A Few Reasons Why Guantanamo Bay Should Not Be Closed

In trying to appease the far-left of his party, President Obama needs to come up with a plan...soon! It was a bold move to come into office as the newly elected President of the United States and spout off about the need to close down Guantanamo Bay. However, his biggest mistake was the absence of an exit plan and where to place these individuals who are deemed the worst of the worst.

In his attempt to run away from the Bush Administration policies, President Obama has found it a tough-going in persuading his own party to stand behind him. The Republican, plus the majority of Americans, see no reason to close down the military operated prison camp. Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri has called it a matter of "symbolism over security."

Seeing the public was against closing down Guantanamo, along with the Republican minority, the Democrats voted against giving President Obama the $80 million he requested to close down the prison camp. The Senate voted on an amendment to strip the $80 million from the war-funding bill and to indefinitely ban the transfer of Guantanamo Bay inmates to the United States. it was a victory for the Republican.

President Obama has become a terrible flip-flopper and has tried his spin to save face. In another attempt to blame America, he boldly claimed that Guantanamo Bay was a recruiting tool for Muslim terrorist while also linking the debate on enhanced interrogation techniques to the argument. I believe the President needs to stop worrying about what others think and start understanding what the American public wants. Safety!

However, with President Obama losing this battle, the American public needs to fully understand what the implications are should we allow these 240 detainees, which no other country will take off our hands, into our country. It is not meant to scare the public but it should.

#1 ~ If we allow these 240 plus detainees into our federal court system, we may not like the outcome. Say for instance that one of our federal judges finds several of these individuals innocent due to no real evidence beside them being on the battlefield fighting our troops. What happens when they are declared innocent?

They will be set free onto the streets of America. That is a scenario I do not believe anybody who lives in New York would like to envision. Once free, it is almost a certain that they will find other Muslim extremist who see and believe just as they do. They believe it is their jihad against America and will find a way to strike back.

Take the case of Abdullah Mehsud. He was captured in Afghanistan. He was detained at Guantanamo and hid his identity for two years. What we didn't learn was that Abdullah Mehsud was actually second-in-command of a Pakistani Taliban group.

After he was set free, he kidnapped two Chinese engineers and killed one of them. The engineers were working on a hydroelectric dam. Just the type you won't on American streets.

#2 ~ What if they are charge with smaller offenses. They will be sentence and confined to a medium security prison. Once in the population, the recruiting will begin. That is a very dangerous situation. These men will someday be release back onto the streets and return to their neighborhoods. I don't think anyone would want that to happen, but it could.

Why should we allow these individuals constitutional rights? The entire reason the Bush Administration sent these detainees to Guantanamo Bay was not the fear of them escaping. It was the fear that a federal judge would listen to their pleas for constitutional right and grant them such.

Personally, I do not see how anyone who is not a U.S. citizen, obtains the rights our forefathers fought for. These are the same individuals who want to destroy our way of life and hate our culture. President Obama has several options to choose from.

President Obama has done a lot of flip-flops of late. Some have even compared him to George W. Bush. During his presidential campaign, Obama denounced President Bush's policies calling them "an enormous failure." Once he took office, President Obama immediately suspended them after being sworn in. Now he has reinstated them.

With his national security speech, the great orator did what he is now famous for, rejecting the Bush policies and placing blame on the last administration. He claims to have undone the evil Bush agenda and we all know the truth. President Obama is a master manipulator. He has this down to an art.

First he always claims the Bush policies were wrong and have caused all these problems. Next, he talks about how he has some how changed the policies for the better without really changing much at all. Then secretly he adopts Bush's policies. Chronic flip-flopper, who is similar to John Kerry.

The same thing happened with the flip-flop on military tribunals. He was against it, now he is for it. Jumping ahead of yourself before you know the facts landed President Obama in this mess to begin with.

#3 ~ Once they are allowed on American soil, these detainees will be allowed to use our system to their advantage. The rules of law will almost certainly be used against our prosecution of these individuals. Defense lawyers in New York City are licking their lips in anticipation.

As our President stated "we will give detainees greater latitude in selecting their own counsel." I'm sure some of his liberal lawyer friends from Harvard have already began preparing their defense of such law-abiding individuals.

What if the judges disallow evidence collected under coercive interrogation? This has already happened at one such military tribunal. Under these existing rules, military judges dismiss charges against an al-Qaeda operative, Mohammed al-Qahtani.

It is a sticky situation that President Obama put himself in. Without a plan, his own Democratic Party will not allow funding to close down Guantanamo prison. When you have Sen. Harry Reid, a democrat from Nevada and Senate Majority Leader, come out and state that he wanted no Gitmo detainees on American soil, not even in our jails, you know things are going wrong for Obama.

Finally, we are seeing bipartisanship. The majority of our elected leaders, as well as the majority of citizens, do not want to see the closure of Guantanamo Bay. To use his own words against him, Mr. Obama's statement of "We're cleaning up something that is, quite simply, a mess," is exactly what he has. A huge mess!