In a move that put his stunning political cynicism on full display, President Barack Obama has released Fawzi al-Odah from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and sent him home to his native Kuwait.
The terrorist has long been considered one of the most dangerous detainees in the facility, and is believed to have been a close associate of al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden. Nonetheless, Obama released him, putting untold numbers of Americans in danger, before a Republican-controlled Congress could stop him in January.
His release is the first from Gitmo since the Obama administration violated federal law to trade five Taliban generals for accused Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl and comes on the heels of reports that dozens of previously released detainees have returned to the battle against American interests in Iraq and Syria.
The Obama administration considered al-Odah “no longer a threat,” according to Fox News, but recent events prove that the released prisoner retains ties to terrorist groups.
Somehow, a spokesman for the al-Qaida-affiliated Khorasan group, the same group that the Obama administration continues to claim represents a deadly threat overseas, learned of al-Odah’s release in advance and tweeted out an early congratulations to his family.
The precised connection that allowed the Khorasan group to learn this information so quickly was unreported, but obviously the connection exists. The prisoner himself had not been told the date of his upcoming release until “shortly before he boarded the flight” to Kuwait, according to his lawyer.
Held at Guantanamo Bay for over 13 years, al-Odah had previously been deemed “too dangerous to release.” With the advent of the Republican-controlled 114th Congress looming on the horizon, the Obama administration apparently re-classified the terrorist as “too dangerous to Obama’s political career to detain.”
Once again, President Barack Obama has sacrificed the safety of American citizens on the altar of political expediency. Incapable of admitting that his campaign promise to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay was unwise and unfeasible, he is pressing forward with no regard for America’s national security interests.
Jan. 20, 2017, cannot come fast enough.