Althouse: Said Ali al-Shihri, freed from Guantánamo, sent to Saudi Arabia, is now the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch.

January 23, 2009

Said Ali al-Shihri, freed from Guantánamo, sent to Saudi Arabia, is now the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch.

We learn this on the day that President Obama announces that he's closing Guantánamo — by a year from now, following some plan that he either hasn't figured out yet or won't tell us.

Was that announcement a sop to his fans, subject to change as he discovers "new circumstances," like the way Said Ali al-Shihri, freed from Guantánamo, sent to Saudi Arabia, is now the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch?

Hey, don't be too hard on Obama. It's Bush that let al-Shihri go.

54 comments:

josil said...: How many lives will this cost?; 1/23/09, 1:05 AM
Joe M. said...: "... following some plan that he either hasn't figured out yet or won't tell us."

A secret plan! I thought this administration was supposed to be all about transparency.

In any case, this and his posturing on Iraq will come to the same end: "um, sorry guys. You know--practical considerations ..."; 1/23/09, 1:24 AM
Chip Ahoy said...: Horse, I'd like to introduce you to Cart. Here, what you do is, get back here and push.; 1/23/09, 1:46 AM
airJackie said...: What would someone do if they were held and tortured for all these years. Do you really think people will say oh thank you Mr. Bush for locking me up like an animal and torturing me. I promise I will obey the rules and orders of the United States as our sole Leader. I will become a Christian and give the US my land and work for America.

Now I wonder what America would do if this happen to Americans? We talk respect and values yet our actions are different. We demand that countries who commit crimes against Humanity be charged. We are a Christian country that followes the word of God or at least the the lip service we give out to others.

People will do exactly what the slaves did as they were beaten into submission. You can't kill or torture people to change to be what you want. President Obama is right we have to first respect and listen as we grow to work together.; 1/23/09, 1:51 AM
Chip Ahoy said...: It is about transparency. You can see right through it.

Here's the thing; turning back the tides and harnessing the sun involves a bit of trickery.

The tide being recovering our national reputation by reclaiming moral high-ground, which is said to have been forfeited. Forfeited from people who claimed to care. They don't care. They never did. What they cared about was expressing displeasure and making noise and having that validated. Schwing, poof. Magically gone.

Harnessing the sun meaning to continue to make all the advances that we already were making, instead this time under a different administration and with a generally improved over arching driving attitude.; 1/23/09, 1:57 AM
Chip Ahoy said...: airJackie, your question is ridiculous.; 1/23/09, 1:59 AM
Cedarford said...: A letter arrives in the Yemeni capital, adressed to Said Ali al-Shihri care of the head Mullah in Sana.

Dear Said,

Just thought you would like to know that your wife was a whore screwing all the Jewish and Gentile attorneys at the ACLU who were working so hard to free you. Who first defiled her by getting her drunk and feeding her BLTs - which she pronounced "delicious". She also did what we call a "train" on NYTimes reporters covering the case - all atheists, pagans, or Jews.
One of your trusted ACLU attorneys also peed on your Qur'an while you were out of your cell.
Ha! Ha! Since you are so stupid you did not know that 3 of your Yemeni-Saudi cellmates were informers for the American Devil, we feel pretty safe that you lack the brains or balls to pay a visit to us or the NY Times.

Yours with Allah...

hah! Just kidding, you
fool! The stuff about
Allah and his creepy
Prophet, at least..

Hyman G. Shorenstein
NYC ACLU Terrorist Rights
XXX Lexington Ave
NYC, NY

PS - Tell your fellow Jihadis coming to the US for trial that we eagerly look forward to defiling their visiting women and corrupting their children.; 1/23/09, 2:35 AM
Host with the Most said...: Chip, you are again dead on.

Thank you for cogently expressing the reality of human nature in today's world.; 1/23/09, 2:36 AM
Gahrie said...: Long recitation of supposed tortures to an internee at Gitmo followed by: Now I wonder what America would do if this happen to Americans?

