The Long List of Obama's Guantanamo Bay Lies

On the eve of the release of the first of 17 more detainees from the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, it is appropriate to examine once again President Barack Obama’s Gitmo lies.

He speaks as though if Gitmo were closed tomorrow the Global War on Terror would be over.

Gitmo is “not who we are,” he says. It’s “an enormous recruiting tool for organizations like ISIL,” he prevaricates. It’s “a legal and moral abomination,” he sputters. “We see the Internet traffic” about it, he sneers.

President Barack Obama makes a statement on Wednesday's mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., Thursday, Dec. 3, 2015, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

I don’t know the “we” he talks about. The “we” we are is a nation of laws, not of men and women. The law says we can hold even lawful combatant prisoners of war “until hostilities end.” Perhaps his “we” are left liberal Islamist apologists who feel all Gitmo detainees are victims.

Recruiting tool? Islamists don’t need Gitmo for a recruitment tool, they have the president’s weakness and failure to take them seriously as a recruiting tool. Others are the Crusades and their attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Besides, when has Obama EVER produced even ONE example or proof of this ridiculous lie? That’s right, NEVER.

What’s embarrassing about how the president clings to Gitmo as a major part of his strategy against terrorism is how pitifully ineffective it is. Terrorists consider Gitmo to be a western sponsored resort. Folks who get caught and put there are failed martyrs, not heroes of the jihad.

The best thing currently going for Gitmo is the release rate under Obama as he gets closer and closer to all out panic about closing the place before he leaves office. He keeps doubling down on the closure bet and he loses every hand. Every time he releases more detainees another one pops up somewhere as a leader of this or that. Yet, the mainstream media and liberal talking heads continue to repeat his obvious propaganda about the place.

Gitmo is the finest military detention facility in the world. International Committee of the Red Cross physicians I worked with there (and in Iraq) told me, “no one does [detention operations] better than the U.S.” In fact, the only complaint from them I ever remember hearing during my time there in 2002 as the ranking U.S. Army medical department officer with the Joint Detainee Operations Group, Joint Task Force 160, and in Iraq serving a similar role, was that they didn’t want us to take the candy out of the military field ration called Meals-Ready-to-Eat. We did that as a behavior modification technique to encourage cooperation from the detainees. Good detainees got to keep their candy, bad detainees had it removed from the meal. That was pretty harsh of us, I have to admit ... not.

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And this laughable and mythical Internet traffic the president recently mentioned is a pathetic attempt at Jedi mind tricks or something. Really? Internet traffic? Imagine this email exchange:

Abdul: “Ali, those dirty rotten Americans have been holding Khalid Sheik Mohammed for too long at that gulag they call Gitmo!”

Ali: “I know, my Brother! Let us issue another fatwah against the infidels because of this torture resort in Cuba.”

Abdul: “Yes, my Brother! Insha allah! That will rally Muslims from all the globe in our struggle against these Western dogs!”

Perhaps the biggest fallacy perpetrated by the president is his insistence that instead of radical Muslims, terrorists are “thugs and killers” who have a “perverted interpretation of Islam.” They may be thugs and killers, but they are also undeniably Islamists who use the Koran as a touchstone with those who join their sick enterprise.

If this were not true, then why does Obama allow Muslim amenities at Gitmo? Detainees there enjoy prayer beads and rugs; Korans; special holiday and halal meals (including lamb and baklava); signs in Arabic on guard towers and green arrows painted in detention cells pointing the way to Mecca; white garb for the best behaved; and counsel from U.S. military Muslim chaplains.

If I didn’t know better I might call this state sponsored religion; our state and their religion.

Does it make your blood boil that we PAY for all of these amenities? Muslim American military personnel don’t get all of these things issued to them, why then should unlawful combatant Islamists who want to kill us get them?

Why? Indeed.

It’s as if when the president declared an end to the Global War on Terror back in 2013 he considered all the detainees to be innocent, and therefore entitled to their freedom, regardless of their participation in hostilities against the United States and our allies.

Such delusions have befallen Barack Obama since before he was elected to the presidency, when he promised to close Gitmo.

No matter the noise constantly being spewed from the White House and Pentagon about Gitmo, imagine if you will that it is not a gulag or a recruiting tool for our enemies. What then is it? It must then be the best place to keep unlawful combatants who want to kill us, religious or not.

Do you feel safer with detainees IN or OUT of Gitmo? If your answer is “IN” then you need to reach out to your elected officials and REMIND them WHY Gitmo exists in the first place. One picture of airliners with passengers inside hitting the Twin Towers on Sept. 11 should answer that question, and if not, then picture the victims and their weeping family and loved ones of the recent Paris and San Bernardino terrorist murders.

All this blood has soaked our president’s hands and soul with irretrievable innocent life. The lies about Gitmo don’t help, they only twist the knife of grief and regret for the victims of terror.

Obama’s denials and twisted thoughts reopen and reinjure the wounds of the Global War on Terror and its victims. Whether you are a survivor or military member, hearing someone tell lies about the enemy who harmed them is cruel and unusual punishment.

Montgomery Granger is a three-time mobilized U.S. Army major (Ret.) and author of "Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay: A Memoir of a Citizen Warrior." Amazon, Blog, Facebook, Twitter: @mjgranger1

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