What’s Wrong with the World

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What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

Art Rehabilitation vs. Jihad--place your bets, gentlemen

Okay. I haven't blogged anything about the terror attack attempt on Christmas Day, because my fellow conservatives all over the blogosphere are doing such a great job, and I couldn't think of anything to add. (Favorite line from MyPetJawa: "Baby Jesus was watching over us.")

But this tidbit, courtesy of Jihad Watch, goes into the "Let's not learn anything from this" file, because I really, really doubt the present administration will let it affect its plans regarding Gitmo detainees:

The planners behind the attack, now fighting the jihad from Yemen, were released from Guantanamo Bay in 2007 and sent to Saudi Arabia, where they were released altogether and entered a "rehabilitation program." Specifically, an art rehabilitation program. Nothing like a little bit of art to make people understand that Islam is really a religion of peace.

The ABC News article ends:

Saudi officials concede its program has had its "failures" but insist that, overall, the effort has helped return potential terrorists to a meaningful life.

Evidently they think planning terrorist attacks is a meaningful life.

It also mentions that "One program gives the former detainees paints and crayons as part of the rehabilitation regimen."

Maybe these two got Rose Art when they wanted Crayola.

Comments (16)

the "Let's not learn anything from this"

That's one big file.


Of course it was terribly unchristian to have detained them in the first place. What is a few hundred dead when compared to possibility that one may have detained the Muslim Mahatma Gandhi? Day in and day out, the artistic endeavours of the tiny minority of our Muslim brethren have caused us endless delays, shoeless transits, outrages of modesty and possible overdoses of radiation from the X-ray machines, besides wrecking the airline and tourist industries . Thanks guys.

Art rehab?! (snort) I hadn't heard that yet.

I think Lars Walker has it pegged about right over at MereComments: We've entered the Post-Ironic Age.

Kamilla

Gosh darn those liberal meanies who made the Bush administration release those detainees to Yemen. And of course, I'm sure the Bush administration's inept handling its relationship with the Yemeni government (see Gregory Johnsen's--great Yemen blog regardless of your political affiliation http://islamandinsurgencyinyemen.blogspot.com/--comments in his interview with Glenn Greenwald) wouldn't have contributed to AQ's ability to establish its operations there.

I'm perfectly willing to refer to those who released these guys as fools and, yes, in this area, liberals. I don't care tuppence about the "inept handling of the Yemeni government" in the sense that it has nothing whatsoever to do with a bunch of passengers peacefully flying to Detroit from the Netherlands and in no way does it even begin to excuse the actions either of the planners nor of the (Nigerian) terrorist who tried to carry out the attacks. Save your blame the victim foreign policy baloney, kzndr, whoever you are, and don't spew it over my blog thread.

Well, I don't want to spew baloney all over your thread, so I'll make this my last post. First, I'm in no way blaming the victim--why, other than your preconceptions about what you think my political views are, would you think that I would in any way absolve the bomber of moral culpability for his actions? There's a difference between blaming the victim and noticing that the people who were supposed to be protecting the victims did some incredibly bone-headed things. Second, my post was mainly, if indirectly, about how it's funny how easy it is to turn any situation into an opportunity to indict your political opponents for something they might not even have done (in your case, speculating about the what the administration will do about the Gitmo detainees (which, in any case, does not at the moment seem to include releasing them into rehabilitation programs in Yemen)) rather than engaging in serious analysis, while also taking a snarky swipe at one of your opponents' supposed nostrums (snicker, liberals love giving criminals crayons, snicker).

It isn't snarky if it's true. I didn't make up the story. The crayon rehab programs are real.

And guess what: The Obama administration has talking about releasing Chinese Muslim terrorists from Gitmo *in the United States*. Releasing them. Altogether. In Virginia. You can find the links yourself with a little work. If anything that's _worse_ than sending them to art rehab in Saudi Arabia. (Not Yemen. The two I mention in the post were released by the Saudis into art rehab and then went to Yemen.)

