Obama Seeks Negotiations With Taliban Regarding Gitmo Detainees – OpEd
By Jim Kouri
In what many described as “a deplorable move that could seriously compromise national security,” President Barack Obama’s Administration has shown interest in negotiating a deal to release up to five Taliban prisoners from the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to an “Inside the Beltway” watchdog group that investigates and exposes government corruption and abuse.
As part of “Taliban reconciliation efforts,” the terrorists would be transferred to Qatar, a Middle Eastern Arab state where the militant Islamic group will soon open an office. The Obama Administration is selling “the preposterous deal to Congress by saying that the prisoners won’t actually be released but rather transferred to the custody of the Qatari government and they will remain in jail,” claims Judicial Watch.
The Taliban is a radical terrorist group that rules large parts of Afghanistan and enforces Sharia law, the authoritarian doctrine that inspires Islamists and their jihadism. Just last month the Taliban released a horrific video of the executions of 15 Pakistani soldiers who had been abducted weeks earlier. Incredibly, the Obama Administration believes the terrorist group is reformed and last month began engaging in “peace talks” with Taliban leaders.
While most of the mainstream media has ignored this story, a bimonthly global magazine dedicated to covering politics and economics, published a piece this week on how the backdoor deal is going down. It includes details of how top Obama Administration officials briefed eight senior Senate leaders this week about the pending Taliban “transfer” from Gitmo to Qatar.
The eight senators who attended the briefing were Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senate Intelligence Committee heads Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Senate Armed Services chiefs Carl Levin (D-MI) and John McCain (R-AZ), and Senate Foreign Relations Committee leaders John Kerry (D-MA) and Richard Lugar (R-IN).
The classified briefing took place in the basement of the capitol building and none of the eight senators would discuss details, according to the magazine, but a few spoke before entering the secure briefing room.
Michigan Senator Carl Levin revealed that the briefing was “about the ongoing Taliban reconciliation efforts.” The Democrat lawmaker questioned whether the Qataris can be trusted to keep the Taliban prisoners behind bars. Levin is considered one of the most far-left Democrats in the U.S. Senate by many on both sides of the aisle, according to Foreign Policy.
Calling the deal “highly questionable,” Arizona Senator John McCain said he’s not confident that the Qataris will keep the Taliban prisoners locked up. The Republican lawmaker also noted that at least one of the prisoners was responsible for the deaths of several Americans.
Reports have identified three of them as Mullah Khair Khowa, a former interior minister, Noorullah Noori, a former governor in northern Afghanistan and former army commander Mullah Fazl Akhund.
It’s not clear who the two others will be, though one thing is certain; the Obama Administration’s own Guantanamo review task force has determined that they are too dangerous to transfer. Additionally, U.S. intelligence assessments have concluded that the Taliban prisoners scheduled for transfer are too dangerous to be released.