IF?

Lady, Americans are tortured and brutalized routinely by our enemies! It is the very fact that we don't routinely torture and murder our captives (and prosecute and punish those who do) that makes us different from the primatives who oppose us.; 1/23/09, 3:01 AM
AllenS said...: air--

Google Daniel Pearl.; 1/23/09, 5:32 AM
Michael Haz said...: "... following some plan that he either hasn't figured out yet or won't tell us."

Consistent with the balance of the Obama program.; 1/23/09, 6:00 AM
EnigmatiCore said...: I am sure that the only reason Said is now working with Al Qaeda is because either we waterboarded him or he took offense to some other treatment of him and his fellow detainees. Had we not created his new persona in Guantanamo, he'd probably be driving an ice cream truck, bringing cool refreshment to Yemeni children.

I always loved Good Humor Strawberry Shortcake bars.; 1/23/09, 6:40 AM
Anonymous said...: What would someone do if they were held and tortured for all these years.

Go back to his old job, apparently.; 1/23/09, 6:54 AM
Simon said...: And people complained about Scalia pointing out precisely this in Boumedienne!; 1/23/09, 7:29 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: Now I wonder what America would do if this happen to Americans?

You evidently are unaware of what happened to Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl.

Or simply don't give a shit.; 1/23/09, 7:29 AM
Anton said...: Obama spy choice won’t call waterboarding torture.

Of course he won't.; 1/23/09, 7:46 AM
Tibore said...: Wait, wait, wait... if the closing was just a flat closing and release of all the detainees, then I'm 100% against that, and few people will be louder than me with the complaints. But I thought I read that the prisoners would still be put on trial, just in some other forum than the Guantanamo tribunal. Did I misread that? If that's the case, if the detainees are just going to walk, then I am indeed against this idea. But if the closure is just a symbolic one, and the captured individuals are simply going to be detained elsewhere and put on trial elsewhere, then I'm still sore at the symbolism - I mean, really freakin' sore, because it is really just an act for show - but I'll accept it for expediency's sake.

The key is whether or not the detainees will be released or put on trial. If they'll still be confined, then tried, my objection is still there regarding the backhanded slap about policy, but the main issue of what happens to the detainees will be something I can live with.; 1/23/09, 7:49 AM
George M. Spencer said...: Heard on NPR a few days ago that at its peak Guantanamo had about 750 inmates.

That's down to about 250, as the "easy" cases to decide have been decided.

Another 50-60 are scheduled to be "let go" soon.

That leaves about 200 truly tough cases to settle.

Wherever they're sent, it will be a worse place than they are now. And whatever replaces waterboarding, which was only used three times, will be equally dreadsome or worse.; 1/23/09, 7:55 AM
waterdarling said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/23/09, 8:02 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Obama just has to knuckle down a bit. He may have to give up some leisure time. For instance, it's hard to find time for the gym when one has a very tough, very demanding job.; 1/23/09, 8:04 AM
waterdarling said...: He won't call it torture, so employees of the CIA taking orders from Bush's Negroponte, don't get prosecuted...

"There will be no waterboarding on my watch. There will be no torture on my watch," Blair said, refusing to go further.; 1/23/09, 8:05 AM
Michael Haz said...: Well, since they are obviously being wrongly held, I believe the only rightful thing to to would be to release them on a work-release program of some kind in order that they can return to being productive members of society.

Perhaps a program located in, say, the Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's south side. Heck, I'd even bet that there might already be a rehabilitated terrorist or two in that neighborhood who could serve as exemplary role models, and maybe even get some grant money to fund the program.; 1/23/09, 8:10 AM
garage mahal said...: That's down to about 250, as the "easy" cases to decide have been decided.

So Bush set free 500 hardened terrorists? WTF? Has he not heard of Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl?; 1/23/09, 8:22 AM
Bob said...: This simply can't be true. All those interned at GITMO were innocent goatherders. I heard that repeatedly on NPR.

