More Gitmo catch-and-release
Earlier this month, the US released 16 Saudis from Guantanamo Bay. A total of 77 Saudis have been freed from detention. If you shared my “Uh-oh” reaction, then you will not be surprised by this latest report in The Age (via Andrew Bolt) about freed Gitmo detainees taking up arms and resuming jihad. According to the paper, at least 30 former Guantanamo Bay detainees have been killed or recaptured after taking up arms against allied forces following their release. A Defense Department spokesman told the newspaper that most of the catch-and-release beneficiaries have been discovered in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Commander Jeffrey Gordon said the detainees had, while in custody, falsely claimed to be farmers, truck drivers, cooks, small-arms merchants, low-level combatants or had offered other false explanations for being in Afghanistan.
“We are aware of dozens of cases where they have returned to militant activities, participated in anti-US propaganda or engaged in other activities,” said Commander Gordon.
His comments follow the death this week of Taliban commander and former detainee Abdullah Mehsud, who reportedly blew himself up rather than surrender to Pakistani forces. In December 2001, Mehsud was captured in Afghanistan and held at Guantanamo Bay until his release in March 2004. He later became the Taliban chief for South Waziristan.
The article notes Gitmo detainees’ successful use of sob-story cover stories–repeated wholesale by the MSM. As we saw during the suicide pact stunt, manipulation and lying are staples of their training.
“These former detainees successfully lied to US officials, sometimes for over three years,” Gordon told The Age. “Common cover stories include going to Afghanistan to buy medicines, to teach the Koran or to find a wife. Many of these stories appear so often, and are subsequently proven false, that we can only conclude that they are part of their terrorist training.”
The Age notes a recent analysis of 516 Guantanamo detainees by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, which found that “while there was no evidence linking six of them to terrorist activities, 95 per cent were a potential threat to US interests. This was based on their affiliations with groups such as al-Qaeda, their enthusiasm for violent jihad, their having undertaken small-arms training or having been willing to perform a support role for terrorism.”
The PDF of the CTC report is here. Here’s one of the graphs breaking down the threats:
The researchers reviewed 291 unclassified summaries of detainee records that contained evidence that the detainee directly participated in or supported hostile acts. They found:
• 56 individuals admitted to fighting the U.S. or Coalition forces
• 104 individuals were found to have manned the front lines
• 9 individuals were found to have participated in a bombing operation, improvised explosives device (IED) attack or other explosives-involved operation
• 98 individuals were found to have directly participated in, or supported the planning or plotting of, a combat operation.
• 3 individuals were found to have purchased weapons for the furtherance of committing hostile acts.
• 21 individuals were found to have engaged in ‘other’ hostile activities.
And here’s a breakdown of the countries of origin of the 516 detainees. Most came from Afghanistan, Yemen, and, yes, Saudi Arabia:
Savvy Democrats ought to be questioning the Bush administration’s mass release of Saudi detainees given such analysis. But they’re all too busy pressing for the immediate closure of Gitmo and the full liberation of every last detainee from the facility.
Democrats: For freeing jihadists faster.
Put that on a bumper sticker.
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Yes, 21% of detainess in Gitmo are Saudi…
Almost all of the 9/11 participants were Saudi…
Bin Ladin was Saudi…
Which is why Bush wants to sell them 20 Billion in advanced Weapons…
Romeo13: You have touched a hot topic.
The Saudi government (aka Saudi Royal Family)is fat, weak, but strangely influential with all of it’s international liquidity.
The jihad in Saudi Arabia is vastly underreported. Yet, Saudi Arabia could be going the way of Musharaff’s Pakistan.
However, as opposed to Musharaff’s military dictatorship, the extensive Royal Family web (hundreds of wealthy members)provides cover for the government by financing mosques and madrasas- especially in the United States. It is the classic condemnation of jihad with one face and upholding it with the other.
The Bush family is incapable of seeing both faces. They buy the “religion of peace” argument so the second of two faces curries favor with jihadist radicals by implementing jihadi lite in America.
That’s why $20 billion in advanced weapons goes to the Saudi government.
