Releasing Wolves Among Sheep, Freeing the Guantanamo Detainees is Just Plain Wrong

-By Warner Todd Huston

Since the opening of the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detainee facility in 2002, the Bush Administration has been under constant pressure to close the facility down. The existence of this facility is looked upon as an embarrassment to “freedom,” “liberty” and western ethics by its detractors and has served as a focal point of the anti-war movement the world over. Those against the facility maintain that it does more harm than good in our efforts against Islamofascist terror – if, that is, they even believe there is a problem with such terrorism in the first place. In any case, they want the thing closed down, the prisoners therein either remanded to civil authorities or released, and “civilized” people to denounce the entire concept.

Those who want this to occur are entirely wrong to imagine, however, that anything but harm would come from the act of closing Guantanamo down and we already have ample proof that this is so.

According to a report by Melbourne, Australia’s The Age, “at least 30 former Guantanamo Bay detainees have been killed or recaptured after taking up arms against allied forces following their release.” And these 30 are just those recaptured or those who intelligence sources have identified as having returned to their terror activities upon release, so the number could be even higher.

Lt. Command Jeffery Gordon of the Department of Defense told reporters, “We are aware of dozens of cases where they have returned to militant activities, participated in anti-US propaganda or engaged in other activities.” Lt. Commander Gordon reminded that these detainees had “successfully lied to US officials, sometimes for over three years,” yet here we have anti-war activists who are willing and ready to take the word of these terrorists over that of U.S. officials.

It is painfully obvious that releasing these terrorists caught on the field of battle is an insane idea. It has been proven that they merely go right back to their roles as enemy combatants once we release them. So why do it in the first place? Why restock the manpower and leadership structure of our bitterest enemy by doing so?

The report mentioned above quantifies the numbers for us. “An analysis of 516 Guantanamo detainees found that while there was no evidence linking six of them to terrorist activities, 95 per cent were a potential threat to US interests. This was based on their affiliations with groups such as al-Qaeda, their enthusiasm for violent jihad, their having undertaken small-arms training or having been willing to perform a support role for terrorism.”

But, even with that news, our purported ally in the war against Islamist terror, Britain, is pressuring us to release Guantanamo detainees that hold British citizenship. Yet, even with this foolish request, the Brits have no idea what to do with the detainees who will return to wreak havoc on their very shores.

After New Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government made this outlandish request, Tory MP Patrick Mercer, a security expert, asked: “Will they be free to roam as they wish when they return to this country? Will they be considered for control orders and will they be considered for return to their countries of origin?”

That is a very good question, isn’t it? And it dovetails right in with the point under consideration here. Won’t these people be free to restart their stalled Jihadist careers once released and on their own? Who could imagine they wouldn’t? So why release them to go right back to their nefarious activities?

To the U.S., this experience is not a new phenomenon. We have gone through this situation of releasing prisoners that only go back to the fight before and we stopped it then, too.

During the American Civil War, a practice had been in place whereby POWs from each side would be “exchanged” in a prescribed manner. This was supposed to alleviate either side from having to storehouse prisoners for too much time. While Lincoln never gave his official nod to the practice, as such an action would have recognized the Confederacy as a legitimate power, these exchanges went on none-the-less. But by 1864, once Ulysses Grant had taken the reins of the Federal forces fighting in the east, he stopped the practice.

General Benjamin F. Butler said that in a conversation with Grant the army chief maintained that “…by the exchange of prisoners we get no men fit to go into our army, and every soldier we gave the Confederates went immediately into theirs, so that the exchange was virtually so much aid to them and none to us.”

Grant was 100% right. So, with the lesson learned so long ago, why should we ignore its logic now? The same principle holds true today, certainly. When we capture these murderous, terrorists on the field of battle or otherwise operating against us, why should we casually release them right back into the waiting arms of their friends? Why give the terrorists their fellows back, why replenish their ranks with experienced operatives? We are doing nothing but giving “so much aid to them and none to us,” after all.

By holding them we prevent them from acting against us and from adding their abilities to our enemy’s. By releasing them we get nothing in return but the temporary good feelings of people who don’t like us anyway, people who don’t care a whit if we are further endangered.
We have proof that at least 30 of these people have taken up arms upon release. If stopping the release of prisoners dangerous to our safety, why not take the advice of one of our most successful generals in our entire history and stop this insanely self-destructive action?

It’s absolutely flabbergasting that reputedly intelligent people cannot see this point.

The fact is, we don’t need to close the Guantanamo facility, we need to open more of them.
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Warner Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary, sometimes irreverent often historically based, is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, townhall.com, men’snewsdaily.com and americandaily.com among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a guest on several radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston


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