On a different note, the US military today noted that there have been no new goatherders detained again this week. Continuing the trend of the past several weeks where no new AQ suspects have been reported captured. Later in the briefing military officials acknowledged that ammo expenditures are trending higher but offered no explanations as to why.; 1/23/09, 8:24 AM
AllenS said...: I don't believe that Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl were murdered by former Gitmo inhabitants. Perhaps if those that murdered these two men had been in Gitmo, they would be still alive. I wonder what their families think?; 1/23/09, 8:38 AM
Floridan said...: As Ann pointed out, this guy was released by Bush (who probably looked in his eyes and saw his innocent soul).

However, no one is suggesting that there will be a wholesale release of individuals held at Gitmo.; 1/23/09, 8:42 AM
Original Mike said...: Don't release prisoners and Garage is pissed. Release prisoners and Garage is pissed. It's almost like the facts don't matter.; 1/23/09, 8:47 AM
Palladian said...: "Don't release prisoners and Garage is pissed. Release prisoners and Garage is pissed."

I think garage is better described as "pissy" rather than "pissed".; 1/23/09, 8:51 AM
Joe M. said...: Harnessing the sun meaning to continue to make all the advances that we already were making, instead this time under a different administration and with a generally improved over arching driving attitude.

Perhaps the funniest part of this is watching the presidential coverage of media outlets: it's a whole new world overnight. It's really quite disgusting.; 1/23/09, 8:51 AM
Joe M. said...: "... the presidential coverage of media outlets."

That was an unfortunate phrase. Let's try this instead: "the coverage of presidential politics provided by media outlets such as the NYT." Not much better, but I'm in a rush. Good day. But need I say it? Every day's a good day now that we have our Fearless Leader to deliver us from evil.; 1/23/09, 8:54 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: Don't release prisoners and Garage is pissed. Release prisoners and Garage is pissed. It's almost like the facts don't matter.

Ideology trumps facts. I remember the Golden Days when garage was on board with us wingnuts decrying The One who was trying to usurp the throne from Queen Hillary.

I'm really concerned about garage now though. He's become such a Obamabot that I think he was waterboarded into subservience. Probably by Rahm Emmanuael himself.; 1/23/09, 9:04 AM
The Counterfactualist said...: We cannot kill someone housed at Gitmo. We can kill someone who has returned to the battlefield.; 1/23/09, 9:10 AM
Bart DePalma said...: Mr. Obama has only three viable alternatives for the terrorists being held at Gitmo - (1) release them to return directly to al Qaeda, (2) bring them into the United States to be detained or released, or (3) release them to third countries like Saudi Arabia where they will be "monitored and rehabilitated."

The courts have and will probably continue to close off the option of transferring the Gitmo detainees out of their jurisdiction to other overseas US detention centers like Bagram.

The GOP is ready to pounce all over Obama if he imports or releases the al Qaeda, so the Administration had hoped to simply shuffle off many of the terrorists to Saudi and other similar countries. However, that option appears to be simply a delayed release back to al Qaeda terrorism.

Mr. Obama, welcome to the real life consequences of your leftist fantasies.; 1/23/09, 9:10 AM
William said...: I've read the back stories of some of the English terrorists. The vexing thing is how so many of them seemed to be upstanding citizens. If they were taken into custody the day before their acts, the left would have claimed hysteria and over reaching police powers. There's probably a lot of false positives in the government surveillance of Islamic militants...It's a vexing problem but we should fall back on the principle that makes America what it is: it is better that one hundred guilty people go free, rather than one Republican win election.; 1/23/09, 9:44 AM
Anthony said...: This was largely a meaningless gesture to calm the loony left base and get some good headlines out there, in which the media happily complied. Judging by the news broadcasts I've been seeing, the public will learn that:

1) Obama's really closing Gitmo within a year
2) It's because they're all being brutally tortured on a daily basis
3) They assure us it will make us safer because everyone in the world will like us again

Doesn't have to be any there there, just get the nice headlines and then let things sit mostly as they are.; 1/23/09, 10:14 AM
holdfast said...: "We cannot kill someone housed at Gitmo. We can kill someone who has returned to the battlefield." with a GPS tracker up his ass.