It is a very lucrative subsidy for Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and other US controlled companies.
Doesn’t seem to be a patriot in those board rooms willing to ask “Do we really want the money for something that might weaken the security of the US?”
Send this amount of weaponry to Israel right now and what do we think the reaction of the “Muslim World”, the American-Global Communist Left (includes the UN), and the MSM would be?
But will the fruit of this relationship end up being Jihadist control of a US financed military force in Saudi Arabia?
Club Gitmo: Your tropical retreat from the stress of jihad! We are reserving a spot for you!
This is very complicated. Is there not the reality that the Saudi royals are part of our counter to a Persian Gulf dominated by Iran?
Yes their population is dangerous, and there are some wealthy Saudis who fund jihad and radicalism. On the other hand, the Sunni powers in the area do not want to be under the thumb of a nuclear Iran, and are willing to side with America against that possibility.
We need to leverage all we can against Iran, but not help the Sunni jihadists. That’s a very thin line, and it looks like we will be dancing on it for a while to come.
Is there any indication that if the U.S. doesn’t supply the Saudis they will get what they want from another source? Perhaps Russia or China?
How true. The democraps, as the party of insane hatred of GWB, are truly insane (as a party).
As for the Saudis, if we fail to support the royal family and they go the way of the Shah of Iran, who will step in and control 1/3 of the worlds oil?
The old saying everyone hates, it’s better to deal with the devil you know than the devil you do not, unfortunately applies in this case.
To bad we cant put an unremovable chip in these dirtbags and track em……or have we……hmmmmmmm…..
Treason once again rears its ugly head.
that’s what i was thinking ajmontana, just sit back and track their signal until they re-enter afghanistan and then…Ka-BOOOM!!! Court adjourned! probably take out a few of his jihadi friends too…
“30 former Guantanamo Bay detainees have been killed or recaptured.”
“low-level combatants claimed to be farmers, truck drivers, and cooks…”
This story is just filled with all kinds of info….
The PDF of the CTC is telling. Most are a potential threat and a lot of them are a demonstrated threat.
“98 individuals were found to have directly participated in, or supported the planning or plotting of combat operations.”——–These people are really freaken dangerous!!!
None of these jihadist should not be released. It appears the Bush administration cut some kind of secret deal.
9/11 was a small speed-bump in Bush’s agenda of selling out US to illegal immigrants. On and after 9/11, Bush did and said what Americans wanted to hear and did not say / do what Americans did not want to hear / see. DHS, Gitmo, War-on-terror were are and will be phoney-fronts to fool Americans out of their tax-dollars, while helping enemies of America like Saudis, Iraqis and Mexicans. Bush ties to wahhabbies and illegal immigrants are well known. Bush has always and will always sell out Americans to anyone with a petro-dollar or a peso. If it gets some cheap votes even better.
Since they won’t impeach him, Americans should be use to being sold out by their president / commander-in-chief.
My solution isn’t politically correct… it involves a firing squad.
Bhishma- Somebody probably should have told you this is not a conspiracy theories website.
One terrorist to another; (in my mind)
(English translation)
“Hey Comrade! If we get captured, we’ll just do some small time at GITMO.
We can pretend to be a chicken farmer….that’s all it is! Free food, Koran, meds/plastic surgery is necessary. Then we will be released ’cause the USA LIBERALS really like us! Who knows, maybe we can convert a few while we’re at it! They hate Bush so much, that we’re not the evil ones in comparison.”
(with peals of laughter between the two)
Raging Republican, suit yourself…..
RR, that was good, made me laugh, ty
The way to solve this problem, (Gitmo catch and release), is simply to not take them prisoner. How long do you think they would hold you as a POW? About as long as it would take to chamber another round, I’d guess. It’s time to cut this PC crap,and start fighting a war.
But don’t question the Democrats patriotism………number 17 I agree lets just kill them in combat and be done with the whole problem.
What ever happened to ‘take no prisoners’?
And how dare you use this as propaganda against their world view. It’s all America’s fault anyway.
