OK, sure. We released some really bad guys as part of President Obama's illegal deal with the Taliban. But, hey, don't worry. None of these guys will ever be rejoining their terrorist organizations, and none of them will ever pose a threat again. Right?
Wrong.
According to none other than President Obama, it's entirely possible that the five recently released prisoners will attack us again - once the homecoming parties die down, of course.
The President made the claimed this morning during a press conference in Poland:
"In terms of potential threats, the release of the Taliban who were being held in Guantanamo was conditioned on the Qataris keeping eyes on them and creating a structure in which we can monitor their activities. We will be keeping eyes on them.
Is there the possibility of some of them trying to return to activities that are detrimental to us? Absolutely. That's been true of all the prisoners that were released from Guantanamo - there's a certain recidivism rate that takes place.
I wouldn't be doing it if I thought that it was contrary to American national security, and we have confidence that we will be in a position to go after them if in fact they are engaging in activities that threaten our defenses.
But this is what happens at the end of wars.
That was true for George Washington, that was true for Abraham Lincoln, that was true for FDR. That's been true of every combat situation. That at some point, you make sure that you try to get your folks back ...and that's the right thing to do."
That's very nice, but it doesn't really apply to the current situation, because this war hasn't ended.
Yes, we've announced that we're drawing down our forces. Taliban operatives are free to sit back and wait us out. But we still have 32,000 pairs of boots on the ground in Afghanistan. Even after this year's withdrawl, there will be just under ten thousand U.S. troops in the country - and they'll probably stay there until Obama leaves office.
Already we're seeing that Qatar is allowing these prisoners to move freely about the country - in violation of the terms of the "deal." There's simply no way to be 100% sure that these five prisoners won't be able to harm another U.S. soldier.
Obama may be "confident that we'll be able to go after them" should they step out of line (by which he probably means 'we can always drone them') but that's one heck of a gamble. If just one U.S. serviceman is injured or killed as a result of this deal, Obama will have directly aided our enemy's war effort - and he will have done so without the congressional notification required by a law he signed.
The complete video appears below - the relative segment begins at 2:30.
