Cruz: Today President Obama Again Prioritized His Leftist Political Legacy Over America'S Safety
Statement
Presidential candidate Ted Cruz released the following statement in response to President Obama's announced plan to close GTMO:
"We have to stop the president's blind pursuit of politically correct progressive ideals that are damaging our country. We do not have to bring terrorists to our shores to prove how enlightened we are. The fact is that GTMO is an indispensible detention facility for radical Islamists who wanted to kill us before 9/11, who tried to kill us on 9/11, and who will go back to trying to kill us if we release them or bring them here. Just last week there were media reports that Ibrahim al Qosi, an inmate released by the Obama administration in 2012 to Sudan, has taken up arms again as a top al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula commander. We have to stop giving these terrorists additional opportunities to wage jihad against us.
"It is laughable to think that the most spendthrift president in our history has suddenly become a fiscal conservative over the money we spend to detain the worst of the worst at the Guantanamo Bay detention center. Make no mistake: he's not doing this to save taxpayer dollars. He's doing this to satisfy his far-left-wing base who won't even utter the term "radical Islamic terrorism,' let alone admit it is a problem.
"GTMO is not a bargaining chip the president can use in his dangerous game of rapprochement with Fidel and Raul Castro. It has been a key American strategic asset for more than a century. The detention facility is only the most recent of a series of vital functions it has filled, and it is a necessary tool that we should be using to protect our country. As President Reagan famously said of the Panama Canal, we built it, we paid for it, it's ours and we're going to keep it. We cannot allow President Obama to abandon it simply to pursue his foolhardy ideological fantasies. Our commander-in-chief has abandoned his duty to safeguard our homeland. Congress must now do what is necessary to keep the American people safe."
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