Free Republic

AG Eric Holder's Law Firm Represented 18 Gitmo Detainees After Volunteering to Give Them Free Legal Assistance, Filed Endless Lawsuits in US Courts... These lawsuits filed against the American people led to the delay of Bush's military-trials, accounting for the "eight years of delay" the Obama administration has used as justification for the 9/11 plotters being tried in civilian court....... (NRO)- Of all the infuriating aspects of the decision to transfer five 9/11 war criminals to civilian federal court, the one that grates most is the contention that the Obama administration is finally moving forward after “eight years of delay”...

The pressure on Obama continues to build! Wayne Simmons says the “catch and release” policy of the administration has reduced CIA morale to a level he describes as “pathetic, low, horrible.” Here’s the Video Link

KANEOHE, Hawaii — The attempted bombing of an American passenger plane on Christmas Day could greatly complicate President Obama’s efforts to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as lawmakers in both parties call on the administration to rethink its approach. The task of determining what to do with the detainees held at Guantánamo has already proved so daunting that Mr. Obama is poised to miss his self-imposed one-year deadline for shuttering the prison by Jan. 22. But evidence that Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen was behind last week’s failed plane attack will make closing the center even harder...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – As a prisoner at Guantanamo, Said Ali al-Shihri said he wanted freedom so he could go home to Saudi Arabia and work at his family's furniture store. Instead, al-Shihri, who was released in 2007 under the Bush administration, is now deputy leader of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, a group that has claimed responsibility for the Christmas Day attempted bomb attack on a Detroit-bound airliner. His potential involvement in the terrorist plot has raised new opposition to releasing Guantanamo Bay inmates, complicating President Barack Obama's pledge to close the military prison in Cuba. It also...

A growing number of former Guantanamo Bay detainees are said to be returning to terrorism in the Middle East and elsewhere.  The Pentagon most recently released a report in May showing that one in seven former detainees either returned, or is suspected of returning, to terrorist activity. At least two of them have taken leading roles in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the group that has claimed responsibility for the attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas Day.  The Obama administration says it will proceed with caution in transferring any more detainees out of Guantanamo Bay but...

The senior Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee wants no more Guantanamo Bay detainees released to Yemen in the wake of a Christmas Day terrorist attack hatched in that country. “Guantanamo detainees should not be released to Yemen at this time,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in a statement. “It is too unstable.” Feinstein’s warning comes just nine days after the Department of Justice announced the most recent transfer of 12 detainees from Guantanamo Bay to Afghanistan, Yemen and Somaliland. Six of the 12 were transferred to the government of Yemen.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Three senior US senators on Tuesday called on President Barack Obama to stop transferring Guantanamo detainees to Yemen until Sanaa can guarantee that they will not return to the battlefield. Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joseph Lieberman -- the first two Republicans and the third a political independent -- said that such transfers are "highly unwise and ill-considered." Close to half of the 198 "war on terror" detainees still at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- which Obama has vowed to close -- are from Yemen. The senators wrote to express their "deep concern"...

The Detroit bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was linked to a Muslim extremist under surveillance by MI5 while he was living in Britain, it has emerged. The connection was discovered after record checks by MI5 following the attempted suicide bombing on Christmas Day by Abdulmutallab on a US-bound plane. It is feared he had been involved with other extremists while he was a student at University College, London between 2005 and 2008. It has also emerged that the bomber wrote of his desire for Muslims to “rule the whole world” by carrying out a “great jihad” in internet postings four years...

Liberals are being forced to deal with the cognitive dissonance conjured by the inconvenient truth that Mr. Bush freed al-Shiri from detention and Mr. Obama hunted him down and killed him. We support the targeted killing program because it is the only aspect of Mr. Obama's national security strategy that is reaping concrete benefits. The "blame Bush" mantra, however, is simply a way for Mr. Obama's left-wing supporters to avoid asking hard questions about the future of terrorist detainees. Meanwhile, potential reinforcements continue to flow to the region under the president's detainee-release program. On Dec. 20, six Yemenis arrived in...

The failed Christmas day terrorist attack on Northwest Flight 253 has focused much attention on Yemen. In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Sen Joe Lieberman warned that Yemen is likely to become the site of the next American war unless the government takes preventive measures to stop the spread of al-Qaeda. According to Lieberman, a government official in the Yemeni capital of Sana'a told him, "Iraq was yesterday's war, Afghanistan is today's war. If we don't act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow's war." We have since found out that the Fort Hood shooting as well as the Christmas day...

