Apparently, entering the seventh (season) year of operation, President Obama has made it his mission to close down the Guantanamo Bay detention camp… Al Qaeda (AQ) sympathizers around the world rejoice. What remains to be presented is a coherent plan. Where will they go? Mainland U.S.? Housed with general population at supermax prisons where they can indoctrinate and train run-of-the-mill murderers and turn them into AQ mercenaries or members? Back to their home countries?

The latest member to be kicked off the island is Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi, a Yemeni doctor, who appeared in Afghanistan alongside AQ and/or Taliban fighters and is accused of treating wounded AQ terrorists, even meeting Osama bin Laden (OBL) on two separate occasions. Of course, this is not all proven yet, although he has confessed to being part of a group with ties to AQ and meeting OBL, though he was forced to help the AQ and was not a terrorist. In my opinion, the fact that he claims he was not a combatant does not mean that he is wholly innocent (in case he’s being truthful), since he was willingly part of an organization that helped AQ, which declared war on the United States. The Justice Department, though, has agreed to release him to an appropriate country (not to Yemen).

We should not be releasing possible terrorists or enemy participants in the Afghanistan war, especially those who helped AQ directly, without first putting them through some sort of trial. Not in a civilian U.S. court, but in a military court with rules that conform to international standards. The fact that we are releasing them shows the underlying difference between Al Qaeda’s strategy and the United States’. Al Qaeda emerges from a movement that wishes to expunge non-Muslim influences from the Muslim world. They don’t think it will happen today or tomorrow, they believe that the problem took a very long time to come into being and its solution will require a very long struggle. They will keep attacking until they feel that western-isms are in retreat. On the other hand, the United States generally is ignorant of this and has been lulled into a sense of complacency since AQ has not struck the US since 9-11. We seem to be playing checkers… probably because America is a young nation without the baggage of history fueling centuries-old conflicts or antagonisms. To help rid the world of this extremism, our strategy has to be more robust… it cannot be based merely on military engagement nor can it be based on retreat… nor can it be confined to one country. Bush had many things wrong but at least two things right: we must bring the fight to the enemy and Afghanistan is only one part of the problem. We cannot show the enemy that our resolve is weak and give them the impression that if they hold out for a few years we’ll release prisoners and withdraw from the Middle East. AQ will migrate, regroup, and strike again, especially if we repopulate their ranks with newly radicalized former Gitmo prisoners. We need to release the innocent and try the guilty. Already, the administration has dropped the charges against the USS Cole bombing suspect and stopped all court proceedings. This is not the way to hold terrorists accountable for their crimes against our people and humanity. Obama should take care not to keep treating our enemies with kid gloves… or we might just vote him off the island.

-AG