al Qaeda

al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Debra Burlingame, Eric Holder, Gitmo, Guantanamo, Richard Reid, Supermax

Revenge of the ‘Shoe Bomber’: by Debra Burlingame (supporting documents, links, more info)

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Today, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed entitled ‘Revenge of the ‘Shoe Bomber’: The terrorist sues to resume his jihad from prison. The Obama administration caves in,’ Debra Burlingame writes:

Last May at the National Archives, President Barack Obama warned that “more mistakes would occur” if Congress continued to politicize terrorist detention policy and the closure of Guantanamo Bay. “[I]f we refuse to deal with those issues today,” he predicted, “then I guarantee you, they will be an albatross around our efforts to combat terrorism in the future.”

On June 17, at the Administrative Maximum (ADX) penitentiary in Florence, Colo., one of those albatrosses, inmate number 24079-038, began his day with a whole new range of possibilities. Eight days earlier [June 9, 2007 pdf file at link], the U.S. Attorney’s office in Denver filed notice in federal court that the Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) which applied to that prisoner — Richard C. Reid, a.k.a. the “Shoe Bomber” — were being allowed to expire. SAMs are security directives, renewable yearly, issued by the attorney general when “there is a substantial risk that a prisoner’s communications, correspondence or contacts with persons could result in death or serious bodily injury” to others.

Reid was arrested in 2001 for attempting to blow up American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami with 197 passengers and crew on board. Why had Attorney General Eric Holder decided not to renew his security measures, kept in place since 2002?

al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Congress, detainees, Gitmo, Guantanamo, jihad, Supermax

Senate Dems block vote, avoid talking ‘about Obama’s Gitmo jihadi dump’

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Senate Democrats took the coward’s way out last night; they blocked a vote that would have prevented the transfer of Guantanamo detainees into America’s prisons. Michelle Malkin has them pegged, “Bok, bok, bok. Another chicken run from Democrats who desperately do not want to talk about Obama’s Gitmo jihadi dump.”

Sen. Jim Inhofe’s office responded to our inquiry by email after the vote:

Senate Democrats today blocked the effort of U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) to consider his amendment that would permanently keep the military-run detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (GITMO) open while preventing terrorist detainees from being transferred to the United States.

“President Obama and the Democrats’ obsession with closing GITMO is confounding,” Inhofe said. “I attempted to get the Senate to consider my very clear and straightforward amendment to the Defense Authorization bill that would have ensured that GITMO remained open and denied the transfer of terrorist detainees to the United States. Polls have shown that most Americans do not want to close GITMO, and certainly do not want these terrorist detainees to be transferred to the United States. A few days ago, my office announced a petition drive to get Oklahomans and Americans to support my effort to keep GITMO open. In that short amount of time, my office was inundated with tens of thousands of signatures to the petition. The fact that the Democrats have blocked my amendment defies the outspoken desire of these Americans.”

Inhofe continued, “The amendment I tried to offer is very similar to S.370, a stand-alone bill I offered to keep GITMO open. I will continue to pursue every available opportunity to achieve legislation that permanently keeps the facility open and closes the door to terrorist transfers.”

To learn more about the Inhofe petition to keep GITMO open, visit here.

As 9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America reported yesterday, since June 30, President Barack Obama has cleared two dozen beds at Supermax for Gitmo detainees.