There, I fixed it for you.; 1/23/09, 10:24 AM
TosaGuy said...: Let us return to this topic on 22 Jan 2010 and see where these 250 D-bags are located.

My guess either in Gitmo or a place very much like it.

If one of these 250 is released and later kills American civilians, Obama is done.; 1/23/09, 10:34 AM
Craig Landon said...: Does the place name ALCATRAZ ring a bell?

Nancy Pelosi could keep an eye on them off her back porch.

I'd also like to see their faces on the delivery boat ride.

"Can any of you guys swim?"; 1/23/09, 10:38 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: They assure us it will make us safer because everyone in the world will like us again

I miss the Clinton days when Islamofascist terrorists were simply a nuisance and the French were our friends.; 1/23/09, 10:40 AM
Sloanasaurus said...: Obama has been pretty smart so far. He has taken step 2 in letting all the terrorists go free and is now supporting a $trillion "stimulus" bill that squanders our future and won't create a single job.

Next i am sure Obama will secure future bankruptcy through some bogus national health care plan.

The $1.5 trillion deficit that we are going to have this year and maybe next year is nearly more than all of Bush's deficits combined. Obama hasn't said who is going to lend us the $1.5 trillion? Maybe he will suck it out of all of us by printing money.; 1/23/09, 10:54 AM
traditionalguy said...: Talk about a nuisance... The office space destroyed in NYC was more than all of the square footage of office space in Atlanta, Ga. Then there was the Pentagon attack and the Shanksville heroe's plane that was headed to the Capitol, and the rest of the Arab world cheers for it. I say we drill for Alaskan oil, keep it, and starve the Sheiks with $18 a barrel oil revenues. Maybe they can enjoy that nuisance.; 1/23/09, 11:11 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Does the place name ALCATRAZ ring a bell?
Yeah, let's put them under 9th circuit jursidiction.; 1/23/09, 11:16 AM
DaLawGiver said...: So Bush set free 500 hardened terrorists? WTF? Has he not heard of Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl?

I'm pissed he set 500 hardened terrorists free too.

I say give them 30 days of food, appropriate clothing, a loaded AK 47 and drop them 200 miles northeast of Anchorage. This way we can see what Palin does about it. That would be fun.; 1/23/09, 11:22 AM
Original Mike said...: "We cannot kill someone housed at Gitmo. We can kill someone who has returned to the battlefield." with a GPS tracker up his ass.

There's an idea.; 1/23/09, 11:42 AM
Freder Frederson said...: I say we drill for Alaskan oil, keep it, and starve the Sheiks with $18 a barrel oil revenues.

You are really brilliant. How exactly are we supposed to drive the price of oil down to $18 per barrel? At that price there is almost no recoverable oil left in the U.S.--or much place else in the world except for the middle east.

Why do you think the oil sands in Alberta have suddenly turned from boom to bust? Oil has to be over $40 a barrel or it's not economically feasible to exploit the resource.; 1/23/09, 12:00 PM
Beth said...: Oil needs to be over $40 a barrel or states like Alaska and Louisiana, whose budgets are based on oil, are so f*cked. So very very f*cked.

Mardi Gras and mooseburger exports don't fill the coffers, folks.; 1/23/09, 3:36 PM
Synova said...: As to what Americans would do faced with years of confinement and torture....

Well...

Years of confinement and torture leaves the possibility of rescue and life... what did POWs like McCain and so many others do? We don't have to *imagine* how we'd behave do we. We have concrete examples, in Real Life, to look at.

As for *now* and our current enemies... what Americans do is save a bullet for their friend, should their friend be captured.