Hah! Literally, the next site I went to had a link to this entry:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGMxYmM0M2FiODI5Mzc1MGU5YzQwNGMyNzExZGUxOTk=

The twelve detainees have been transferred to: Yemen, an al-Qaeda hotbed whose government makes common cause with jihadists (and has a history of allowing them to escape — or of releasing them outright); Afghanistan, which is so ungovernable and rife with jihadism that we're surging thousands of troops there (troops the jihadists are targeting); and Somaliland, which is not even a country, and which offers an easy entree into Somalia, a failed state and al-Qaeda safe-haven.

>>The planners behind the attack, now fighting the jihad from Yemen, were released from Guantanamo Bay in 2007 and sent to Saudi Arabia, where they were released altogether and entered a "rehabilitation program." Specifically, an art rehabilitation program. Nothing like a little bit of art to make people understand that Islam is really a religion of peace.

This happened in 2007. I wonder who was president at the time?

Lydia, you seem to not want to deal at all with the fact, admitted by US officials, that the majority of those sent to Gitmo appear not to be terrorists at all. Now, isn't it a general principle of justice that we must accept some risk in order not to punish the innocent?

Let's take an example: We know that the crime rate among post-adolescent males is far higher than in the rest of the population... so why not just lock them all up, say, from 15-30? If someone complained about this program, and got a few people released, and then one of them committed a crime, would that vindicate the program?

Or, to be less extreme, what do you say we implement a new court system in the US? The police bring someone before a judge and tell him, "Yeah, we're pretty sure he did it," and the judge passes sentence.

If justice requires a presumption of innocence until guilt is proven, then sometimes we are going to let people go who will later do something bad. If this does not lead you to advocate the court system I sketch in the previous paragraph in general, why do you advocate such a system for Gitmo? (And no, "But they're Muslims!" is not a good answer.)

"The men have been held at the detention camp for nearly seven years despite an apparent lack of evidence of involvement in terrorism. They were sold to the US military by bounty hunters, and a federal judge in Washington concluded they are not dangerous."

So, in other words, THESE ARE PEOPLE WHO WERE FRAMED. But it makes better propaganda for your anti-Muslim hysterics to call them terrorists, doesn't it?

I hope you soon notice that I'm ignoring you. Yep, all those guys at Gitmo--framed. Let's just let them all go. In your town. You're welcome to them. Only I feel sorry for all the other people in your town.

1) Informing someone you are ignoring them is to not ignore them.

2) Who said "all those guys at Gitmo--framed"? Who? I doubt anyone anywhere has ever said that. I asked you an honest and, I think, important question -- without some legal process, how can you tell which prisoners there are and which aren't terrorists? And I certainly did notice you ignored this question, and I realized that's because you had no answer for it.

What's more, I presented you with good (second-hand) evidence that these particular, Chinese guys were framed. They were turned in by bounty hunters for a reward! You don't see any temptation there to just turn in whoever you can grab?! And everyone who has actually investigated there cases since since to agree that they are not terrorists -- the US military, the Bush administration, federal judges. Everyone agrees they should be let go, and except that they can't be sent back to China, they would have been let go. That is, everyone except you, Lydia! Somehow, you must have insider information about them that our own military lacks, hey?

And this from someone who blogs about the sinfulness of ignoring reality!

Sorry, it's late: "who has actually investigated their cases since seems to agree."

Reality-based politics: when presented with overwhelming evidence that you are wrong -- hide!

That is, everyone except you, Lydia!

Really? That's astonishing. If you're talking about the Chinese Muslim Gitmo detainees I think you're talking about, you are definitely wrong. There has been plenty of outrage among conservatives about the plan to release them in Virginia.

But since when is the bandwagon fallacy something other than a fallacy, anyway? "Everyone disagrees with you, Lydia. Submit."

Stop trolling my thread, Gene Callahan. I told you I was ignoring your rants as a warning to you that I would not be responding to your every ranting comment in details. But when I don't respond to your every ranting comment, you rant some more and taunt some more. That's what I call trolling. Bag it, or start getting your comments deleted in this thread.

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