America Already Less Safe Under President Obama: Terrorist detention center in Guantanamo Bay to close

by Francisco Gonzalez ~ January 23, 2009

On his third day in office, President Barack Obama signed executive orders to close the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba within one year. “Gitmo” has become a source of controversy for how the United States holds and treats terrorists caught on the battlefield.  In addition to this, Obama’s other executive orders shuts down secret overseas CIA prisons, review military war crimes trials and bans the harshest interrogation methods. 

While President Obama is fulfilling a campaign promise and is trying to freshen up the United States’ image to the rest of the world, his actions on his third day in office are putting the lives of all Americans at risk. It is now clear that no terrorists captured on the battlefield will enter the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay and within a year, the 245 plus terrorists currently there will have to depart. But questions remain: where will they go? how will they be prosecuted? If they come to the United States, will they get a team of ACLU lawyers and have full Constitutional rights given to American citizens? What happens if we catch Osama Bin Laden? Where will he go?

There may be much to question about the Presidency of George W. Bush, but the fact remains that since September 11, 2001 there have been no terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. Did Bush’s policies succeed in preventing further attacks? If a terrorist attack happens on Obama’s watch, his reversal of Bush’s policy on the detention and interrogation of captured terrorists may come to haunt him. More than 60 of the terrorists that were previously captured, detained at Guantamo, and subsequently released (during the Bush Administration), were captured again - on the battlefield.