Back To Obama's Bizarro World - GITMO Not Al Qaeda at Fault

Update: Columnist Charles Krauthammer has penned another brilliant analysis of the president’s misguided thinking regarding our jihadist enemy. For whatever reason, Obama is obsessed with our terrorist prison, rather than the root cause of jihad – fundamentalist Islam. If we padlocked and fumigated GITMO tomorrow, the jihadists would not lay down their arms. Krauthammer continues on that theme and offers this informative background:

“Jihadism’s list of grievances against the West is not only self-replenishing but endlessly creative. Osama bin Laden’s 1998 fatwa commanding universal jihad against America cited as its two top grievances our stationing of troops in Saudi Arabia and Iraqi suffering under anti-Saddam sanctions. Today, there are virtually no U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. And the sanctions regime against Iraq was abolished years ago.

. . . Ayman al-Zawahiri often invokes Andalusia in his speeches. For those not steeped in the multivolume lexicon of Islamist grievances, Andalusia refers to Iberia, lost by Islam to Christendom -- in 1492. This is a fanatical religious sect dedicated to establishing the most oppressive medieval theocracy and therefore committed to unending war with America… You’re going to change that by evacuating Guantanamo?”

Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families: If the president really believes his own rhetoric, things are worse than I thought. At yesterday’s “get tough” press conference, President Obama once again exposed the bizarre logic that dominates leftwing thinking and turns reality on its head. Believe it or not, our commander-in-chief actually said, and I quote:

“Finally, some have suggested that the events on Christmas Day should cause us to revisit the decision to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. ...But make no mistake: We will close Guantanamo prison, which has damaged our national security interests and become a tremendous recruiting tool for al Qaeda. In fact, that was an explicit rationale for the formation of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.”

Let me see if I understand the president correctly: Because Al Qaeda was using our terrorist detention facility as a recruiting tool, we must shut it down. When did the United States of America start taking orders from Al Qaeda? And is it plausible that some young Yemeni man heard about Guantanamo Bay for the first time and said, “That’s it! I’m going to blow myself up to punish the infidel Americans for locking up Muslims in Cuba”? I don’t think so.

If Guantanamo Bay is such a major cause of terrorism, why does the president think Al Qaeda attacked us on 9/11? There was no GITMO on the day the World Trade Center towers fell. There was no GITMO on the day the towers were first attacked in 1993. There was no GITMO when the USS Cole was bombed in 2000. There was no GITMO when our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were blown up.

If GITMO really is a terrorist recruiting tool, how much sense does it make to relocate our terrorist detention facility to American soil? And if Barack Obama really believes that a terrorist prison creates more terrorists, then what are we supposed to do with them? (I have my own ideas!)

I hate to break it to you, Mr. President, but even if you pad-locked and fumigated GIMTO tomorrow, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula would not abandon its jihad against the West. And shutting GITMO in response to anything Al Qaeda says will only be interpreted by our enemies as weakness on our part and a victory for them. No, Mr. President, the prison is not the problem. Radical Islam is the problem. Stop bowing to our enemies!

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Tags: al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Gary Bauer, Gitmo, Islamic terrorism To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!