Gitmo recidivism comes back to bite us directly. "Two al Qaeda Leaders Behind Northwest Flight 253 Terror Plot Were Released by U.S.: Former Guantanamo Prisoners Believed Behind Northwest Airlines Bomb Plot; Sent to Saudi Arabia in 2007," by Brian Ross, Anna Schecter and Joseph Rhee for ABC News, December 28 (thanks to Awake):
Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November, 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the Northwest bombing in a Monday statement that vowed more attacks on Americans.American officials agreed to send the two terrorists from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia where they entered into an "art therapy rehabilitation program" and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.
An "art therapy rehabilitation program." Yes, you read that right.
Guantanamo prisoner #333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, and prisoner #372, Said Ali Shari, were sent to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 9, 2007, according to the Defense Department log of detainees who were released from American custody. Al-Harbi has since changed his name to Muhamad al-Awfi.Both Saudi nationals have since emerged in leadership roles in Yemen, according to U.S. officials and the men's own statements on al Qaeda propaganda tapes.
Both of the former Guantanamo detainees are described as military commanders and appear on a January, 2009 video along with the man described as the top leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, Abu Basir Naser al-Wahishi, formerly Osama bin Laden's personal secretary.
In its Monday statement claiming responsibility for the Northwest bombing, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula called bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab a "hero" and a "martyr" and lauded him for beating U.S. intelligence.
The two-page written claim included a photo of Abdulmutallab and boasted of Al Qaeda's success in designing "advanced explosive packages" that can pass through airport screening undetected.
The statement also asks for attacks upon Americans in the Arabian peninsula, and promises further attacks on the American people.
The suspected bomber, 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, told FBI agents he was trained for his Christmas Day mission in Yemen by top leaders of al Qaeda who provided him with the explosive materials.
"The so-called rehabilitation programs are a joke," a U.S. diplomat said in describing the Saudi efforts with released Guantanamo detainees.
Saudi officials concede its program has had its "failures" but insist that, overall, the effort has helped return potential terrorists to a meaningful life....
I.e., jihad.
Gee, color me surprised!
Here's more on art therapy for terrorists, a piece called (I kid you not) "From Jihad to Rehab", The abeya-clad correspondent for PBS (American public television), Nancy Durham, reverently covers this topic, with an absolutely straight face. Watch the YouTube video for some unintended laughs.
The program's organizer, Dr. Awad Alyami, spent time in the United States, which is where he got the wonderful 'art rehab for terrorists' idea in the first place.
He describes his alleged trepidation on initially working with terrorists, "Yes, Nancy do you think it was easy for me to start the program with them? No, I was scared to death to start with them. Really . . . because I had that idea that these are uh . . . criminals. They blow up buildings and stuff."
Has Dr. Alyami since changed his mind? Sadly, he is not forthcoming on this subject. But he does regard his charges as "kids"—even the ones who are over thirty years old.
There are a number of former Guantanamo prisoners in the program.
One, Juma al-Dossary, is filmed saying: "You have to talk to people, to convince people, to use the logic . . . not to prisons not torture…and that’s the only solution." She seems to take this as a repudiation of terrorism, when it could just as easily be an indictment of Guantanimo, or even of Saudi Arabia itself.
The ambiguous nature of the program seems to have entirely escaped Ms. Durham, although even she is rather taken aback by a suicide bomber who killed 12 people—his own survival was a fluke—who refuses to take any responsibility for the attack.
The Saudis themselves seem fine with Jihad-as long as it is not turned against them. One of the criterion for the program is that they have no Saudi blood on their hands.
The "art" itself is horrible—even worse than the sort of thing you generally find in Western art therapy classes. Be sure and check out the artwork (click on the link below the video)—especially the one by the former Gitmo inmate, and the one, emblazoned with ambiguous Qur'an verses, where the sun "rises out of the ground".
"Islamic science" in action, in both cases.
http://www.arttherapyblog.com/videos/art-therapy-helps-former-jihad-terrorists-rehab/
Unbelievable!
What a farce.
gravenimage, it certainly seems a great way to cow and enemy.
[VOMIT]
As norepresentations of humans are permissible in Islam, what exactly would the "art" in this "art therapy" consist of? Abstract art, Pollockian drip-dry, Twomblyian nursery scribbles, Stella-esque color-fields? Perhaps merely the usual Qur'anic calligraphy, and if so, what would they be calligraphing? 9.5? 9.29? Oh, the possibilities are endless.
And yet, there are those who would continue to accuse Robert Spencer of being a right-wing partisan hack. How's that theory, coupled with the mountains of empirical criticism on the Bush administration for a failure to understand Islam that Spencer has provided here at JW, working out for you now?
PT Barnum does immediately spring to mind here.
No classes on Danish cartoons?
The art therapy was another torture which the soldiers of alla were subjected to by the evil Americans, as they cruelly made them draw human and animal pictures. One of them was even forced to draw a cartoon. Others resisted bravely, however, and said rather than draw such pictures, they would prefer to eat a ham sandwich (with a lot of mustard), which they did.
Art therapy ...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
For the most anti-artistic people in the world?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Sorry, but I don't even see their "calligraphy" as terribly "artistic" - I don't even understand how anyone can make heads or tails out of Arabic scrawl. To me, it's roughly equivalent to what a chimp can produce if you give him a pen and paper. And the chimp may be excused, they only potentially at the very first brick of the yellow brick road to art.
Obama and the Dhimmicrats have maintained since the early election debates that GITMO has gotta go....that it was wrong for BUSH and company to hold enemy combatants.....errr innocent people.....they fail to acknowledge these prisoners were carrying weapons and were shooting at Americans before they were put in GITMO...
