The Status of Guantanamo 17 Years In

MY COMMENT: Typical diatribe against the US military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Where to begin? It is NOT a recruiting tool for the enemy. In fact, the enemy has NEVER mentioned Gitmo in any recruiting propaganda, nor is there any evidence that recruits joined the jihad because of Gitmo. Marine BG Lehnert is probably the last person you should have asked about Gitmo. While there he severely undercut the effectiveness of the facility by making sure detainees were coddled and not forced to experience American culture. On his departure day he handed out candy to every detainee in an almost apologetic gesture. He forbade the playing of the National Anthem every morning, and made sure guard towers in the direction of Mecca had signage in Arabic identifying the direction for detainees to pray. Instead of a tiered incarceration environment, which is standard operating procedure for detention operations, he decided that each detainee would be in a separate cell, thereby destroying the opportunity to reward those more cooperative detainees with a least restrictive environment. This also undercut the intelligence gathering operation. Of the over 600 federally convicted terrorists you cite, over 300 have already been RELEASED; where are they now, YOUR neighborhood? If Gitmo were illegal, it would be closed. The authorization for putting ISIS members there who were captured in Syria exists in the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), renewed by Congress each year. Remember, the birth of ISIS took place when detained al Qaeda members, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, were held at Camp Bucca, Iraq, in 2004. Detainees at Gitmo enjoy world class health care, even better than the guards receive, and are given FREE Qurans, prayer rugs/beads, halal and special Muslim holiday meals, white robes, beards, directions to Mecca, services of US military Muslim chaplains, recreation, library, sports, games and books. None of the 730 released detainees were executed, beheaded, blown up, hacked to death, dragged naked and lifeless through the streets, drowned or burned alive, all things our enemies have done to us and/or our allies. Your propaganda on Gitmo only serves to embolden and encourage our enemies, who by the way, still want to kill us. During WWII over 400,000 mostly German lawful combatant POW’s were held in the US without charge or trial as per Geneva and Law of War, “until the end of hostilities.” What’s different now? By law, unlawful combatants earn ZERO extra legal privileges, so should be held until the Global War on Terror is over. Lastly, the Military Commissions Act of 2009, written by President Obama and DOJ Director at the time, Holder, provide virtually the SAME rights to detainees accused of war crimes that you or I would enjoy in a federal court of law. That’s why the process is muddled and moving at a snail’s pace. President Donald Trump should put every high value detainee captured in the Global War on Terror in Gitmo, and keep them there, as per the law, until hostilities are over or they are processed through the commissions. Putting people back into circulation who have sworn jihad against the US and Americans is a suicidal act.