What Obama did last night is utterly OFFENSIVE to our military…

Have you ever read this?

Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the United States Constitution, sometimes referred to as the War Powers Clause, vests in the Congress the power to declare war, in the following wording: [The Congress shall have Power…] To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water

Yesterday, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump delivered a national security speech where he stated he would keep the Guantanamo Bay detention facility open. He said those high value targets would be taken from the battlefield and maintained at the facility. However, there just may not be a GITMO by the end of the year…if Barack Obama has anything to do with it.

As reported by The Guardian, “The largest single transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees of Barack Obama’s presidency was announced on Monday, as 15 long-held men departed the infamous detention center.

The transfer, officially announced by the Pentagon on Monday evening, brings the Guantánamo detainee population down to 61. The United Arab Emirates, a close US ally which has accepted former Guantánamo detainees in the past, took the 12 Yemenis and three Afghan nationals, some of whom the US has held for the 14 years Guantánamo that has served as a detention facility.

The Pentagon thanked the UAE for its “humanitarian gesture” and support for shuttering Guantánamo. Six of the men had first received clearances for transfer in 2010, after a review early in the Obama administration found them eligible to leave Guantánamo and unfit for military prosecution. Their names are Abdel Qadir al-Mudafari, Muhammad Ahmad Said al-Adahi, Abdul Muhammad Ahmad Nassar al-Muhajari, Abd al-Rahman Sulayman, Mohammed Nasir Yahi Khussrof Kazaz and Abd al-Muhsin Abd al-Rab Salih al-Busi. All are Yemeni, and the administration for years cited instability in Yemen, where civil war continues today, as a reason to halt transfers to the Middle Eastern country.

Obama established a quasi-parole process to expedite transfers from Guantánamo, and between 2014 and 2016 the review system determined that the other nine detainees posed a negligible security risk. Those detainees are Mohammed Kamin, Mahmud Abd Al Aziz al-Mujahid, Saeed Ahmed Mohammed Abdullah Sarem Jarabh, Zahar Omar Hamis bin Hamdoun, Majid Mahmud Abdu Ahmed, Ayub Murshid Ali Salih, Obaidullah, Bashir Nasir Ali al-Marwalah and Hamid al-Razak – also known as Haji Hamidullah, an Afghan in his 50s.”

There is a reason I started this missive with Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 from our rule of law, the U.S. Constitution. It clearly states the enumerated power to make rules concerning captures on land and sea rests with the Congress — not the executive branch, the president. Now I know what some of y’all are saying…there you go West, quoting that pesky Constitution. Why does Obama need to be constrained by some old document written by white men who owned slaves all those years ago? My response is simple. We are a nation of laws, a Constitutional Republic, not a constitutional monarchy and no one is above the rule of law…oops. That is unless you’re someone named Obama or Clinton.

Here we are embroiled in a global Islamic jihad and President Obama just cannot stop himself from re-populating the battlefield with the enemy. And let’s be honest, regardless of age, these captured jihadists return as esteemed heroes. And don’t forget those recent Obama-released detainees sent to Uruguay somehow ended up unaccounted for — and there was an ISIS cell of some twelve busted in Brazil just before the Olympics. Coincidence?

What must enrage the American people is the manner by which this continues to happen — over the weekend, late at night…kinda like an unmarked cargo plane with pallets of laundered cash to the tune of $400 million.

So last night the Pentagon “officially” announced this transfer — you know, while most were watching the Olympics, or enjoying family dinner. I also want you to consider that the factual recidivism rate among these released detainees sits at about 30 percent. Therefore, out of this released number, we can expect five to return to the battlefield, and reengage our men and women in uniform — or worse, end up in Paris, Brussels, or here in America. And when combined with the very restrictive Rules of Engagement, they may just find it easier to kill or wound our troops.

But I have a greater question for President Obama. When will you, sir, release U.S. Army 1LT Clint Lorance who sits in the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Ft. Leavenworth? Here is a young American who answered the call of duty for his country. He took over a unit in Kandahar province in Afghanistan that had been hit hard by the Taliban. 1LT Lorance engaged the enemy — he did not desert like the coward whose family you welcomed in the Rose Garden and your buddy Susan Rice termed as having “served with honor and distinction.”

What it looks like to all of us who have served — and are serving — is that your intransigent political ideology forces you to embrace the enemy far more affectionately than our own. There is no other explanation as to why you, Mr. President, go to extraordinary lengths to free the enemy, while our men sit incarcerated.

Ask yourself this question President Obama, do you truly believe 1LT Clint Lorance belongs in the same facility as Nidal Hasan? You’ve released these fifteen back to the United Arab Emirates. Now release Clint Lorance back to his home state of Texas. The place that I now call home.

http://www.allenbwest.com/allen/mr-president-release-gitmo-combatants-just-ask