The Patriot Post® · Releasing Taliban Commanders From Gitmo

As I have noted on more than one occasion, progressive ideology is bankrupt, primarily because it is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature as it exists, as opposed to how progressives would like it to be. That being said, if progressives were content to delude themselves and only themselves, I could leave them alone to stew in their own ideological juices.

Unfortunately, president Obama is about to do something so mind-numbingly disgraceful it becomes necessary that as many Americans become aware of it as possible: 18 Taliban detainees, including four “high risk” commanders are about to be freed from Guantanamo Bay prison – simply because that’s what Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants.

The big four are Mullah Norullah Nori, the military commander of Taliban fighters from Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan’s second-largest city; former Taliban Defense chief Mullah Mohammed Fazi; former Taliban Interior Minister Khairullah Khairkhwa; and former Taliban Deputy Intelligence Chief Abdul Haq Wasiq.

All four of these men are considered some of the worst of the worst still imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. All of them were directly involved with al Qaeda while they were preparing to perpetrate the worst domestic attack in our nation’s history. In a better world, a firing squad or life imprisonment would be the only two options offered to every one of them.

But this is not a better world. It is a world where our Commander-in-Chief is willing to needlessly risk the lives of American soldiers – again – based on a premise so absurd, only a progressive could swallow it. To wit: all 18 terrorists will be released as long as Hamid Karzai can certify that they no longer pose a threat. The men must say they are willing to reject terrorism and any further association with al Qaeda.

What evidence of that exists? Not a scintilla of a scintilla, with the ludicrous “exception"of Karzai’s assurances. Hamid recently sent a delegation to meet the prisoners at Gitmo and, lo and behold, it seems these thugs were willing to go along with the program. "We actually sent a delegation three months ago to Guantanamo prison where Taliban prisoners were interviewed,” Karzai told reporters last month following talks with Taliban representatives in Japan. “We want the release of those Taliban figures and we want them to have the freedom to settle where they want.”

I know where I’d like them to settle: the East Wing of the White House goes right to the top of the list. I’m a firm believer in the idea that one should bear the full responsibility of one’s decisions. It’s very much akin to my suggestion in a column a few years back that the psychiatrists who said would-be Reagan assassin, John Hinckley, was deemed fit to be released for overnight visits to his family should spend a night or two at the home of those psychiatrists.

In both cases, one suspects that direct responsibility for one’s actions might temper such idiotic decisions.

Even more revolting here is that these men are going to be freed despite a report from the director of national intelligence that more than one in four of the 600 former terrorists released from Gitmo have gone back to plying their trade, including one Abdullah Gulam Rasoul. He was released in 2007 and quickly became the Taliban’s operations commander in southern Afghanistan. His specialty? Roadside attacks of American troops and organized assaults against American aircraft. In other words, the Bush administration gets “credit” for that blunder.

Which makes this current despicable disassociation from reality even worse, because there’s precedent that indicates exactly where this is going. So why is it still going there? Simple. Combine the aforementioned ideological bankruptcy with bottom-of-the- barrel political pandering – as in this president’s utterly naive promise to his equally clueless leftist base that he would close Gitmo as soon as he was elected – and you have the perfect recipe for self-inflicted disaster.

Except that it’s not self-inflicted. It is America’s sons and daughters who have willingly put themselves in harm’s way who will bear the ultimate brunt of this fecklessness. It is they who will shoulder the deadly burden of a president Obama willing to do absolutely anything to get re-elected, and a thug like Hamid Karzai, who knows he has to play both ends against the middle, lest the Taliban put his head on a pike when they re-assume control of the country following America’s withdrawal in 2014. And make no mistake: they will re-assume control.

For perspective’s sake, it is worth remembering – or, for our more recent graduates from America’s public school system, discovering – that leftist icon Franklin Delano Roosevelt had six of eight spies caught in the U.S. during WWll executed. The only reason the other two were spared is because they cooperated with the FBI, after which they were imprisoned.

Remember that when the mainstream media tells you it’s Republicans who have become the radicalized political party of the last few decades.

Speaking of the media, will this story get the kind of play it so justly deserves? Of course not. As long as reporting about the troops no longer accrues to the president’s interest, for all intents and purposes, they no longer exist. They’re somewhere far away, and we’ll remember them on occasions like Christmas and Veterans Day. In the meantime, the president will buddy up to Karzai and his newest best friends, aka the Muslim Brotherhood.

Down is up, black is white, and our enemies are our friends. If such lunacy only affected those responsible for it, all would be well.

Unfortunately, someone not responsible is going to get his body needlessly shredded by bullets or shrapnel. Someone else’s son or daughter is going to pay the ultimate price for the utter bankruptcy of progressivism.

And that’s utterly despicable.