American households lost $1.3 trillion in net worth in the first three
months of this year, thanks to declining stock prices and home values,
the Federal Reserve reported last week.
So you may not be able to afford that beach vacation this year. But
your tax dollars — lots of your tax dollars — are being used to
provide terrorists who want to kill you with one.
President Obama announced he would close the prison at Guantanamo Bay
before he had places to put the terrorists incarcerated there, who
cannot safely be released (because they'd almost certainly return to
terrorism), or tried in U.S. courts (because important secrets likely
would be disclosed in the course of their trials).
Americans, by a 57 percent to 28 percent margin, oppose moving those
incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay to prisons in the United States,
according to a Rasmussen poll released May 26. The intensity of public
opposition has caused Congress to pass measures both to forbid the
transfer of Gitmo detainees to the U.S., and to deny President Obama
funds to close the prison in Cuba until he comes up with a plan for what
to do with the prisoners there.
This led to a frantic search by the administration for other countries
willing to take some of the terrorists off American hands. According to
the New York Times, about 100 countries have refused.
The search led to the tiny resort paradise of Palau, an island nation
(population 20,000) about half way between Guam and the Philippines.
It's a former U.S. trust territory that became independent in 1994.
For $200 million in aid, the government of Palau has said it will take
13 Chinese Muslims (Uighurs) off the president's hands. The Uighurs
were captured at the al Qaida training camp at Tora Bora, Afghanistan,
but are deemed by the administration to be eligible for release because
they were training to kill Chinese, not Americans.
The price is steep. It comes to about $15.4 million per Uighur. The
$200 million exceeds the gross domestic product of Palau, which,
according to the CIA World Factbook, was $164 million last year.
Despite the windfall the Uighurs represent, the plan to resettle them in
Palau "has sparked anger among islanders who fear for the safety of the
tranquil tourist haven," the AP reported Friday (6/12).
Four other Uighurs arrived Thursday (6/11) in Bermuda, an island
paradise much closer to us. The consideration offered by the Obama
administration to the government of Bermuda for taking the Uighurs has
not been disclosed.
"Having been raised as an oppressed minority in the hardscrabble
mountains of northwestern China, they will live in one of the richest of
lands — a place with more golf courses per square foot than anywhere in
the world," the New York Daily News said.
The British government responded with "ill-disguised fury" to the
arrival of the Uighurs, the Times of London reported Thursday (6/11).
Bermuda is part of what little remains of the British empire, and London
is responsible for the island's foreign policy and domestic security.
But neither the government in Bermuda nor that of the United States
bothered to tell the Brits about the Uighurs.
The Uighurs are jihadists who at Guantanamo Bay were "known for picking
up television sets on which women with bare arms appear and hurling them
across the room," noted former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Many women in Palau and Bermuda go about with bare arms. But aside from
offending yet again our foremost ally in the world, and draining our
treasury of money we can ill afford to spend, the Obama administration's
Uighur deals probably pose little risk to Americans.
It's his next deal that should have us sweating bullets. About 100 of
the prisoners remaining at Gitmo are Yemenis. The administration is
planning to send an undisclosed number to Saudi Arabia for
"re-education."
The Saudi program has a high recidivism rate. Among its graduates are
al Qaida's current number two in Yemen, and a Taliban leader in southern
Afghanistan.
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