We Interrupt this Socialization of Medicine to Bring You Abdication of Our National Defense

Quite intentionally, the Obama administration is making so many radical moves on so many different fronts simultaneously that it's difficult to stay on top of them all, much less give them the attention they deserve. But while we argue health care and Iran policy and a civilian trial for KSM and the decision to transfer enemy combatants to a U.S. prison, it's important to notice how dangerously irresponsible the administration's obsession to close Gitmo has become, and how tawdry the Justice Department is allowing itself to appear.

Not content with the Friday bad-news dump, the administration announced on the Sunday before Christmas that it had transferred a dozen detainees out of Gitmo. On its face, this is alarming enough. The Bush administration, it is freely conceded, released many enemy combatants, including many who obviously should have been continued in detention and who have gone on to rejoin the jihad and commit horrific acts of terrorism. That's how we got from about 800 detainees down to about 200. But there's a big difference.

The original 800 included some marginal figures (to hear the Left tell it, all the detainees were shepherds indiscriminately swept up by the Northern Alliance to win bribe money from the CIA). But now we are down to a much smaller core group — detainees whose cases we've had years to study and whom we've held despite enormous pressure to release them. These are the worst of the worst. We have an absolute right under the laws of war to hold them, and when one of them gets sprung it's cause for grave concern.

But the release announced this past weekend is just appalling. The twelve detainees have been transferred to: Yemen, an al-Qaeda hotbed whose government makes common cause with jihadists (and has a history of allowing them to escape — or of releasing them outright); Afghanistan, which is so ungovernable and rife with jihadism that we're surging thousands of troops there (troops the jihadists are targeting); and Somaliland, which is not even a country, and which offers an easy entree into Somalia, a failed state and al-Qaeda safe-haven. At least one of the released terrorists, a Somali named Abdullahi Sudi Arale (aka Ismail Mahmoud Muhammad), was released notwithstanding the military's designation of him as a "high-value detainee" (a label that has been applied only to top-tier terrorist prisoners — and one that fits in this case given Arale's status as a point of contact between al-Qaeda's satellites in East Africa and Pakistan).

And then there is the appearance of impropriety. As Tom Joscelyn explains, the Justice Department has taken the lead role in making release determinations — the military command at Gitmo has "zero input" and "zero influence," in its own words. DOJ is rife with attorneys who represented and advocated for the detainees, and, in particular, Attorney General Holder's firm, represented numerous Yemeni enemy combatants. Does Justice not appreciate not only how perilous but how unseemly it appears under the circumstances for it to be leading the charge to release the Yemeni detainees? And could anyone really believe that the supposedly noxious symbolism of Gitmo is more dangerous to Americans than is deporting terrorists to the places where terrorism thrives?

Dr. Jack Wheeler is editor of ToThePointNews “an online geopolitical intelligence service”.

He has had two parallel careers: one in the field of adventure and exploration as the owner of Jack Wheeler Expeditions; the other in the field of political and economic freedom as president of the Freedom Research Foundation.

Wheeler’s articles are also published by WebNetDaily.

Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
Thursday, 30 April 2009

Paris, France. It is very cool to be a French intel guy. A spectacular meal at a Parisian bistro with $90 entrées and a $200 bottle of Bordeaux? No problem. I’d known this fellow since he got me out of a jam in Sudan years ago. His James Bond days are over, but still, riding a desk for the DGSE – Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure (General Directorate for External Security), France’s military intel agency – in Paris has its decided benefits.

One of them is not being infected with Obamamania. “My agency considers him a joke,” he confides. “Every day there is some fresh lunacy that we cannot believe. Mr. Bush would often make us angry. But at this man we just laugh.”

“In truth, it also makes us sad,” he continued. “French resentment towards America is strong, so being able to laugh at your country feels good. But it is such a sad and strange thing to see America – America The Great! – do something so crazy as to elect this ridiculous man.”

“There are many people in America who think he isn’t a legitimate president as he wasn’t born in the US and isn’t a natural citizen. What do you think?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never had reason to make an inquiry.”

“There are a lot of people convinced he is a traitor who hates America and is actively determined to destroy it. Any opinion on that?”

He didn’t shrug at this. After a long slow sip of wine, he mused, “I would not go that far. Many of his actions, however, are very puzzling because they are so counter-productive regarding America’s best interests. There seems to be a consistent pattern in that direction.”

“What does Sarkozy think of him?”

“Nothing but contempt.”

After a pause he asked, “And Langley?”

“Well, if you thought the war they waged against Bush was intense, it was nothing compared to how they’re going to screw Obama. He has tried to gut them with the ‘torture memo’ release and slashing their budgets. The morale is depressed, sullen, and enraged. You know what a left-wing outfit Langley is. They thought he was their boy and they feel betrayed. All kinds of damaging stuff on him will be appearing via their media friends.”

He nodded. “And in Tel Aviv City?”

He was referring to the huge underground city complex of Langley’s underneath the US Embassy in the Israeli capital. “That’s an interesting question. You know how vast and deep the relationship is there. Langley is making every effort to overcome the total and massive distrust their Israeli colleagues have for Obama, whom they know is selling them down the Jordan River. So far though this effort is in words. The Israelis are waiting to see what Langley does.”

He said nothing. I smiled. “You guys wouldn’t be Langley’s cutout for thwarting BO regarding Israel, would you? I’d never suspect that…”

He continued to say nothing, gave me only a slight smile in return, and poured me another glass of wine. “The Bordeaux is good, yes?” I nodded.

“You know, the French media worships this man the same as yours in the US. All of this ‘100 days’ talk, it is impossibly stupid. Most anyone in the French elite, the business leaders, Sarko’s people, they all know this. They all think this is some crazy joke of the Americans. But it is a very, very dangerous joke. For 100 days your president has been a laughingstock among the tout le monde of Paris. No one may be laughing 100 days or 10 months from now.”

He leaned forward. “The world can go – how do you say – sideways with this man very quickly. No one he has working for him knows what they are doing – possibly excepting Mrs. Clinton – and he certainly does not. All of us in our little community are worried – us, our friends in Berlin, London, Tel Aviv, and Langley too as you say. It is not like the barbarians at the gates. It is every barbarian horde in the world being told there are no gates. The Somalis, Chavez, Iran, Putin, Beijing, the ‘Norks” as you call them, the list is long and it is growing. We are not sure what to do.”

It took me a moment to respond. “The best thing that has happened now is Obama making Langley his enemy. They will be cooperating with you more, be more a part of your worried community. Working together, you can undermine his efforts more effectively, block and maybe even repair the damage.”

It was my turn to lean forward. “Then again, all together you could be more pro-active. The man is a mystery. Nobody can make public his actual birth certificate, or even the particular hospital he was born in, or his college grades, or how he got into Harvard, or how he made editor of the Harvard Law Review and never wrote a single article for it. It goes on and on. He really is a Zero. I think all of you guys should find all of this out and make it known.”

I added, “The quicker the better, before the laughing stops and the real dangers begin.”

“What is that phrase you use?” he asked. “Something to consider?”

I laughed. “Yes, there is much to consider – and much that you can do. I mean, really, if the Soviet Union could be dismantled, so can this presidency.”

It was a beautiful April afternoon in Paris. He walked me back to my hotel. It could be that the times we live in may get even more interesting.

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