Maybe Obama does have a different agenda for the Gitmo prisoners....let's free them....suuurrrrre....that will do it....they can go to art classes in Saudia Arabia...suuurrrre....
Well, the Muslims voters did vote for Obama....maybe they knew something too......
I am looking forward to the scam.....errrr trials coming soon...should be a real circus.....
This may be OT, but here's a link to a discussion about other issues covered at JW:
http://unclecephas.blogspot.com/2009/12/in-reply-to-comment-on-disturbing.html
We cannot negotiate with rattlesnakes, folks.
Janet, Obama, pay attention because if you don't you won't be the last one these snakes bite, nor the last ones the crocodile eats.
Guess we train then well at GITMO and Barack is getting ready to send more inmates to the Arabian Pen. where they will be rehab. and released to become model citizens pf greater Arabia.
Kepha, very interesting, and helpful. Thanks.
No classes on Danish cartoons?
Art therapy?!?! Nicht kleckern, klotzen!!!!
"art therapy rehabilitation program"
Dang, I snorted ice tea all over my keyboard. Apparently we ARE that gullible!
And it has come back to bite us....Again.
Not to worry though, Madame Secretary of DHS says the System
"Worked", and she says the System "Failed Miserably".
With such clear-thinking and decisive leadership, I feel safer already.
Locked and Loaded
I don't know how many times I said it:
Being nice to the cruel is being cruel to the nice!
Liberals will go down in history as the biggest terrorists sympathizers!
We are at war, and the government does nothing to protect its citizens!
They will be punished next elections! (both comeing November and 2012). Last I checked, people still had a say.
If only I had the money to go to Dr. Alyami's Saudi facility and set up a video interview.
The follow up questions would be priceless. Gee what went wrong with such a progressive rehabilitation program? Hmm? That is a toughie! A real head scratcher! That will require a lot of study.
Maybe we could go to the teachers in the USA that came up with this bogus method of treatment, sounds like another good interview.
Maybe, years of hard labor until they are broken is the answer. But that would be cruel, and too old school.
With or without Pabst Blue Ribbon?
Well, as long as they don't do it in Sowdi Arabia our dear friends wouldn't have a problem with that. Or would they?
Almost can't wait for the Illinois prison recidivism.
This stupididy is not going unnoticed by the public. I am still hopeful that our political system will start expunging the Obomination (congressional elections) in time to reverse what damage he does get to do, on top of the considerable damage he has already done.
A lot of Dems are whistling in the graveyard, as they know they are going to get voted out of office precisly because Obama is proceeding in such an anti-public opinion mode on so many fronts.
November 2007 .. ah, that will be George Dubya in office. Obama is only reaping what George sowed!
The way things are going America has had it.
I'll tell you one thing that's for sure...
Obama's popularity just took a "nosedive".
First it was Healthcare Reform, then Copenhagen Scam, now this? Enjoying his game of golf in Hawaii while terorism strikes the US?
Whew! I'd hate to be in his shoes right now.
The Democrats deserve everything they're getting back in their faces right now. They've been way too relaxed and feeling too cocky.
As a matter of fact the entire US political system needs an overhaul. It has too much politcal correctness in this changing world. The US has been under attack in this Third Jihad but they haven't treated it as a war. It's about time the US and the rest of the western world woke up to the reality.
Someone get them off the prozac. Please!
Greetings in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ Who said: If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
"Jim SE Corner of Texas | December 28, 2009 9:25 PM | Reply
"art therapy rehabilitation program"
Dang, I snorted ice tea all over my keyboard."
Wishing I was somewhere where the temperature calls for iced tea!
Anyway, to the subject at hand: It doesn't seem possible that this is reality; every story I read on this site makes me feel like westerners are living in some kind of twilight zone.
Are we completely nuts? Have we even got the good sense God gave a billy goat? How can this stuff go on and on and on?
Truthfully, there needs to be a massive uprising by the common folk to send a message to these clueless people.
JIHAD ART THERAPY? You put the yellow wire to this connector and the green wire to this connector then scream ALUAKBAR loudly. I feel better already.
Wake up America! Acknowledge our enemies for who they are. Radical Muslim extremists...who have no respect for lives...ours or their own. Anyone who thinks we can negotiate with these people are beyond rationalization. All our politicians do is speculate that there are "moderate" Muslims that we can sit down and 'talk' with. Not going to happen.
We also have to take responsibility for our own security because L.E. cannot be everywhere, all the time.
How many of you remember Piss Jesus? It happened in the late 80s or very early 90s. An "artist" simply put a crucifix in a jar of urine and liberals swooned at his "creativity". Well maybe that is what the jihadis in Art Therapy do.
Gitmo -- well they should be amassing quite a list on that Jihadi forward activity following release from Gitmo now. I hope the statistics from THAT analysis get pushed out in to the forefront when comes time for elections and we see what the left hath hastened in their eagerness to share the love.
"American officials agreed to send the two terrorists from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia where they entered into an "art therapy rehabilitation program" and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials."--from the article.
I would gather from this that the Saudi officials do not believe these jihadists violated any tents of sharia or Islam--otherwise these men would be subject to the usual harsh and cruel treatment there.
In giving these guys art therapy instead of condemnation, it seems the Saudis are thumbing their noses at the West, or, in Ali Eteraz style, giving us the finger.
We don't have to wonder whether the "art therapy" of the Danish cartoonists would also be "punished" in this way, i.e., with more art therapy; the Saudis would publicly behead those Danish cartoonists deemed to have blasphemed Muhammad and Islam by allegedly associating it with violence.
oops! I meant "...any [tenets] of sharia..."