Does President Obama’s Plan to “Degrade and Destroy” ISIS Include Releasing GITMO Detainees?
Even in the midst of an all out war with ISIS’s jihadist army in Iraq and Syria, President Obama is still insistent on closing GITMO, even if it means releasing more detainees.
There is no way around it; this is a fundamentally flawed and devastatingly dangerous strategy.
GITMO detainees would be blue chip terrorist recruits for ISIS, both for morale and strategically.
President Obama has made it clear since Day One that closing GITMO was one if his top priorities as President, issuing an Executive Order to clear the way. Yet reality set in. It has been politically and logistically impossible, not to mention foolish.
Congress has banned the transfer of GITMO detainees to America, but White House officials suggest that President Obama is yet again looking to find away around this. He has two options, defy Congress or release the detainees elsewhere. He appears to be considering both.
A shocking article the Wall Street Journal reports:
The administration hopes to tamp down controversy by reducing the inmate population by at least half through quickly transferring Guantanamo detainees cleared for release.
On Thursday, Estonia, which Mr. Obama visited last month, announced it would accept one detainee. Officials said additional transfers are in the works.
That’s right half the GITMO detainees could be released to other countries. We know from the past that many of these detainees will end up back on the battlefield.
Where are they likely to show up? With ISIS. Like these detainees, ISIS’s own leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was once in U.S. custody. Upon release, he issued these infamous words, “See you guys in New York.”
President Obama says it is our mission to “degrade and destroy” ISIS. How can we possibly accomplish this mission if our Commander-in-Chief is more focused on releasing future jihadist commanders than actually stopping ISIS from, for example, taking over a major Kurdish city in Syria and slaughtering its people?
We can’t.
Closing GITMO won’t help defeat ISIS. ISIS and other radical jihadists won’t lay down their weapons because President Obama closes this detention facility, despite President Obama’s wishful thinking. It just doesn’t work like that. In fact, closing GITMO right now will only make ISIS stronger.