David Axelrod, one of President Obama's chief White House advisors (who strangely looks like a door-to-door salesman of some kind to me), recently told CBS's "Face the Nation" that waterboarding and sleep deprivation were "one of the key tools al-Qaeda has used for recruitment."

Really? First, where's the proof of that? Did an al-Qaeda rep call and tell you that? Or is it just another unproven allegation, like "Bush lied, babies died"? Or, worse, is it simple speculation, like Democrat Senator Harry Reid's "The war is lost!, the war is lost!"?

Second, I wonder how al-Qaeda (and Democrats and other liberals) made us the bad guys for waterboarding (something we have done for years in training some of our own troops), while maintaining that they, al-Qaeda, were the good guys for beheading people. Oh yeah, because their cause is right and holy and we are the Great Satan. Well, whether we had waterboarded or not, wouldn't their cause, to them at least, still be right and holy and wouldn't we still be the Great Satan?

If these methods were already serving as a recruiting tool for al-Qaeda, as Axelrod claimed, why did Obama release the Top Secret details of the Bush waterboarding memos, thereby confirming whatever al-Qaeda was already saying to recruit more followers? It would seem that assists al-Qaeda in now saying, "See, we told you so. The American Satan has now admitted what it was doing. But, better than that, we now know in detail about their methods and can therefore train to resist them." Way to go, Team Obama! I feel so much safer now that our enemies, by our own admission, know our interrogation techniques in detail.

Obama banned "enhanced interrogation techniques" his first week in office, but that's obviously not enough for some Democrats and other liberals. They want a so-called Truth Commission and/or federal investigation (read: show trials), as Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) stated, "so it never happens again." Well, Senator, you don't need a show trial to keep it from ever happening again, just better Congressional oversight. Don't forget, please, that Congressional leadership was briefed about 30 times by the Bush administration on what it was doing and why, and Congress not only went along with it but in some cases asked if what Bush was doing was enough. See, there may be the Catch 22 to insisting on so-called Truth Commissions and/or federal prosecutions - they may come back to haunt some Democratic leadership, as well as members of the Bush administration and the intelligence community, notwithstanding Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's blank-stare protestations of "I don't know what I knew or when I knew it" to the contrary. (May I get you a bigger shovel, Miz Nancy, or is the hole you've been digging for yourself getting deep enough already?)

There are several ironies involved in all this.

The first irony is that the CIA stopped waterboarding in March 2003, after using it on only three high-value al-Qaeda detainees in 2002 and 2003, and the practice was removed from the CIA authorized list of techniques altogether sometime around 2005. In other words, waterboarding not only began but also ended during the Bush administration, long before Obama "banned" its use in January 2009.

The second irony is that Obama ostensibly released the classified CIA methods in another show of "transparency" and "openness" but he calculatingly and politically really did it to further the Bush-bashing which he and Team Obama have engaged in (and hidden behind) before, during and ever since he became president, as well as offering it up as another sop to his left-wing base of supporters. Well, ironically, his "lefties," instead of being "placated," became emboldened and wanted still more. For them, Obama's naive miscalculation in releasing the previously classified techniques was like fresh blood in the water.

The third irony is that Obama's own Director of National Intelligence, his own hand-picked Director of CIA and four previous CIA directors all told him not to release the classified techniques, and why, yet he yielded to the pressure from the likes of liberal godfather George Soros, MoveOn.org and other far left agents and did it anyway. However, I will give him credit, so far at least, Obama has shown that he will listen to his military experts (a smart thing, especially when you yourself don't know much about "military things," like the difference between a battalion and a brigade). But an additional irony therefore is, why didn't he also listen to his intelligence experts?

The fourth irony is that, once Obama let the cat out of the bag, he found he couldn't put it back. Oopsie! My bad. Naivete and inexperience, sometimes described by Team Obama as boldness, showed themselves once again. He vacillated back and forth about what to do, a firestorm of criticism followed (something Obama has demonstrated an overly thin-skinned ability to handle in the past), and so he passed the problem off to his Attorney General, saying Eric "Americans are cowards about race" Holder would determine whether any prosecutions needed to take place or not. We're still waiting, Eric, but if you decide to prosecute anyone, make sure you include all those fellow-traveling Democrats in the House and Senate who were briefed on, approved, supported and funded what the CIA was doing, okay?

