Guest Post By Onan Coca
Whoa.
Retired Lt. Col. Ralph Peters held nothing back on Tuesday night when he appeared on Fox News’ the O’Reilly Factor and laid into the most recent failure of leadership from the Obama administration.
Peters was speaking with host Bill O’Reilly about the recent release of 15 more terrorist detainees from Guantanamo Bay when he uttered the fiercest BURN I’ve heard in quite a while. Read this:
“There’s a formal process which vets the prisoners and determines whether they are ready for release. But that wasn’t quick enough, so President Obama now basically orders the releases. The president has brought tremendous pressure and he wants these prisoners gone. Up to one-third of them have gone back to the battlefield! Lincoln freed the slaves, Obama freed the terrorists!“
Ouch….Ouch….Ouch.
Sadly, Peters is 100% correct for his recent bout of righteous indignation, on the heels of the announcement that President Obama was releasing 15 more GITMO prisoners that had up until now been deemed too dangerous to release.
The Obama administration is facing renewed accusations from Republican lawmakers of putting national security at risk following the release of 15 more Guantanamo Bay detainees — including former Usama bin Laden bodyguards and Al Qaeda bomb experts — as the Pentagon works to fulfill the president’s vow to shutter the camp by the end of his term…
The newly announced transfer of 15 detainees – 12 Yemenis and three Afghans – to the United Arab Emirates marks the single largest release under the Obama administration.
With five months remaining in President Obama’s term, the transfer is the latest effort to shrink the prison camp’s population as part of the president’s goal to shutter the facility.
But there’s a problem. See, as Peters implies, we’ve learned over the last few years that most of the terrorists we are releasing from GITMO are going right back to terrorism when they get back to the Muslim world.
A senior Pentagon official said Wednesday that the release of detainees from the U.S. military’s prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has led to American deaths, though he did not provide any specific examples.
Paul Lewis, the Defense Department’s special envoy for Guantanamo closure, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee under questioning that “unfortunately, there have been Americans that have died because of Gitmo detainees.”
(…)U.S. officials have said previously that detainees were involved in some operations that killed Americans, including the 2011 attacks in Benghazi, Libya. But Lewis’s comments Wednesday led to new calls to keep the prison open and keep its most hardened detainees there.
Here’s what a few Republican leaders had to say about the ridiculous decision to purposefully make this world a more dangerous place.
“It is unconscionable that this administration continues to release known terrorists. Several terrorists released by the Obama administration have returned to the battlefield and re-engaged in attacks against coalition forces and our allies. The administration continues to put our national security at risk in misguided attempts to fulfill campaign pledges and to cement the President’s legacy.” — Senator Richard Burr (R-NC)
“It is reckless for the administration to continue to release terrorists like these to fulfill a misguided campaign promise to empty and close Guantanamo… The terrorists this administration just released include individuals who fought on the frontlines against U.S. and other coalition forces, targeted U.S. personnel with explosives, served as bin Laden bodyguards, and acted as al Qaeda IED experts.” – Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH)
“President Obama is more focused on releasing hardened terrorists than capturing new ones — a reckless policy that is putting America and the West at risk. We are a nation at war, and our commander in chief shouldn’t be handing back operatives to the other side… Even more shocking, the administration has admitted that Americans have been killed by these released detainees. And now the president is giving more terrorists a one-way ticket back to the battlefield.” – Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX)
“In its race to close Gitmo, the Obama administration is doubling down on policies that put American lives at risk.” – Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA)
“The Clinton-Obama plan to close Gitmo and release terrorists will harm America’s national security.” – The Donald Trump Campaign for President
See Below for the full O’Reilly – Peters interview:
