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Hernando Today

Terrorism Will Erupt With Iraq Pullout, Gitmo

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By JOHN HERBERT

Hernando Today

Published: March 11, 2009

Updated: 03/11/2009 05:21 pm

Chalk up two for the bad guys. A fresh pair of presidential orders will force our withdrawal from the battlefields of Iraq by next year and may close the Guantanamo detainer base even sooner. Nothing like tipping your hands (and strategic timetables) to an undefined, rag-tag, multi-national enemy.
How times have changed! One of the major strategic boo-boos was unveiled when TV hair lip and amateur war correspondent Geraldo Rivera was caught sketching as-yet undisclosed American war plans in the sands near Baghdad. I thought "embedding" reporters with combat troops would be a brilliant move toward journalistic openness and candor but, after the Rivera incident, I'm not so sure.
What's worse, the Iraqi government is not only going along with the withdrawal timetable, it's actually promoting it. We should be telling Baghdad to sit down, listen and realize they're far from ready to go it alone. And that you shouldn't forecast exact battle plans to the enemy, even if we don't know precisely who they are.
Now, al-Qaida can relax, recruit, retrain and rearm in anticipation of the American exit. Then you'll see an unparalleled wave of suicide bombings along the bloodstained streets of Iraqi cities. Plus feeble calls from Baghdad for immediate outside help. The Iraqis won't be able to handle the pending mayhem. Their young cops and troops have already shown us their readiness to turn and run at the first trace of blood.
A side question: When are we going to absorb the opinions of our leading officers and troops on the ground "over there?" Seems to me their "live" judgment has been sacrificed for a few cheap-shot campaign promises.
The young American government has also tipped its hand by looking into the closing of the Guantanamo detainee camp. An initial deadline has been set at 120 days for things to start rolling (or shutting down). Guantanamo has been an ideal American solution for holding undefined enemy combatants until the current war on terror is more or less over.
The Washington Post recently headlined that "the war on terror is over." That's a trifle too much liberal hyperbole. The war won't be over until we can figure out what to do with almost 200 remaining detainees still imprisoned at the base. That's not going to be easy.
For simple starters, the terrorists don't wear uniforms or report to any structured national command. They violate the rules of war, as defined by the Geneva Convention, by targeting civilians and looking just like civilians themselves.
There are four principal warnings that a terrorist is still a terrorist: 1.) They've attended a terrorist training camp; 2.) They've stayed at an Islamist guesthouse with shuttles to and from the front or training; 3.) Done recruiting work in the Middle East; and 4.) Engaged in hostilities somewhere in the world.
What bothers me is most countries would say, "We've detained these guys legally. We can hold them." Furthermore, we should be able to detain them as long as there's a war going on. And that could be for the next 10 to 20 years.
About half of Guantanamo's remaining 200 prisoners will ultimately be released to countries we can trust, like Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. Sadly, some 60 are already back on the battlefield where they're still blowing up civilians.
One released terrorist suspect was recently returned to his home in Great Britain. On freedom, his remarks were puzzling. "I have been through an experience that I never thought to encounter in my darkest nightmares," he told the media. What about all those civilian bloodstains he and his cohorts have left on the supposedly pacified streets of Baghdad?
Nice guy.
Last year, the same suspect was accused in a plot to fill U.S. apartments with gas and blow them up. The charges were later dropped after proof was judged inadequate.
As one former Guantanamo officer observed on the possibility of shutting down the extraterritorial Cuban base, "Saying it is a lot easier than doing it."

A regular columnist for Hernando Today, John Herbert lives in Spring Hill.

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