Obama Frees Terrorists Because They Do Yoga

The president’s priority seems to be to empty Guantanamo — at all costs.

Barack Obama will take any measure to empty Guantanamo before the end of his second term. It’s what he said all those years ago, but he has still not managed to fulfill his promise. It is for this reason that he is now applying pressure to release the detainees.

But it’s not going to be an easy task. The legal status of the detainees means they cannot be treated in the same way as other prisoners. Moreover, the American administration wants to avoid too much media attention surrounding their return to their countries of origin, where they risk facing torture and the death penalty. Obama, who is already fiercely criticized by the left for having still not closed the detention camp, can fear a fresh onslaught of criticism.

Priority Number One: Empty Guantanamo

By whatever means, the end priority is to empty Guantanamo. The prisoner swap of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for the five Taliban leaders being held at Guantanamo can also be seen from this perspective. An American soldier has returned home — despite controversy — and a group of Guantanamo "guests" are now homeward bound for Afghanistan. But uncertainty remains: What if these men were to become threats to the U.S. again?

Is a session of yoga enough to guarantee that a dangerous terrorist will be transformed into a calm and peaceful, middle-aged man? Probably not, but the U.S. government seems intent on believing that it is — whatever the cost. Moreover, this is in spite of a report from U.S. intelligence, which revealed how 178 of the 614 prisoners who had already been released from the detention camp have since fallen back into the networks of armed terrorist groups.

Forgiveness for Terrorists

In 2011, Obama set up a body to look at the individual situations of terrorists as a sort of commission to decide on forgiveness — and release. Release requests are made by legal representatives from the military, which the government appoints to defend these terrorists. They must explain the reason why their "clients" should be set free. In some cases, their argumentation is somewhat original. Ghaleb Nasser al-Bihani, 34 years old and a citizen of Yemen, was captured in 2010 in Afghanistan. During his detention, he encouraged a revolt. One of his comrades is the leader of al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia. His lawyer explained that he should be released because he has behaved himself in his role as cook’s assistant in the prison, because he has taken some yoga lessons, and because he has even read the Dalai Lama’s biography. Will this track record be enough to get him out?

Yoga Lessons to Get Out of Jail Free?

Mahmud Abd al Aziz al Mujahid, 33 years old, was the bodyguard to Osama bin Laden, and was captured in 2011. The military explained that should he be released, he would return to Yemen to fight with his comrades. According to his legal representative, this man is actually a calm peacemaker, a man of good will, whose sole aspiration is to become a farmer, work on a farm, and produce honey and milk. Should we believe them?

Ali Ahmad Mohamed al-Razihi, 33 years old, also wants to turn his hand to the labor of the earth as a farmer. He is also a citizen of Yemen, and according to U.S. military, is still a dangerous man. Those following his case, however, describe him as a man of positive attitudes, who says that he just wants to go back to Yemen to work on his family’s fruit and vegetable farm.

The number of prisoners that have passed through Guantanamo is in the hundreds. Some 149 of them are still residents of the camp. Obama wants to end imprisonment for all, except the 16 who were convicted of the attacks on the United States, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the architect behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

Will taking yoga lessons and declaring a desire to become a farmer be enough to get them out of Guantanamo? From the way Obama is going about things, it seems safe to assume so.