Obama and Terrorism - What the Families of Victims Say

On January 22, 2009, President Obama issued an executive order that will close the facility at Guantanamo Bay one year from now and suspend all military tribunals in progress. Since that order was issued, on behalf of FrumForum.com, I have interviewed relatives of Americans murdered by Islamic terrorists. These Americans unanimously agreed that the tribunals should have been allowed to proceed. They fear that detainees will be released to their home countries, where they will escape justice via flawed “rehabilitation” programs. To date, sixty-one of those detainees released from Guantanamo have returned to some form of terrorism; eleven of those sixty-one are now on Saudi Arabia’s most wanted list, and one of those detainees who went through the Saudi rehab program is now a leader of Al Qaeda in Yemen and is also a suspect in the bombing of Yemen’s US embassy. In Yemen, for example, 170 terrorists have already either escaped or been released, including those who were convicted of the U.S.S. Cole bombing. An analyst on Yemen who is working closely with the Cole families, Jane Novak, describes Yemen’s rehab program as a pledge made by the terrorists to Yemen’s president that they are going to refrain from violence. Gary Swenchonis, who lost his 26-year-old son during the Cole bombing, states that if the detainees are released, “they will be sent back to Saudi Arabia where they will go through a Jihad rehabilitation program, then sent back to Yemen where they will return back to Al-Qaeda while over here most people will forget about itÑend of story. Out of sight, out of mind.” The consensus among the interviewees is that this is not an option. John Clodfelter, who lost his 21-year-old son during the terrorist attack on the Cole, sums it up for all by stating, “Everyone seems to be so overly concerned about protecting those people’s rights that killed seventeen U.S. sailors. I mean there is something wrong with that picture if they think more about those people’s rights than the seventeen sailors’ lives that they took.” Some in the Obama administration favor civilian trials for detained terrorists. The former commander of the USS Cole, Kirk Lippold, sums up the difficulty with such trials:

All these families are going to watch these terrorists come to the U.S., come under federal court protection, and the next thing you know, because of the extenuating circumstances, we will have to set them free or drop the charges.  We should not put the families in a position where they may have to watch the murderers of their loved ones be set free… The last thing you want to do is have some poor kid who just finished with a firefight with Al Qaeda have to collect evidence to meet federal judicial standards to prove the guy trying to kill him is in fact an Al Qaeda terrorist.

John Pasquale, who lost a son-in-law on 9/11, points out that Americans should refer to the trials at Nuremberg where the perpetrators of World War II were held accountable. Those trials as well as the trials of the Japanese were not held on American soil. Albert Gauna, whose half-brother died on the Cole, expresses the family’s belief that once a trial is on American soil, the terrorists will have the same rights as American citizens and through some technicality will get away with murder. After many delays the military tribunals for the most dangerous seven of the Guantanamo detainees were just beginning when at that moment President Obama shut them down. John Clodfeller points out that the prosecution of these terrorists should have been completed a long time ago. Joe Holland lost a son in the North Tower of the World Trade Center - a son who had himself become a father only 11 days before. After being picked from a lottery of families, Holland was allowed to view the proceedings of the military trial. He found the courtroom unbelievably modern and pointed out that the proceedings were stopped at least four times a day to allow the terrorists to pray. As he viewed the proceedings, he thought how the terrorists seemed to get better treatment than many Americans. Gary Swenchonis expressed what many interviewed families felt, that after waiting eight long years, to have the trial postponed literally days away from the arraignment, “was despicable… It’s been eight years and his (Gary Jr.’s) murderers still don’t have a trial… These people killed Americans. They want to kill Americans again. They have already said it… We are their enemy.” The terrorists whose tribunals had been ready to commence show no remorse and freely admit their actions. Al-Shibh said that “We are proud of 9/11” while Khalid Mohammed has said “We are doing jihad for the cause of God” and “I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl… For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the internet (they have been removed) holding his head.” Those tribunals that had previously gone forward demonstrated the fairness of the tribunal process. Salim Hamdan (bin Laden’s driver) was found guilty of supporting terrorism and received five years while Ali Hamza al Bahlul (bin Laden’s propaganda chief) was found guilty of soliciting murder and supporting terrorism and received a life sentence. What would the families of terror victims wish to say to their fellow Americans?  Joe Holland feels “they don’t need to break any more family hearts.” John Hamilothoris, a former NYPD officer and a first responder, states that “I had a hard time getting over this… When that devastation happened I felt totally helpless… I will tell you the same thing I told the cops when we were there and going through this, give the people six months and those not directly affected by it will forget.” John Clodfelter states that “We are going backwards in time. We spent all these years getting Gitmo state of the art stuff and now we are going to close Gitmo, down the drain, and stop the military tribunals, down the drain… The Cole attackers didn’t have any problem killing our son and their shipmates.” Professor Pearl, Daniel Pearl’s father, wants “the terrorists punished” and for Americans to realize that Al Jazeera is “our future enemy…they are a mouthpiece for bin Laden.” John Pasquale wants Americans to remember that the terrorists “tried to take our freedoms away from us and should be punished.” Albert Gauna wants the military tribunals to continue because “the terrorists should not have the rights of American citizens.” Gary Swenchonis wants us to remember that “the people they murdered, the Americans they murdered, were real people and wouldn’t you want justice if this happened to your loved one? We don’t want to see anyone go through this again.” And Commander Lippold speaks for all: “we should not put the families in a position where they may have to watch the murderers of their loved ones be set free… they’re the ones that have to bear the sacrifice; they’re the ones that have to bear the scars and burdens.”