Friday, January 23, 2009

From Gitmo to Al Qaeda

NYTimes reported The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year.
Obama is going to be blamed if an attack happens after he undoes anything Bush did to protect the country for 7 years, but especially if it is done by someone he let free.
The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists
The program does not teach them Jihad is wrong, just not to do it in Saudia Arabia, so he went to Yemen.
before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen.... Almost half the camp’s remaining detainees are Yemenis, and efforts to repatriate them depend in part on the creation of a Yemeni rehabilitation program — partly financed by the United States — similar to the Saudi one.
Is it foing to teach them that Jihad is bad, or just not to do it in Yemen, and will it be ok to then do it in Saudia Arabia, or will both countries be off base? Maybe we should have been running a training session while they were in Gitmo that said don't attack the US.
Saudi Arabia has claimed that no graduate of its program has returned to terrorism.
In Saudia Arabia.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

"Saudi Arabia has claimed that no graduate of its program has returned to terrorism.

In Saudia Arabia."

Great point. I figured Obama would focus on what he campaigned to do (domestic issues like credit crisis, housing, and something he said about wireless internet- which I think is awful as well, but for another time).