Adam Brickley
The Weekly Standard
December 21, 2009
The Department of Justice announced Sunday that 12 detainees from Guantanamo Bay would be repatriated to Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somaliland.
That we are sending these people back to largely-lawless Afghanistan and terrorist-hotbed Yemen is bad, bad news. However, it’s the third country mentioned that’s really bothersome.
Technically speaking, Somaliland does not exist.
Don’t get me wrong — the Republic of Somaliland is a very real entity. It has a government that has been functioning relatively smoothly since declaring independence from Somalia in 1991. The problem, however, is that every nation on Earth (including the U.S.) recognizes the area as a non-independent part of Somalia. There are no diplomatic ties between Somaliland and…well…anyone, and the government is universally viewed as illegitimate.
And we are going to trust these people with two jihadist detainees from Guantanamo Bay?
The only conclusion that one can draw from this story is that President Obama and Attorney General Holder are so desperate to clear out Gitmo that they are willing to do absolutely anything to accomplish their goal — including the handing dangerous prisoners to a “country” that they themselves will not recognize.
The rest is here.