Keying off an article in the UK Times Online about Northwest Airlines flight 253 bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab organizing an antiwar seminar called "War on Terror Week", I did some quick research before the links get scrubbed.From the Times:According to isocnews.com, an online magazine for Muslim students, War on Terror Week at University College London was one of the events of the year in 2007. There was a slick video advertisement for the event, an eye-catching poster and packed lecture theatres for five days of discussions about Guantánamo Bay, allegations of torture and the subject of “Jihad v Terrorism”. The...

Security: Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the attempted destruction of Flight 253 were released from Guantanamo two years ago. The case for indefinite detention has been made once again, and not in Illinois. Sometimes America's chickens do come home to roost. In a statement released Monday, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which counts among its leadership two former Guantanamo detainees, claimed responsibility for the attempted destruction of Northwest Airlines Flight 253. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the crotch bomber, told FBI agents he was trained for his Christmas Day mission in Yemen by top leaders of the group who provided...

Less than two weeks ago, the Obama administration repatriated to Yemen six detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. It was a test. About 90 of the 200 or so remaining Gitmo detainees are Yemenis. The president would like to move toward fulfilling his promise to close Gitmo, and thus to appease the antiwar Left, by transferring most of those Yemeni jihadists back home. ... ABC News reported on Monday that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula — a merger of the network’s formidable hubs in Yemen and neighboring Saudi Arabia — has claimed responsibility for the attack. Hailing Mutallab as a “hero”...

The number of detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay sank to under 200 this weekend with the transfer of a dozen former prisoners in the last day to Yemen, Afghanistan, and Somaliland. One hundred ninety eight detainees remain at Guantanamo. Since President Obama took office, 42 detainees have been transferred to other countries, and one detainee -- Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani -- was transferred to New York City for trial. Over the weekend six Yemeni detainees, Jamal Muhammad Alawi Mari, Farouq Ali Ahmed,Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi, Muhammaed Yasir Ahmed Taher, Fayad Yahya Ahmed al Rami and Riyad Atiq Ali Abdu al...

A Yemeni al Qaeda faction -- whose masterminds had been released from Guantanimo Bay -- claimed responsibility yesterday for orchestrating the bungled Christmas Day terror attack aboard a Detroit-bound jet. Said Ali al Shihri and Muhammad al Awfi were captured in Afghanistan in late 2001, ABC News reported. They were freed from Gitmo in November 2007 and promptly took up arms again against the United States after completing a bizarre "art-rehabilitation therapy" program in Saudi Arabia as a condition of their release. "The so-called rehabilitation programs are a joke," a US diplomat told ABC.

Gitmo recidivism comes back to bite us directly. Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November, 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the Northwest bombing in a Monday statement that vowed more attacks on Americans. American officials agreed to send the two terrorists from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia where they entered into an "art therapy rehabilitation program" and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials....

SNIPPET: "Discussion: I first observed discussion of binary explosives on the al-Firdaws forum in January of 2007. In light of recent events I will post here my archive:" SNIPPET: "Implementation: On Christmas Day, 2009, Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab boards a flight in Amsterdam, bound for Detroit, and on final descent he attempts to set off what was most likely a binary explosive. Thank goodness he either screwed up or had bad instructions, because the chemicals he was working with were evidently quite good."

Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November, 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents. American officials agreed to send the two terrorists to Saudi Arabia where they entered into an "art therapy rehabilitation program" and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials. Gee, who would have expected "art therapy" to fail on terrorists?

Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November, 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents. American officials agreed to send the two terrorists to Saudi Arabia where they entered into an "art therapy rehabilitation program" and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.

Finally something that Barak Obama can legitimately blame on George Bush. ABC is reporting that two of the four leaders who planned the attempted bombing of Northwest flight 253 over Detroit were former residents of the Guantanamo Bay prison. They were released in November of 2007, into the hands of Saudi Arabia who claimed the terrorists could be cured via art therapy (I swear I am not making this up). The Video at the end of this post is a 60 Minutes report on the Saudi rehabilitation program which includes "Art Therapy:"