban fighters…broke 250 prisoners out of a Pakistani jail
  • Recidivism rate of released GITMO detainees reaches 25%

But these are just guys doing bad things; they’re not actual terrorists.  The war against terror is winding down, and al Qaeda is on the run.

Sure.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *