Justice Delayed

President Obama has suspended war crime trials for the Gitmo detainees.  Is this his start to his phase of the War on Terror (or, as Scott Ott hilariously suggests, "The Case Against Terror")?  He’s already peeved family members of 9/11 victims with this first step in the closing of Gitmo, and he has no actual "exit strategy" for the detainees themselves.

How about the European Union, that bloc of countries so against Gitmo?

Across Europe, President Barack Obama’s decision to shut the Guantanamo Bay prison has raised an awkward question: Which EU states that railed against the camp will offer new lives to released prisoners?

The U.S. Defense Department says about 50 of the 245 prisoners awaiting freedom cannot go home again on security or political grounds, raising the need to find an alternative place to send them. But European Union members long critical of Guantanamo shied away on Friday from any firm commitments to help.

Ireland has joined Portugal, France, Germany and Switzerland in saying it probably would participate in an EU-organized plan that might take shape at a summit of foreign ministers starting Monday in Brussels.

But it already appears likely that Europe will leave some of Guantanamo’s inmates in limbo behind a policy of: No terrorists please.

Lots of talk, but little action from those who protested the loudest.  Classic.

And letting them go free is fraught with its own dangers.

A Saudi national released from U.S. detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in September 2007 is believed to be a key leader in al Qaeda’s operations in Yemen, according to a U.S. counterterrorism official.

The Defense Department recently estimated that more than 60 terrorists released from Guantanamo may have returned to the battlefield.

According to the counterterrorism official, freed detainee Ali al-Shiri traveled to Yemen after being released to Saudi Arabia and may have been involved in recent al Qaeda attacks in Yemen, including a car bombing outside the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa last year that killed nearly a dozen people.

"He is one of a handful of al Qaeda deputies in Yemen," the official said. "He is one of the top terrorists."

No, they’re not being railroaded through tribunals.  If anything, we’re apparently giving them quite a lot of benefit of the doubt. 

Not the way to start an administration.

Filed under: Government • Terrorism

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!