Sending Gitmo detainees to Illinois would make amends for failed olympic bid

You gotta give credit where credit is due!: After losing out in his bid to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago and failing to generate the much anticipated source of tourism and revenue for his former home state, President Obama could have easily turned his back on the people of Illinois and said: "I'm sorry, I tried my best. Now go home and leave me alone!"

But instead, the president is attempting to make amends with his former home state by transfering the masterminds of the 9/11 attacks - currently incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay - to Illinois. Such a move would, in turn, spark a huge wave of tourism from various rogue countries, like Afghanistan and Pakistan, and would subsequently generate a new source of revenue for the state of Illinois.

And, for this, the people of Illinois owe a huge debt of gratitude to the president.

However, according to The Hill, Illinois congressman, Mark Kirk, "wrote the president on Saturday to try to PREEMPTIVELY block the Gitmo detainees from being moved to" Illinois:

An Illinois congressman wrote the president on Saturday to try to PREEMPTIVELY block terror suspects from being moved to his state for trial.

On Saturday, Rep. Kirk sent the president a letter urging him to keep prisoners currently housed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba out of Illinois.

"If your Administration brings Al Qaeda terrorists to Illinois, our state and the Chicago Metropolitan Area will become ground zero for Jihadist terrorist plots, recruitment and radicalization," Kirk wrote in his letter... "As home to America’s tallest building, we should not invite Al Qaeda to make Illinois its number one target."

Apparently, Mr. Kirk is a despicable ingrate who doesn't appreciate the president's efforts to promote tourism in the state of Illinois!

Nevertheless, if, as the Hill reports, Mr. Kirk is trying "to PREEMPTIVELY block terror suspects from being moved to" Illinois, he needs to be aware of one thing: Preemptive tactics are no longer deemed lawful by the current administration, and Mr. Kirk could find himself embroiled in a deep legal quagmire with the Obama administration.

From Bloomberg news - Oct. 15, 2009:

The Pentagon is reviewing the Bush administration’s doctrine of preemptive military strikes with an eye to modifying or possibly ending it...

“This doctrine was always at odds with international law and norms,” said James Lindsay, director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York...

“I don’t think the Obama people believe preemption should be defined in this incredibly broad sense..," said James Mann, an author in residence at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

And, thus, Mr. Kirk, in trying "to preemptively block" the Obama administration from moving terror suspects to Illinois, could find himself in deep doo-doo with an administration that deems preemptive tactics to be at odds with international law.

But of course - as Kenneth Anderson noted in October - at the same time that the Obama administration was announcing its intention to possibly end the Bush doctrine of preemption, the Russians came out and endorsed not only preemptive military force, but even preemptive use of nuclear weapons:

The Russians succeeded in putting Mr. Obama and the Americans in their place. Nikolai Patrushev, the chief of the Presidential Security Council, manufactured an occasion while Mrs. Clinton was in Moscow to warn that Moscow reserves the right to make "a pre-emptive nuclear strike" against both small and large enemies.

In an interview with Izvestia, the important Moscow daily, he said Russian officials are examining “a variety of possibilities for using nuclear force, depending on the situation and the intentions of the possible opponent.”

In situations critical to national security, he said, “options including a preventative nuclear strike on the aggressor are not excluded.” Even regional or “local” wars will be included in the new strategy, expected to be official policy in December.

And, thus, while the Russians have clearly indicated that they will use preemptive warfare and even pre-emptive nuclear strikes against their enemies, if need be, they will not allow the US to use not only preemptive strikes, but even preemptive sanctions against Russia's nuclear client and close ally, Iran.

Welcome to President Obama's New World Order....