Posted: 7/30/2007 5:46:40 PM EDT
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INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Monday, July 30, 2007 And Throw Away The Key Editorial War On Terror: The ironic demise of a key Taliban leader in Waziristan escapes the attention of the Democrats in Congress who want to close Guantanamo. Abdullah Mehsud was once our prisoner, released from the camp liberals hate. http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=270684643495490# Mehsud was once one of those innocents wrongly incarcerated and forced to endure such violations of the Geneva Conventions as being forced to listen to the Red Hot Chili Peppers with the volume turned up. He had been captured on the Afghan battlefield while fighting U.S. and Northern Alliance forces during Operation Enduring Freedom in December 2001. Mehsud spent 25 months at Gitmo until his release from such inhuman bondage in March 2004. While out on his own recognizance, he returned to his native South Waziristan, where he rebuilt and led a Taliban cadre estimated at 5,000 foot soldiers. The Pentagon identified him as the leader of the cross-border attacks that have prompted calls for hot-pursuit missions into the tribal areas of Pakistan. Abdullah Mehsud, left, talks to reporters in South Waziristan in October 2004. Seven months earlier, the al-Qaida-linked military chief was released from Guantanamo. He killed himself last week rather than be captured by Pakistani forces. Last week, Mehsud committed suicide by grenade rather than be captured by Pakistani forces during a raid in the southern district of Zhob in Baluchistan province. But why was he there in the first place? Why should we pursue in Waziristan those we once had locked up at Gitmo, where the greatest fear is not torture but obesity? During his three years of freedom, Mehsud waged the Taliban's war on Western civilization, killing untold numbers of innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as American, Afghan and NATO troops. He had returned to the fight boasting of how he had deceived his captors into believing he was an innocent tribesman. Years of liberal hand-wringing has led to the release of others who lived to kill another day. Mohammed Yusif Yaqeb, also known as Mullah Shazada, was released in May 2003 and proceeded to become the head of Taliban operations in southern Afghanistan. He was killed one year later in a fight with U.S. forces. Another example is that of Maulavi Abdul Ghaffar. Released in 2002 after eight months at Gitmo, Ghaffar returned to Afghanistan to become Taliban commander of Uruzgan and Helmand provinces. He helped carry out attacks on U.S. troops in Afghanistan until he was killed by our Afghan allies on Sept. 25, 2003. Mehsud's death reminds us that for the most part, the detainees at Guantanamo deserve to be there. Yes, there may be an occasional innocent among them, but that would only be because jihadists don't wear uniforms or otherwise obey the niceties of the Geneva Conventions. The detainees at Guantanamo were not arrested for shoplifting or auto theft. They were taken prisoner in the middle of a war on terror, most of them after engaging U.S. troops in battle. They are not kidnapped members of the Afghan boys choir, but terrorists of the type that fly planes into American skyscrapers, fill mass graves with fellow Muslims and detonate car bombs that kill fellow Muslims in schools, hospitals and job lines. They, not we, are the bad guys. They should be held, like other prisoners of war, unrepresented by leftist lawyers until the day after we win. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has suggested Gitmo might be closed, with inmates moved to U.S. facilities. We might suggest an underused facility in the San Francisco Bay, where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats could check on the welfare of Abdullah Mehsud's fellow jihadists. |