(sarcasm)
Nah, Give em the Chutes, let the Sharks eat.
Wow, Kuwait sure got its money’s worth with its retainer to Shearman & Sterling.
Afghanistan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, the big three. I get the Saudis they are Sunni, the Afghans, would be the Taliban but I don’t get Yemen…Bin Laden’s mother was Syrian or something wasn’t she…where does the Yemen fighters come in, there are so many? All these countries have tribal loyalties, in common.
I’m with Brian in comment #4, by the way. I have less of a problem with selling, say f-16s to Saudi Arabia than I do selling them to Pakistan (who if they use them will likely use them against our ally, India.)
The other day I saw a v-log interview of Fred Siegel, Giuliani’s biographer, in which Siegel pointed out that two of our enemies in this fight are also our allies.
Kinda like good ol’ Uncle Joe in WWII.
Yeah, I think that should be the pre-Geneva Convention treatment for ununiformed “illegal” combatants the first time out, and especially if they are found to return to the fight, no questions asked.
“pro-” not “pre-”
Should have used the preview.
So then, when the Gitmo prisoners said they went to Kabul to see a man about a camel, they were lying? I thought the media said all the Gitmo jihadis were innocent, just happenning to be passing through the battlefield by accident.
This doesn’t mean that media are lying too, does it?
Whup Syria now. Whup Hezbollah in Lebanon now.
Destroy their ability to make war and support jihad in Iraq. Put all the pressure on Iran to sustain jihad.
Let Musharraf go nuts on his own territories and drive the Taliban back into Afghanistan with their command and control systems exposed (wouldn’t have gone into PakiLand if they weren’t tattered and battered).
Close the Saudi financed mosques and Madrasas in the US which operate in violation of the code of laws governing 501 (c) 3 non-profit corporations. Use the Ricoh Statutes to close down all Arab fundraising organizations for “charity” where money goes to the Middle East. Force these groups to re-apply. Starve them out.
Other than that, arm sales to prevent jihad creep in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere is a token pacification that doesn’t strengthen alliances. We have to be strong with an air tight pucker for “alliance” to have any meaning.
In the last paragraph of The Age’s report:
That “analysis” was really the work of the ‘Guantanamo Bay Bar Association‘ It was prepared for their October 2006 ‘Guantanano Teach-in’ conducted at Seton Hall University.
Mohammed Atta II is likely among those released, who is preparing to cross our porous borders or already on our streets planning.
Wearing down the masses with endless “jurisprudence” until the only recourse is a military coup d’etat.
The silver lining of selling weapons to the Saudis is that they’re too stupid and culturally backward to use them. Things like fighter jets eat up spare parts and require constant maintenance. The Saudis are culturally unable to understand the concept of maintenance, that complicated machines need to be oiled and checked on and have parts replaced. They let things go until they break and then blame the vendors for selling them broken stuff. Without Westerners to maintain their gear, most of the Saudis weapons would be inoperative within a year.
The Saudis are hardly capable of using their weapons even if they work. The Saudi military is the repository of second sons of Saudi families where the first son got the family business. The second sons have the education to be officers but no motivation to learn their weapon systems or fight. They can outsource the fighting to the Americans. Saudi junior officers just want to sit around with their buddies and drink tea. The military is just a social club for them.
Saudi field grade officers who come to America for training simply don’t show up and get a courtesy certificate of graduation. If a Saudi prince comes to training, he may get a Distinguished Foreign Officer Graduate certificate without showing up in class. A lot of the money they pay us for training and weapons is wasted. That’s fine with them. And me.
The Saudi enlisted men are dumb as rocks. Our technical manuals are written at the eleventh grade level. They have to be dumbed down to the sixth grade level for the Saudi enlisted guys. There’s no chance of these ignorant dufuses operating their weapon systems without Americans leading them by the hand.
When Iraq invaded Kuwait, the Saudis didn’t even consider defending themselves. They had no confidence in their military or weapons and rightfully so. The Saudis are incompetent in just about anything. When the King invited American forces into Saudi Arabia to defend it against Saddam, it was a major scandal among the Saudi population, who wondered what all those billions spent on weapons had bought them? Nothing, as it turns out.
