They Get Our News

I seem to remember a common complaint during the Bush era that Al Qaeda was watching our TV shows and paying attention to what Democrats have to say, and when they criticized the President, Osama bin Laden rejoiced and threw a party, so everyone had better shut up. That was a go-to argument for the right for a while.

I never much worried about Al Qaeda getting out their rabbit ears and watching C-SPAN. However, unquestionably leaders in Europe read our newspapers and consume our media. And when political leaders run a steady diet of pants-pissing missives about the big bad Guantanamo super-villains and how they can never set foot on US soil, small wonder that Europe, a key player in the White House's efforts to find settlements for detainees scheduled for release, wants no part of them either.

The Obama administration's push to resettle at least 50 Guantanamo Bay prisoners in Europe is meeting fresh resistance as European officials demand that the United States first give asylum to some inmates before they will do the same.

Rising opposition in the U.S. Congress to allowing Guantanamo prisoners on American soil has not gone over well in Europe. Officials from countries that previously indicated they were willing to accept inmates now say it may be politically impossible for them to do so if the United States does not reciprocate.

"If the U.S. refuses to take these people, why should we?" said Thomas Silberhorn, a member of the German Parliament from Bavaria, where the White House wants to relocate nine Chinese Uighur prisoners. "If all 50 states in America say, 'Sorry, we can't take them,' this is not very convincing."

The scaremongering has legs, you see, and politicians everywhere being of a spineless nature, they don't want to face their constituents and explain why released Gitmo prisoners are terrorist masterminds to every portion of America but just fine for their country.

Funny how the same people who shrieked that Democrats were "making us less safe" with their words are now causing an international incident through deliberate lying and severely damaging an American President's efforts to improve foreign relations, huh? I guess politics doesn't end at the water's edge anymore.

Harry Reid has composed himself and acknowledged that some prisoners would be resettled in US prisons. Hopefully this constant agreement with the latest bedwetting scenario on the right has ended, and we can actually face our allies again.