No Need To Escape ... We'll Let You Walk Out!

 No one could see this coming could they? Is this one of those great moments in time when you can smile at someone and say "I told you so"?


It was reported in today's St Petersburg Times that a man who was freed from Guantanamo more than two years ago after he claimed he wanted only to go home and help his family is now a senior commander running Taliban resistance to the U.S.-led offensive in southern Afghanistan.


Abdul Qayyum is also seen as a leading candidate to be the next No. 2 in the Afghan Taliban hierarchy, according to two senior Afghan intelligence officials.

According to U.S. intelligence, 20 percent of suspects released from Guantanamo Bay prison have returned to the fight and that number has been steadily increasing. Yes, I know, the "Set-Them-Free" Blowhards can say, "Well, 80 percent don't go back to Afghanistan and fight. They go to New York and become taxi drivers".


Qayyum's key aide in plotting attacks on Afghan and international forces is another former Guantanamo prisoner, said the Afghan officials as well as a former Helmand governor, Sher Mohammed Akundzada. (Not to be confused with our country's Cher).


Abdul Rauf, who told U.S. interrogators that he only had "loose connections" to the Taliban, spent time in an Afghan jail before being freed last year.  (He must have meant the loose connection of wires to the detonator). Akundzada said he warned the authorities against releasing both Rauf and Qayyum.


And so it goes. We continue to treat these prisoners as civilian criminals instead of war criminals. We do not take our two current wars seriously. We treat them as a nuisance and treat anyone that is involved with its continuance as a criminal. It makes a great platform for celebrities to get some TV air time or news print. 


I don't agree with everything that is happening and would make some changes if I were King but I do know a criminal when I see one and I personally have seen enemies to our country. I know how much we are hated in other parts of the world. That's why it is so hard to understand why we hate each other in this country. Left, right, up, down, black, white. We'll always have two sides that can't agree on anything. But why does that make some people actually hate their opponent? 

I can also attest to what it is like to be away from our country for months and months. It stops being fun very quickly. You actually think of so many things that you took for granted everyday. And when you finally return, believe me, you don't take them for granted ever again. 

So as long as we are actually in combat with our troops, let's at least treat the people they are fighting as an enemy of our country and not as a shoplifter at the mall.