(Sorta kinda like the movie Serenity when a person got taken by Revers. Which isn't all that far off from being tortured to death, dismembered and desecrated, seems to me. Except we're not talking fiction.)

I realize that airJackie is long gone, but when it comes to what happens to Americans captured, having your head sawn off on video is actually on the "quick and painless" end of the spectrum.; 1/23/09, 3:58 PM
Synova said...: Jackie should do some research on how many American and Coalition fighters have been captured by the enemy and then ask herself why it almost never happens.; 1/23/09, 4:02 PM
Anonymous said...: Maybe he's going to release them all and then pop them with a missile, like he did today.

Well played, O! I'm liking you.; 1/23/09, 6:16 PM
Anonymous said...: Maybe he's going to release them all and then pop them with a missile, like he did today.

Well played, O! I'm liking you.; 1/23/09, 6:16 PM
The Drill SGT said...: Synova said...
Jackie should do some research on how many American and Coalition fighters have been captured by the enemy and then ask herself why it almost never happens.

Or why our Medics in Iraq carry weapons in Iraq rather than count on the GC.

As for *now* and our current enemies... what Americans do is save a bullet for their friend, should their friend be captured.

Old as Kipling:

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.; 1/23/09, 7:29 PM
JAL said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/23/09, 8:16 PM
JAL said...: I understand waterboarding was used on three -- maybe four -- inmates (out of 750?).

Some people throw the word "torture" around like we're pulling out fingernails and plucking out eyes with melon scoops or rusty grapefruit knives as a matter of routine.

Book mentioned over at instapundit:
Inside Gitmo: The True Story Behind the Myths of Guantanamo Bay
by Gordon Cucullu might disappoint folks (airJackie).

But yeah ... some of the guys we've released are back in the battle. (And Jack Murtha wanted to give some of the remainder a good home?) So yes, Mr. President & Company have a stinking problem they thought was going to be a snap to fix.

Maybe the libs are finally going to get the idea that some of these guys we have locked up would cut their heads off in a heartbeat if they had the opportunity, the knife, and a video camera. Another plane into White House would suit them just fine.

And when the President and his men figure it out he'll do the Obama Wall. (No: Birth certifcate, Yes: My BlackBerry, No: College transcripts, No: IL state senate records, Yes: Incarceration and maybe even heavy persuasion for bad dudes who want to blow American children and grandmas up.)

And his followers will accept The Wisdom.; 1/23/09, 8:17 PM
developmental said...: Americans are funny.

They say: "torture them, kill them" but then claim that they respect human rights.

They say: "Look at Nick Berg, Daniel Pearl" but forget Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Haditha, the bombings of innocent civilians (weddings, markets, etc...) in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They say: "We support democracy" but call any democracy which isn't pro-American terrorist.

They say: "We support freedom" but when people fight for freedom from American occupation they call them terrorists.

They say: "If they were in Arab prisons torture would be worse" but forget that the CIA sends people to those countries to get tortured.

They claim that torture produces results, even though all the confessions achieved through torture have proven to be fictional (remember the Padilla 'dirty bomb' which disappeared from public discussion as soon as evidence was requested?)

Then Americans are surprised when people around the world consider them hypocrites, criminals and terrorists.

It's interesting: while in Britain and Spain the majority of the population was totally against the Iraq invasion from the beginning, the Americans took a long time to realise it was wrong. Worse, the Americans still don't think it's wrong because it's wrong to go around invading countries simply because you want their oil. They just think it's wrong because Americans are dying. They don't give a damn that over a million Iraqis have died: thousands killed by US soldiers, more thousands killed by American-trained Iraqi soldiers, and thousands more killed by criminals released from prison as a result of the war.

All of those Iraqi lives matter at least as much as the lives of those bankers in the WTC who specialise in destroying economies around the world (they've even been destroying their own economy).

But hey, American stupidity and hypocrisy is nothing new. This blog is full of it, and so are the comments.; 6/22/09, 6:24 AM