Gitmo

Opinion

By Troy Downing

When Obama first started his presidential campaign, he was basically a non-entity for me... I really didn’t believe that the American People could be hoodwinked into following someone with basically nothing more to offer than raw emotion, a gift for public speaking, and a thinly veiled socialist agenda... How could that possibly work in America? I understand the discontent with the previous administration, but, this seemed to be a little extreme.

Then I noticed that the Children of America were following the Pied Piper of Hamlet playing his magic flute from behind the teleprompter and it caught my attention... Where is this guy leading them? So, I had to look closely... and it scared me...

He had the crazy, naive, and uninformed idealistic views of an outsider. Maybe that’s good... Seems to be what 53% of the voters wanted... Well, only 56.8% of the potential voters actually voted, so, that reduces it to 30% of the potential voters voted for Obama... But, that’s a different story...

There are a number of things that scared me about Obama... His apparent hatred for the American Dream, the fact that he would rather my children learn Spanish than to have immigrants learn English... But most of all, his complete and utter misunderstanding of issues of National Security. This outright scared me! Here’s a guy that doesn’t have direct access to the State Department making proclamations about pulling out of South-East Asia, about mothballing the US Nuclear arsenal, about closing Guantanamo Bay... Is this guy nuts? He seems like a reasonably intelligent guy, can’t he get it past that arrogant little facade of his and understand that the public can’t know everything that’s going on? If the people know EVERYTHING that the State Department, Intelligence, and the Military know, then our enemies know it as well... If our enemies know everything that we know about them, how do we effectively fight them? C’mon, this is not rocket science, it’s common sense...

Gitmo was definitely a hot topic. But, for raw emotional reasons and reasons of appearances more than realities... The fact that Obama would make a campaign promise to close this facility without careful consideration of the implications and without access to the State Department shows a level of naivety unfit a statesman.

So, what’s the big deal here? We have 220 prisoners linked to terrorist organizations that are trying to harm the United States... You have to understand that there is more than just “suspicion”... If we claim that we “know” that they are terrorists, we have to say why we know... We have to give evidence or examples... If you say why you know, you threaten the Intelligence organizations that gathered the information. You threaten not only the intelligence gathering organizations, but, also our operatives that are already infiltrated into the inner sanctums of these terrorist organizations who will stop at nothing to get their sordid agendas and points across through harming the US... One Superbowl, one Trade Center, one Disneyland, one icon of America at a time. Once you have diminished the ability to gain Intel, we are, as a Nation, once again subject to the sucker-punches of our enemies.

Yes, I understand that the world is in an uproar about “enhanced interrogation techniques”. I have news for you... The training that we give our own soldiers is just as severe... Any soldier/marine/airman/seaman that is designated as “high risk of capture” is subject to “enhanced interrogation techniques”. The difference is, that they don’t whine about it and invite Amnesty International to intervene. So, my question to you non-believers- If we do it to ourselves, doesn’t it seem reasonable that we can do it to our known and sworn enemies?

The next question- Why do we need them to be off shore? Well, that’s a simple one too. These are known enemy combatants in a time of war. We know who they are and know that they are trying to harm us. These are not “maybes”. These are known enemies of the State. We are trying to protect ourselves and even though we know who these people are, we may not know everything that they know. So, we continue to interrogate. We continue to observe.

If there is no more intelligence to be gathered, we try them in a military tribunal. A normal court proceeding would have the same dangers that I mentioned above... Namely, the public dissemination of secret information... This will undermine and sabotage our intelligence networks that are out there gathering information that is used to prevent future 9/11-type attacks.

So, I clung to the idea that Obama was a somewhat intelligent man. I clung to the idea that once he was sworn-in and had full access to the State Department, that he would see the errors of his flighty and ideological ideas about National Security... And then, day one... After being kinda sworn-in... (it took two attempts of course), he hit the Lawn swinging and lobbed a mandate to close Gitmo within a year... Crazy, reactionary policy making. Not thoughtful decision making based on the advice of his advisors and people who are on the front lines of the issues involved. Reactionary politics would be a theme for the beginning of his Presidency with the false urgency of passing unread and unconsidered legislation, but, that’s fodder for another article.

Kudos where it is due... Over time, Obama did have access to information that he didn’t have during his campaign. He did consider the implications of troop pullouts and did the right thing, sending in more troops... Which would have been political suicide for the previous administration, but, the right thing to do none the less... Also, the system seemed to work in terms of Gitmo... Congress threw roadblocks in Obama’s way in terms of withholding funding for the shutdown... Nobody wants these terrorists in their back yards, and they shouldn’t! Do you?

What happens when we patriate them? Well, they fall under the banner of the US Constitution with all of its Rights, Freedoms, and Protections... These are sworn enemies of the United States of America... they are not due Constitutional Rights and should be tried in military fashion outside of the sacred borders of the United States of America.

Here is my fear... Once they are here on American soil being tried in a public forum- there exists greater opportunity for terrorist statements of dissatisfaction... Namely, terrorist attack in the US in response to the “unfair” trials of known terrorists. My other fear is that they may walk free as a result of a verdict of innocence. This verdict may be completely untrue and due to a technicality because of interrogation techniques, or, an unwillingness of the State Department to release the actual evidence gathered in order to protect an ongoing investigation on other potential terrorist activities... You have to understand that we can’t release everything we know without precipitating the downfall of the very foundation that keeps us one step ahead of those who want to harm us.

The verdict or technicality doesn’t make the terrorist any less guilty... But, it does give him certain rights and freedoms... Since they are on American soil, do we have a duty to offer asylum? What do we do with them? Of course, if we try to export them, they will claim that they will be killed by their own people for whatever information was perceived that they divulged... Now, here comes Amnesty International again fighting with the US court system to ensure their humane offering of asylum in the US... Great! Now we have even more terrorists walking our streets...

This week, congress passed legislation that will allow Gitmo detainees their day in a US court... Luckily, there are certain protections... Such as a requirement for 45 days notice so that we know who’s coming and when... The bill also mandates that any terrorist that is not convicted must be exported... But, we all know that that will be fought vehemently by both the terrorists and various human rights organizations... Since we have an emotionally driven political system now, of course, popular bleeding-heart thought will force us to concede to due process when deciding whether or not deportation is a death sentence...

The Hapless President, plays right into the laps of our enemies... This scares me...