GITMO Released Saudi Detainees Go Home As VIPs - Get Monthly Stipend
Under an unpublicized agreement between Riyadh and the Bush administration, the Saudis are preparing to repatriate half of the approximately 20 of their citizens who remain at Guantanamo. They have promised that all will participate in the reintegration program, Saudi and U.S. officials said.
Oh yeah, I feel much better now.
For five years, Jumah al-Dossari sat in a tiny cell at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, watched day and night by military captors who considered him one of the most dangerous terrorist suspects on the planet.
In July, he was suddenly released to his native Saudi Arabia, which held a very different view. Dossari was immediately reunited with his family and treated like a VIP. He was given a monthly stipend and a job, housed and fed, even promised help in finding a wife. Today, he is a free man living on the Persian Gulf coast.
The treatment is part of a Saudi “reintegration program” designed to help Dossari, 34, and other former Guantanamo prisoners adjust to modern society and learn the meanings of Islam. About 40 of the more than 100 Guantanamo detainees from Saudi Arabia who have been transferred to Riyadh since last year have been released after participating in the program, and the rest are scheduled to be let go in coming months.
The Defense Department considered more than 90 percent of the transferred detainees to be terrorist threats to the United States and its allies, but sent them home as part of an agreement that Saudi Arabia would mitigate the threat, according to Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman.
Former detainee Jumah al-Dossari (pictured) was put in the “reintegration program.”
“Our goal is to transfer out as many individuals from Guantanamo Bay as we can,” said Sandra L. Hodgkinson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs. “The Saudis have developed a reconciliation program to address the needs of their population, and we strongly appreciate them finding a way to mitigate the threats that these people pose. We believe this is a very, very good program.”
Critics are concerned that the arrangement will simply return some extremists to the streets. Defense officials say about 30 of the nearly 480 detainees released from Guantanamo have again taken up terrorist activities.
Steven Emerson, a terrorism analyst, said the program is intriguing because it is an alternative to holding detainees at Guantanamo indefinitely. But, he said, there is a “major risk” of releasing former detainees into the general population.
“If they are allowed to re-engage in jihad, then I think it’s criminal,” Emerson said. “I don’t always believe the Saudis are doing what they say they are doing. Could it work? Technically, it could work. Would I trust them to become babysitters? Not on my life.”
Under an unpublicized agreement between Riyadh and the Bush administration, the Saudis are preparing to repatriate half of the approximately 20 of their citizens who remain at Guantanamo. They have promised that all will participate in the reintegration program, Saudi and U.S. officials said.
(WaPo)
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“GITMO Released Saudi Detainees Go Home As VIPs - Get Monthly Stipend”
So? Why should the Saudis have a different set of rules than every other demedia darling?
Former disgraced American President Bill Clinton get’s impeached for perjury and is not only awarded a monthly stipend but is idolized by the demedia. And if the argument is; ‘Well, he never killed Americans and was treated golden’, then lets talk aquaboy Ted Kennedy and Mary Jo. Same ideology, same outcome.
Leftists, socialists and fascists screwing up is a badge of honor to fellow travelers and their worshipping demedia in America. How can we expect the Saudis to act any different having witnessed a complicit demedia set the bar so low for our own “VIPs” here at home?
And nothing is going to change until the demedia grows a set, realize they have become the “establishment” they so anathematized in the sixties, drop their servitude to the new leftist dem party and start calling a spade a spade. I’m not holding my breath. Like wanna-be-special Mark Cuban, the demedia have gotten themselves in too deep with creeps leaving no room for a graceful exit.
IMO, the only hope for a world where a few bucketheads can’t continue to screw up the rest of the world any longer lies in the “new media” (such as this site) getting the facts out on the table that might…gasp…actually offer a differing opinion from that of the demedia. Now that is what I call “progressive” you pompous leftist demedia has-beens.
December 10th, 2007 at 11:55 am
Not to worry, the Saudi’s are our allies in this war on terror!! Oh wait, no, that’s not it. These pricks will be back trying to kill you, me, my family and so on until the Allah Express departs the station (sooner than later I hope). No surprise, just disgust like usual.
December 10th, 2007 at 7:02 pm