Selling advanced weapons to the Saudis is like selling F-16s and helicopter gunships to the Crips and Bloods. Sure it sounds like a bad idea on the face of it but in reality there’s no chance that they’ll figure out how to use them. They’ll rust to pieces before they can ever be used against us.
Tantor-
Interesting details. I’d heard rumors like this before when I was working at an institution that had a US Air Force contract to train technical trainers in Riyahd. This was back in the 80s, but i had not kept up with the trends. It was a plum assignment because evaluation of results was a joke. Nobody cared and the cash kept flowing.
Sounds like it has stayed constant.
Tantor -
The Saudis are famous for paying foreign experts and technicians 3 or 4 times what they would make at home to maintain their equipments. Do you know for sure that is not happening with the military equipment we have already sold them?
My bumper sticker idea:
Silly Republicans, GITMO is for you.
Sergeant Tim,
Of course that’s what’s happenning with the Saudi military equipment. I worked with two guys who were former USAF Thunderbirds crew chiefs who had worked as contractors in Saudi Arabia as crew chiefs. You make great money as a retired military maintenance guy doing maintenance for the lazy and stupid Saudis. I hear it’s not as good now but it used to be fabulous, good enough to return and buy a house with cash.
But, ya know, Tim, maintaining jets and other high tech equipment is like being a zookeeper feeding exotic animals. You can’t just stop and walk away or all those exotic animals die. Besides gas and oil, jets eat up all kinds of consumable parts. Stop maintaining them and they grind to a halt, one by one, or worse: they fail in flight.
Ms. Malkin,
When you have time, it is worth noting that “catch and release” is now being advocated for convicted terrorists as well. The LA Times today had an article condemning the President for not immediately pardoning American Taliban John Walker Lindh. They also managed to get in a cheap shot about Scooter Libby, who according to my notes, was not fully pardoned, and did not kill anybody.
It is bad enough that the left is ok with releasing potential terrorists, but why even after they have been convicted? I want to live, and wonder why the LA Times cannot grasp this.
Also, and forgive the appearance of a tangent, Jewish liberals obsessed with immediate intervention in Darfur might want to know that the Finance Minister of Darfur blamed the Jews today for the crisis.
Does anyone on the left support policies that will keep innocent Americans from being killed?
eric http://www.blacktygrrrr.wordpress.com
Genesis 16:12
Ishmael was the progenitor of the Saudis and the 12 tribes of his line. Mohammed was one of his descendants. If a wild donkey is penned up it can do no harm. We certainly see what happens when we let them go. When will we wake up and see the light. they are at our doorsteps now and what do the leaders of our country worry about? Subpoenas to stage a political circus; hearings about past court precedent or promises…we are dead in the water if we don’t wake up. I have little hope for the results of the 2008 elections so maybe it’s time to make sure our second amendment tools are in good working order.
The countries of origin for the detainees is incomplete. Somewhere in the string John W. Lind was mentioned, an American. And just recently there was news about an Australian that has been released.
What bothers me about this report is that after several years we were unable to prove these guys were terrorists. I thought we were toturing these people and we got no useful info to substantiate their involvement in terrorism to the point where we had to let them go? Good grief! We had several years to verify each individuals activities and we were unable to do so.
No doubt there may have been innocents caught up and captured by accident. We should have done the research and completed the homework required to determine who was who. We had several years to do so. We have no one to blame but ourselves.
And, suppose you had been locked up knowing you had done nothing wrong. I’d be pissed. Maybe these guys didn’t so much return to the battlefield, but turned to the battlefield to seek revenge.
Gitmo was, and is, a good idea that was poorly executed. It is a recurrent theme in the Bush Administration.
Hold on, folks, I’m getting a glimmer of an idea. We release these “innocent” detainees, they return to their jihad, then our military kills them. Seems to me this would save the American taxpayer a lot of money for trials in our courts and the pay their court-appointed lawyers would receive. It is analogous to giving them a death sentence without the expense of a trial.