From the Wall Street Journal


Obama's Gitmo Gambit
Every jihadist in ISIS will interpret this news as a loss of U.S. will.
Oct. 10, 2014 6:44 p.m. ET


Along with news Friday that ISIS was close to seizing all of Anbar province in northern Iraq and that it was taking control of the city of Kobani on the Syrian-Turkish border, came a report in this newspaper that President Obama is planning to close the prison for terrorists at Guantanamo Bay by executive action. The idea is that he wants to fulfill a campaign promise. And also, as the Journal reported, it's an issue he sees as part of his legacy.

As the saying goes, where to begin?

Set aside for a moment the inevitable and probably bipartisan Congressional fury at such an action. The bigger problem is the dancing in the streets this must have caused among the Islamic State jihadists and the rest of what Mr. Obama himself only recently described at the United Nations as "this network of death".


Whether in Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Yemen or elsewhere, every commander and soldier in this homicidal terror network will take the news about shutting down Guantanamo while we are at war as another singular sign of lack of will by the United States and its commander in chief. As with the departures from Iraq and Afghanistan, the Gitmo gambit signifies that more than anything, Mr. Obama wants out.

One can also easily imagine how this news is being met in Turkey, pressed by the U.S. this weeks to move its tanks off the ridge overlooking Kobani and engage ISIS.

The Turks say they will not commit to a ground offensive against ISIS unless they believe the U.S. will be there with them. No one doubts the difficult, complex politics at play in managing the Turks or the rest of the anti-ISIS coalition. Instead of working that problem, however, the White House's energies are spent strategizing a tit-for-tat contest with Congress, which enacted a bipartisan ban on bringing Guantanamo's detainees to the U.S. mainland.

We have supported the President's authority to act as Commander in Chief, most recently over not informing Congress about the prisoner swap for Sgt. Bowe Berghdahl. But by willfully abusing even this authority for reasons of his own politics rather than national security, Mr. Obama risks building long-term bipartisan resistance to this important discretionary power. The unilateral Guantanamo shut-down is a bad call in a bad time.

Everyone (almost) is aware that Obama has made some big mistakes. The closing of Gitmo, due to the reasons listed above, could be one of the biggest. It truly seems the President of the United States is on the side of the terrorists. The press still strains to support him.

7-11 might be running low on night shift cashiers.
Obama bin laden is doin' his thing,
to help out.

From every angle you look at this, you get a WTF!

Maybe he's not planning on a single member of ISIS to survive, so there's no reason to have a place to house and feed 'em.


*Oddly*, ISIS - just like Turkey and Iraq - is also hot for us to send U.S. troops to fight them hand-to-hand on their *home* turf,


rather than continuing to drop bombs on their heads.



Go figure.

From what I gather, the bombs aren't doing much.

The talk is bravado to get more enlistments... which appears to be working well. The closing of Gitmo would help even more!

One thing you can count on is that you can't count on this POTUS to do the right thing..... much less at the right time!

If he had a brain or a conscience, much less ethics or any morality, they'd have to lock them up to keep him from playing with them! .... which may be the reason for his utter incompetence in the first place

Yes, I know. ISIS has been very clear that the bombs falling from the sky aren't going to stop them, as have the Middle Eastern countries who are home to terrorists, so it must be true.


Oh, yeah...and our war machine that likes playing war games (it's kind of a 'job security'-thingy for them, yanno?) also says dropping bombs on their heads won't work

and that we should send some of the personnel that THEY oversee to fight them hand-to-hand.


I don't doubt that teenage boys who enjoy playing war video games think we should send our own troops, too.

Just for the record, the term "boots on the ground" means something completely different to the US than any other country.

Imagine a Turkish soldier walking alongside a number of tanks. This is a powerful combination, combined with artillery, but a lack of body armor and other high tech equipment means he has to get within "bullet" range of the enemy to shoot them. Many soldiers will die. The enemy also has anti-tank weapons such as RPGs.

Compare the above to the US soldier with a fleet of long range "Long Bow" attack helicopters hovering overhead shooting the first infrared signature that moves. Combine that with laser designators who paint any building that looks like it MIGHT hold the enemy so a F18 can blow it to smithereens. There is a reason the free world wants the US to lead the battle.

The US will win.

If the US/CIA would quit creating, funding, training and arming our enemies, we wouldn't have to fight them!

Nahhhh, I'm not misinterpreting "boots on the ground".

CBS has been showing interviews with 'fighters' for Islam; they are very clear: they want us to stop using our high-powered weaponry and come fight them hand-to-hand and face-to-face, like brave men would and stop being so cowardly.

One of them said he'd kill his own father, if he was the one dropping bombs on their heads.

When another was asked if he'll come to the U.S. to carry out terrorist missions if instructed to, he hesitated and then said no. When asked why the hesitation (suggesting that he'd feel an aversion to attacking his own homeland),

he indicated he won't come here because the authorities know who he is, so sending him would be completely ineffectual and a waste of ISIS time and resources.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/american-militant-in-syria-i-was-just-a-normal-kid/

seems His Exaltedness (PBUH) has just gone from Dumb to Stupid!
Guess where he will house the remainder of the GITMO-Inmates?

Hell no they aren't. They are only killing between 1 and 12 terrorists per bombing and the terrorists are gaining more ground and have almost reached Baghdad.

We had a word when I was in school for people like Barry, Pu**ies.

I just wish he would grow a pair of balls.

Even his top officials have claimed Enhanced Interrogation and the Fear of the word Gitmo worked. Hell, Panetta admitted we got the name of Osama Bin Laden's currier using enhanced interrogation like waterboarding.

not sure op but they where building a very high tech prison here in the USA ... also they have now figured... terrorist or others in similar groups ...can all be tried in our court systems ...

Have you considered the Mayhem their Comrades will create in order to free them,if they are housed in the Continental US,and being tried in a civilian Court?

All the Jurors and Court-Officers would be Hostages/Dead Meat!

There are several issues here. The first is the signal sent to the terrorists worldwide as described in the Wall Street Journal piece above.

The second is that, as every poll shows, the American people do not want the prisoners sent to the US for trial.

Because of the second, Congress acted in a bipartisan manner to prohibit such action by passing a law that "not a dime can be spent to do it".

From the Capitol Journal

"Congress on Wednesday passed legislation that would effectively bar the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. for trial, rejecting pleas from Obama administration officials who called the move unwise.

A defense authorization bill passed by the House and Senate included the language on the offshore prison, which President Barack Obama tried unsuccessfully to close in his first year in office.


The measure for fiscal year 2011 blocks the Department of Defense from using any money to move Guantanamo prisoners to the U.S. for any reason. It also says the Pentagon can't spend money on any U.S. facility aimed at housing detainees moved from Guantanamo, in a slap at the administration's study of building such a facility in Illinois.

However, the really BIG issue is the fact that Obama stated that he is going to close Gitmo AFTER Congress has passed a bill to forbid it! This overreaching of Presidential power is what has got his hand slapped by the Supreme Court so many times recently and shows a flat disregard for congressional authority.