Obama Aiming Hit Pieces at Pentagon to Free Terrorists

http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/261301/obama-aiming-hit-pieces-pentagon-free-terrorists-daniel-greenfield

The White House is sourcing hit pieces on top military officials

December 31, 2015

Daniel Greenfield

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Obama is obsessed with closing Gitmo and freeing all the terrorists. He only went after Osama bin Laden because he thought he could take him alive and then put him through a civilian trial and then use that to shut down Guatanamo Bay. Unfortunately for him, the men on the ground killed Osama. But Obama just redoubled his efforts to shut down the facility and free the terrorists.

There's one problem, the Secretary of Defense has to sign off on freeing the terrorists. And Obama has burned through multiple SODs and still can't find one who will free as many Al Qaeda terrorists as he wants.

After fighting to make Chuck Hagel his Secretary of Defense, Obama turned on him and forced him out of office for not freeing terrorists fast enough.

The White House, trying to fulfill Obama’s promise to close the facility that has been condemned by human rights groups as a legal black hole, pressed Hagel to approve transferring inmates to other countries.
But Hagel often refused or delayed signing off on dozens of transfers when he judged the security risk too high, often based on advice inside the Defense Department.
The White House grew deeply frustrated with Hagel over the delays.
“It got pretty bad, pretty brutal,” Hagel said. “I’d get the hell beat out of me all the time on this at the White House. “

Now Ash Carter is also being uncooperative.

The White House wants to quickly cut the number of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. One man is standing in the way: President Obama’s Defense Secretary, Ash Carter.
Carter and the White House are increasingly at odds about how to whittle down the number of detainees held in Guantanamo Bay, hampering the administration’s push to close the detention center by the end of its term.

Here's where things get really bizarre. Obama wanted Congress to bypass his own Secretary of Defense in approving terrorist releases.

There’s even speculation that if the President follows through on his threat to veto the defense budget bill to win changes on detainee policy, he will ask that the law be amended so that the president, not the defense secretary, has the final say on detainee transfers.

Now the White House is upping the campaign to another level by planting a hit piece against the Pentagon for Reuters. The piece is Orwellian nonsense filled with White House people taking shots at the Pentagon and claiming that they are willfully obstructing Obama by refusing to provide photos or medical records. Much of this is likely a lie intended to camouflage a bizarre power struggle in which Obama and Rice are determined to get the Pentagon to sign off on freeing dangerous terrorists.

What is truly bizarre is that the hit piece by Charles Levinson and David Rodhe reads a lot like the White House media hit pieces aimed at Republicans. Except the targets are already members of the government who answer to Obama. Obama is planting hit pieces against people who already work for him.

That's how crazy this administration has become.

The Pentagon's slow pace in approving transfers was a factor in President Obama's decision to remove Hagel in February, former administration officials said. And in September, amid continuing Pentagon delays, President Obama upbraided Defense Secretary Ashton Carter in a one-on-one meeting, according to administration officials briefed on the encounter.
Since then, the Pentagon has been more cooperative. Administration officials said they expect to begin transferring at least 17 detainees to foreign countries in January.
Military officials, however, continue to make transfers more difficult and protracted than necessary, administration officials said. In particular, they cite General John F. Kelly, in charge of the U.S. Southern Command, which includes Guantanamo. They said that Kelly, whose son was killed fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, opposes the president's policy of closing Guantanamo, and that he and his command have created obstacles for visiting delegations.

So the White House is sourcing hit pieces on top military officials, some of whom it appointed and could replace. And all of this is done to free Al Qaeda terrorists. That's the treasonous part.
The Reuters hit piece by Charles Levinson and David Rodhe never addresses the fact that the real issue is that many of the terrorists Obama wants to free were originally listed as high risk. Instead readers are left with the impression that the Pentagon is obstructing Obama for no reason. But leaving out key details is why a lot of propaganda reads somewhat incoherently.

The State Department then proposed that four low-risk Afghan detainees be transferred back to Afghanistan. The four men -- Khi Ali Gul, Shawali Khan, Abdul Ghani and Mohammed Zahir -- then ranged in age from their early 40s to their early 60s. All had been at Guantanamo for seven years but never formally charged with a crime, and all had been cleared for release by the interagency review board years earlier.

Here's who the four low risk detainees actually were.

A Guantanamo inmate once named as a top Taliban intelligence official who kept Stinger missiles and uranium at his farm is among four men who have been released and sent back to Afghanistan.
Mohammed Zahir was a leading Taliban weapons supplier, according to his official Guantanamo file, leaked three years ago to The Telegraph by the Wikileaks hacker group.
“Detainee was arrested on suspicion of possessing weapons including Stinger missiles and uranium, which detainee’s recovered documents indicate was intended for use in a nuclear device,” Zahir’s threat assessment read.
Zahir was said when recommended for continued detention seven years ago to be a “veteran high-level member of the Taliban Intelligence Directorate” as well as having links to narcotics smuggling.
Of the other three, Abdul Ghani was a member of an assassination squad who admitted to having been involved in at least one rocket attack on US forces; Khi Ali Gul was said to have ties to the Haqqani terrorist network and to have planned and executed attacks against US and Coalition forces; and Shawali Khan, who was said to be the nephew of a leader of the Taliban-linked Hezb-E-Islami Gulbuddin with possible ties to al-Qaeda and Iranian extremist elements.

Low risk indeed. What's the difference between Reuters and the White House spokesman at this point?

Meanwhile Obama is waging war on the Pentagon using Reuters all in support of Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists. Banana republics have been more ethical and better managed than this.