Close Guantanamo, Release Terrorists For 'Rehabilitation,' Reap Consequences (UPDATED)

Did you think President Bush was keeping these guys in Gitmo for fun?

Maybe to jab Democrats in the eye?

Just because he could?

Rehabbed terrorist continues being terrorist, bombs Americans.

The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda's Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order that President Barack Obama signed that the detention center be shut down within a year.

The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Yemen's capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen.

The lesson, as always: These guys aren't plain old criminals.

You can't treat them as such.

25 January 12:08am BST: And they come out of rehabilitation angrier and more determined than ever to be terrorists, rather than peace-loving, productive, members of society.

Two men released from the US "war on terror" prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba have appeared in a video posted on a jihadist website, the SITE monitoring service reported.

One of the two former inmates, a Saudi man identified as Abu Sufyan al-Azdi al-Shahri, or prisoner number 372, has been elevated to the senior ranks of Al-Qaeda in Yemen, a US counter-terrorism official told AFP.

Three other men appear in the video, including Abu al-Hareth Muhammad al-Oufi, identified as an Al-Qaeda field commander. SITE later said he was prisoner No. 333.

Honestly, I don't think Obama really intends to close Gitmo--that is to say, shut down the Bush administration's "enemy combatants" designation and treat these guys as regular criminals.

I don't think he's dumb enough to just ship them off to Jack Murtha's local minimum security prison. So far, what he's said and done (nothing, yet) on that front has been done to placate the angry lefties.


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NewsBusters: My Latest

First, I explore John Heilemann's claims that loss of liberal pundit support is somehow evidence that John McCain is losing the election.

Liberal Media Bias 'Evidence' McCain Is Losing

Point to the polls, if you like, but don't point to the loss of respect by some idiot lib as evidence of why McCain is doing poorly. If the media ever liked McCain before, it was because he so often went against his own party, which they despised. Now that he stands in the path of their Chosen One, he reaps their derision and hate just like all the rest of us narrow-minded conservatives.

Welcome to the club, John, how does it feel to be treated like a conservative?

Lastly and less interestingly, I examine the deletion of the International Herald Tribune's website. This organization is a sister-site to the New York Times and their failing operation is another sign of the demise of the Grey Lady. Yes, there's a little schadenfreude at work here.

International Herald Tribune Website Joins Dinosaurs

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.