The fifth irony was Obama going to speak to the CIA intelligence community and telling them he supported them and not to worry about being prosecuted for doing what you were told, while they sat there knowing that he had compromised their classified techniques and would probably sell them out in a heartbeat if he had to for political expediency. The mere possibility of a new round of federal investigations has sent the real message to all U.S. intelligence agents that there is no upside in aggressive interrogation. To the contrary, it's not only a career killer but also may land you in prison.

The sixth irony is that the 9/11 commission was supposed to prevent intelligence lapses so that 9/11 could never happen again. Now, Senator Leahy and other Democrats want to "investigate" what they claim were post-9/11 intelligence "abuses." So, the 9/11 commission didn't really work? So, you want something similar done again? Let's be honest, this isn't about gathering more information to prevent any further "abuses." This is another attempt at Democratic payback for the liberally despised Bush administration, pure and simple. To call it anything else is.....well, ironic.

And, Heaven forbid, but what may become the most tragically ironic thing of all: If Obama plays politics and so dismantles what Bush assembled that we don't see another attack on our homeland coming. In other words, we are back to "not connecting the dots" again. Those who ignore history are not only ignorant but also doomed to repeat it, and tragic history usually repeats itself with a vengeance. Beware the irony - or ironies, as it were.

President Obama announced on January 23, 2009, that he was closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without a plan on where the terrorists were going upon its closure. Now, just over three months after Obama set the arbitrary one-year deadline for closure, terrorist detainees are already being released.

First, Obama announced during his first week that he was closing Guantanamo Bay to fulfill campaign promises but without a plan on what to do with the detainees. That "dummy" President Bush also wanted to close GITMO but thought he should at least have a plan about what to do with its detainees first (you know, sort of horse before the cart, instead of Obama's cart before the horse). But Bush didn't want to release them into the United States, most of their home countries either wouldn't take them back or would have released or even helped them to return to the battlefield, and none of our "allies" would take any of them, so Bush was stuck.

Second, however, while Obama still has no "plan," he has taken some interim actions. But those interim actions are troubling - like the release of Binyam Mohammed, a terrorist who allegedly plotted multiple attacks on American soil. Binyam Mohammed is a dangerous al-Qaeda terrorist and should have been kept in custody to protect our country and our allies. A detainee since 2004, he has admitted to training at various Al-Qaeda training camps, where he specialized in firearms and explosives. He is accused of plotting a series of attacks on the United States with Jose Padilla (The Dirty Bomber) and Khalid Sheik Mohammed (Mastermind behind 9/11). He is now free in England.

After that came the announcement of two more GITMO releases, both of whom trained at al-Qaeda camps and met with Osama bin Laden. One of them is Ayman Saeed Batarfi, a Yemeni doctor, who is a member of al-Qaeda, supported the Taliban and has been an official of al-Wafa - another organization identified by the U.S. Government as a terrorist supporting group. The U.S. government had charged him with providing medical support to al-Qaeda terrorists and he has freely admitted meeting with Osama bin Laden. As a medical doctor, he also worked closely with senior al-Qaeda microbiologists while in Afghanistan and purchased medical equipment for al-Qaeda. Why release him? Because the evidence against him is thought to be inadmissible in a civilian court.

(Aside: Of course, to me, therein lies part of the problem. Since the GITMO detainees are at least suspected terrorist enemy combatants and not U.S. citizens, nor POWs under the Geneva Conventions, they are not entitled to the rights of either U.S. citizens or normal POWs. So, whether evidence against them would normally be admissible in a civilian court, as if they were just common criminals subject to law enforcement and our regular federal court system, is beside the point. They are not just ordinary criminals. It's not simply a law enforcement and normal civilian jurisprudence issue. It's a wartime and the enemies of our country issue. They are enemy combatants and terrorists, but without the protections of the Geneva Conventions, and therefore should be tried by military tribunals which can give them at least the same or similar protections that military courts-martial give our own troops, while at the same time not compromising matters of national security which could occur in open, civilian court.)

