OPINION:
The U.S. military reached the grim count of 2,000 deaths, less than three weeks after the incident in Benghazi, Libya. Ex-Gitmo detainee Abu Sufian Bin Qumu led the “self-evident” terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate that killed four Americans including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.
Team Obama didn’t mark the occasion by capturing or killing Bin Qumu. They also didn’t hold a memorial service to honor the ultimate sacrifice of 2,000 military men and women.
Instead, they gave Omar Khadr, a convicted murderer detained at Gitmo, a one-way ticket to Canada. This is the same Khadr who pled guilty at a military commission trial in 2010 to killing one of those 2,000 troops, Army Sergeant First Class Christopher J. Speer.
Though outrageous, sending Mr. Khadr back to Canada is consistent with the fantasy-inspired worldview on radical Islam so prevalent in the Obama administration. This mindset results in things like U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice blaming the coordinated, well-armed Sept. 11 attacks on our diplomatic posts in the Middle East on an obscure, amateur video posted on YouTube.
Despite the fact that U.S. intelligence authorities believe almost one-third of the 600 detainees released from Guantanamo are confirmed or suspected of having returned to terrorism, Mr. Obama just named 55 more who are approved for departure.
The latest detainee to leave, Mr. Khadr, is a Canadian citizen of Egyptian-Palestinian descent who hails from Canada’s notorious “first family of terrorism.”
His father, Ahmed Khadr, was one of Osama Bin Laden’s top financiers in Afghanistan and Pakistan, using a network of boys’ orphanages as a charity front. His brothers and sisters also grew up into al Qaeda, raised with bin Laden’s kids at an ultra-secure terrorist compound outside Kandahar prior to Sept. 11.
Mr. Khadr’s father was killed in a shootout with Pakistani forces in 2003. His brothers have also dabbled in terrorism, including the two eldest, Abdullah and Abdurahman, arrested for al Qaeda-linked activities, and the youngest boy, Abdulkareem, left as a paraplegic in the clash that killed his father. Though he has sworn off terrorism for now, Abdulkareem still can’t keep away from trouble - Canadian police charged him with sexual assault and child molestation in 2010.
Mr. Khadr’s mother, Maha el-Samnah, and eldest sister Zaynab have also drawn the ire of Canadians by praising the attacks of Sept. 11 and slamming their benefactor country for all its “drug addicts” and “homosexuals,” all the while enjoying the largesse of free health care and social services.
Though Mr. Khadr, now 26, was just two months shy of his 16th birthday in 2002 when he threw the grenade that killed Sergeant Speer, a Delta Force Medic, outside the Taliban former stronghold of Khost, his sentence of just eight years is remarkably light. In fact, he’ll be eligible for parole in 2013.
So apparently Barack Obama feels comfortable enough with the Khadr family to let Omar re-join them once freed from Canadian jail as early as next year.
This is a deeply troubling action on Mr. Obama’s part. It’s as if he thinks continued olive branches to radical Islamists will earn their goodwill and trust, and promote peace. A newsflash for him: This approach hasn’t helped one bit with Iran, or with the terrorist organizations Hamas or Hezbollah.
Though he often boasts about killing bin Laden, courtesy of SEAL Team 6, what good is killing one terrorist when your policies let so many other terrorists go?
Now, with Egypt’s newly installed President Mohammed Morsi swearing he will do everything possible to secure the release of the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel Rahman, from prison in North Carolina, it is conceivable that Mr. Obama just might accommodate him.
Never mind that Mr. Rahman was the cleric who urged Ramzi Yousef, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s nephew, to bomb the World Trade Center in 1993 and issued the fatwah bin Laden used as a pretext for the Sept. 11 attacks.
Never mind that the Ikhwan — a.k.a. Muslim Brotherhood — a widely recognized terrorist organization for decades up until last year, now rules Egypt. Mr. Obama wants warm relations through donating continued billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars, which explains why the Brotherhood visited the White House earlier this year. The Ikhwan like Mr. Obama. They should, since they owe him big time. If not for Mr. Obama pushing our long-term ally Hosni Mubarak aside last year, they probably wouldn’t be in power now.
So who knows what Mr. Obama’s next moves will be on pursuing justice in Libya, releasing terrorists linked to radical Islam and managing the increasing casualties in Afghanistan. In his administration’s fantasy world, apparently anything is possible.
J.D. Gordon is a retired Navy commander who served as a Pentagon spokesman in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 2005-2009.
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