Please Think Again Mr. President!

Less pleasing to us, however, is the continuing drive towards the closure of the detention center itself and most particularly, the news that the 17 Uyghur held there may be released into the United States, to a Uyghur community in Virginia.

Of course, one of the President's first acts in office was to announce the closure of Guantanamo Bay's detention center but, as they've discovered, the idea is easier than the implementation.

Other nations in the world are happy enough to criticize the holding of enemy combatants there, but when the time comes for them to take their own nationals back, they suddenly seem to have second thoughts.

Similarly, many elected Democrats, on the Federal, State and local levels campaigned on a platform of closing Guantanamo Bay, but then come over all "not in my backyard," when they discover that the prisoners would end up in prisons or communities in their districts.

The case of the Uyghurs however is particularly important in our opinion.

Trained by Abdul Haq, a member of al Qaeda's shura council, the Uyghurs were members of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, (a designated terrorist organization affiliated with Al Qaeda).

As such, federal statutory law should exclude them from the US since they have both received terrorist training and been affiliated with a terrorist organization.

In the House last week, Virginia Republican Congressman Wolf rightly pointed out that: "I fear expediency is clouding judgment - and this is inexcusable in a post-9/11 world.  The stakes are simply too high for the administration to reasonably think that the American people should simply take their word for it that these men pose no security threat."

He was voicing his concern because despite repeated attempts to gain more information about these men, the Attorney General Eric Holder was "'slow rolling' information as terrorist detainees are released into the United States," preventing elected officials and members of the public from being able to determine for themselves how dangerous the release of this group would be.

We fully support Congressman Wolf's calls for the full release of information and for a public inquiry before any of them are freed.

As he noted: "The American people have a right to know everything there is to know about these people who could potentially be released into neighborhoods.   We can't forget what happened on September 11th."