And now, it's reported that approximately 20 more GITMO detainees, a group of seven and then a group of 13, will soon be released. There's no word from Team Obama yet on where the 13 will be released, but the seven GITMO detainees are to be freed, probably within the United States.

The seven terrorists, known as "Uighurs," were captured on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and were trained at the al-Qaeda affiliated East Turkistan Islamic Movement ("ETIM") Tora Bora camp. You may recognize the name Tora Bora because in December 2001, U.S. and Afghan forces were closing in on the location of Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora, Afghanistan. Not so coincidentally the Uighurs were captured in the area around Tora Bora while Osama bin Laden used an escape route out of the region. Pure coincidence? And now these terrorists will be freed in the United States, their detention summarily ended with no trial of any kind and no justice.

The release of these terrorists not only potentially endangers American citizens on our own soil but is against federal law (8 U.S.C. 12 § 1182) which plainly states that any alien who had engaged in various forms of terrorist activity or training cannot be permitted into the United States.

Especially when Bush-bashing or agreeing with Obama about how bad America has been - particularly about how readily we "torture" our enemies - isn't it Democrats and other liberals who incessantly rail about "the rule of law" and "nobody being above the law," etc., etc.? Well, what about THIS law, then?

Or is it that whoever is in charge (of the White House, the Justice Department or the Congress) can pick and choose which laws to enforce and which ones not? It would seem the Obama Administration is more concerned with the safety of these detainees than that of the American people and what our laws say.

So, while Obama let the genie out of the bottle by summarily declassifying Top Secret documents on CIA "enhanced interrogation techniques" - against the advice of his own Director of National Intelligence, his own hand-picked CIA director and four previous CIA directors - and directed his Attorney General Eric holder to publish them under the guise of still more "transparency" and "openness," he then vacillated about whether he would seek to prosecute those involved in devising them, rendering legal opinions on them, or using them. And when all this resulted in a firestorm of criticism and Obama realized that not only could he not put the genie back in the bottle but also that his actions, I'm sure really intended to "satisfy" and "placate" his leftist base as another way to bash the Bush Administration, had instead emboldened his left-wing supporters and many Congressional Democrats to use it as another chance to "get" the Bush Administration, he vacillated again and seems now to have left it up to his AG Eric "Americans are cowards about race" Holder to decide whether to prosecute anyone and, if so, who. Which is just another example of someone like Obama's AG deciding which laws to enforce and which ones not, and against whom.

And, of course, by underreporting what amounts to a real blunder by Obama in releasing critical interrogation techniques, especially during a time of war, and by glossing over the release of the GITMO detainees, the liberal mainstream media is complicit and collusive, as usual. The Chicago Tribune: "The Obama administration is preparing to free into the United States Chinese Muslims being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the first release of any of the detainees into this country, according to current and former U.S. officials." The Los Angeles Times: "Officials have not said where in the United States they (Uighurs) might live. But many Uighur immigrants from China live in Washington's Virginia suburbs, and advocates have urged that the detainees be resettled near people who speak their language and are familiar with their customs."

Well, as Dana Carvey's old character the Church Lady would say, "Isn't that SPESH-SHUL?" I mean, all that concern and consideration for the detainees and assisting their "transition" into American life, and all. Team Obama seems more concerned with the well-being of terrorist detainees than that of the American people, and the LA Times unbelievably wants to ensure the detainees are sufficiently coddled and "accommodated" in the process of being "freed" and "relocated"! What is this, like the U.S. Marshals Witness Protection Program for Terrorists or something?

Woe be unto "The One" and his one-term presidency, if not his impeachment, if any of these untried, released detainees commits an act of terrorism against this country. But then, perhaps woe unto any number of the rest of us, too, who had nothing to do with their release. And there's the real rub in all this.

Well, I've got news. Not only have I recently been identified, at least by Obama's DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, as a potential right-wing extremist, but FYI, Team Obama and the LA Times: I also already live in a Virginia suburb of Washington, DC, and it's probably best if I don't run across these Chinese Muslim terrorists and soon-to-be former detainees, who have never been adjudicated as innocent of being terrorists.

I'm just saying that I doubt I could be very welcoming, that's all. But then, I'm sometimes just cynical and a little close-minded like that. Also pretty picky about who my friends and neighbors are. But, maybe that's just me.