I thought the rest of the world was going to love us if we elected B. Hussein Obama! Somebody better tell the Muslims.

As everyone but President Obama’s base knows, many of the Guantanamo detainees cannot be sent to their home countries, cannot be released and cannot be tried. They need to be held in some form of extra-legal limbo the rest of their lives, sort of like Phil Spector.

And now they’re Obama’s problem.

If Obama wants his detention of Islamic terrorists to be dramatically different from Bush’s Guantanamo, my suggestion is that he cut off — so to speak — the expensive prosthetic limb procedures now being performed on the detained terrorists.

Far from being sodomized and tortured by U.S. forces — as Obama’s base been wailing for the past seven years — the innocent scholars and philanthropists being held at Guantanamo are being given expensive, high-tech medical procedures at taxpayer expense. If we’re not careful, multitudes of Muslims will be joining the fight against America just so they can go to Guantanamo and get proper treatment for their erectile dysfunction.

After being captured fighting with Taliban forces against Americans in 2001, Abdullah Massoud was sent to Guantanamo, where the one-legged terrorist was fitted with a special prosthetic leg, at a cost of $50,000-$75,000 to the U.S. taxpayer. Under the Americans With Disabilities Act, Massoud would now be able to park his car bomb in a handicapped parking space!

No, you didn’t read that wrong. The VA won’t pay for your new glasses, but Abdullah got a $75,000 prosthetic limb. I would have gone with hanging at sunrise, but what do I know?

Upon his release in March 2004, Massoud hippity-hopped back to Afghanistan and quickly resumed his war against the U.S., aided by his new artificial leg. Just a few months later, in October 2004, Massoud masterminded the kidnapping of two Chinese engineers in Pakistan working on the Gomal Zam Dam project.

This proved, to me at least, that people with disabilities can do anything they put their minds to. Way to go, you plucky extremist!

Massoud said he had nothing against the Chinese but wanted to embarrass Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for cooperating with the Americans. You know, the Americans who had just footed a $75,000 bill for his prosthetic leg.

Pakistani forces stormed Massoud’s hideout, killing all the kidnappers, including Massoud. So that was a wasted leg operation.

As a result of the kidnapping, from which only one Chinese engineer escaped alive, the Chinese pulled all 100 workers out of Pakistan. Work on the dam ceased. This was bad news for the people of Pakistan — but good news for the endangered Pakistani snail darter!

Several news accounts of Massoud’s return to jihad after his release from Guantanamo mentioned his prosthetic leg. But none explained that he had acquired that leg in Guantanamo, courtesy of American taxpayers after he was captured trying to kill Americans on the battlefield in Afghanistan.

To the contrary, although Massoud’s swashbuckling reputation as a jihadist with a prosthetic leg appears in many news items, where he got it is almost purposely hidden — even lied about.

“Abdullah Massoud … had earned both sympathy and reverence for his time in Guantanamo Bay. … Upon his release, he made it home to Waziristan and resumed his war against the U.S. With his long hair, his prosthetic limb and impassioned speeches, he quickly became a charismatic inspiration to Waziristan’s youth.” — The New York Times

Explaining where he got the prosthetic leg might interfere with the Times’ news accounts of innocent aid workers being brutalized in Guantanamo.

“He lost his leg in a landmine explosion a few days before the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in September 1996. It didn’t dampen his enthusiasm as a fighter and he got himself an artificial leg later, says Yusufzai.”– The Indo-Asian News Service

He “got himself an artificial leg”? Where? At COSTCO?

“He was educated in Peshawar and was treated in Karachi after his left leg was blown up in a landmine explosion in the Wreshmin Tangi gorge near Kabul in September 1996. He now walks with an artificial leg specifically made for him in Karachi.” — Gulf News (United Arab Emirates)

They can’t lick leprosy in Karachi, but the Gulf News tells us Massoud got his artificial leg at one of their specialty hospitals.

How about in return for no more waterboarding, we have no more elaborate, expensive operations to help these jihadists return to the fight against America.

COPYRIGHT 2008 ANN COULTER

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