Between 12 and 14 detainees released from the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay by President Bush have turned up again on the battlefield and have attacked and killed Americans, the Washington Post reported on Thursday. Of this group, nine are either dead or again in custody, in other countries. The remainder could be anywhere.
It seems that President Obama is not learning from this, or considering the distinct statistical possibility that other terrorists released from Gitmo are free and killing Americans again.
This alarming fact needs to sink in and its full implications be taken to heart. We had this particular dirty dozen terrorists locked up, then we released them, and this led to the death of several of our fellow citizens.
This is not a partisan issue. President Bush released a further 540 Gitmo inmates out of the prison’s population of 780. And for now, a higher percentage of them have returned to the battlefield than from among the 158 released by Obama. This could obviously change over time because the Bush cohort has, of course, had many more years to return to killing than those released more recently by the current administration. It will be interesting and probably chilling to tally the future activities of five high-profile terrorists released in a swap for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, for example.
What needs to be considered is how to proceed now that it is known, rather than merely guessed, that prisoners released from Gitmo have returned to their murderous ways against Americans (and doubtless against our allies, too).
The danger of recidivism is not more important than the upholding of the rule of law, but it must always take precedence over crowd-pleasing, legacy-building promises, such as the one Obama made long ago about closing Guantanamo. His was always an opportunistic and cosmetic policy. The rush to shut down Gitmo presupposes that problems and resentments are created by the mere geographic location of prisoners. This is not and never has been true, as is amply proved by the fact that Obama simply wants to relocate many of the untried, unconvicted detainees to prisons in the continental U.S.
In 2006, Congress established a process for trying enemy combatants before military commissions. In the time since, the procedure has been altered by Congress and shaped further by a series of court challenges, but it still exists. If Obama’s administration doesn’t blow it, that process should remain intact for trying and convicting most if not all of the 80 remaining detainees. Assuming they are convicted of terrorism against America, they should be sentenced to life imprisonment (at Guantanamo) without parole.
Unfortunately, in his zeal to close the prison, Obama has shown a propensity to release those who should be the easiest to try and convict. In exchange for Bergdahl, who was captured by the Taliban and now faces the charge of desertion, Obama gave up five members of the Taliban whom John McCain rightly called “the highest high-risk people.” Two of them, for example, are suspected by the United Nations of war crimes, including the massacre of thousands of Shiite Muslims.
Poor decisions are being made about Guantanamo right now because there is little time remaining in Obama’s second term. Domestic politics, specifically the need to placate left-wing activists and build a presidential legacy, is driving decision-making more than the real-world considerations that should shape all defense policy.
Maintaining the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay, expensive though it is, is a small price to pay for keeping the country’s enemies where they can do no harm.
