SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — President Barack Obama came under fire Tuesday for including $80 million to close Guantanamo in a massive funding request to fight America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The $83.4 billion request to Congress was submitted on April 9, when lawmakers were on break over the Easter holidays. Tucked into the 99-page bill were a few paragraphs about Guantanamo — including a request for funds for foreign countries that accept prisoners. U.S. efforts to have other countries take in detainees have largely been a flop — stoking fears the men will end up in America.

Abdallah Hajji and Lofti Lagha knew the worst was not behind them when they boarded a plane from Guantánamo Bay detention facility back home to Tunisia in 2007. After being held in Guantánamo under suspicions of terrorist involvement, the two Tunisian nationals were independently cleared as non-enemy combatants and released back into the hands of the Tunisian government, according to a report published by Human Rights Watch. Despite pleas by the detainees to forgo the repatriation and known reports of torture in Tunisia, the U.S. government went ahead with the transfer. To no one’s great surprise, Hajji and Lagha were both viciously tortured in Tunisian prisons — all of which could have been prevented.

This column made its humble beginnings with rants on coffee-drinkers and adjectives. I am proud to say that it has grown up and is ready to address more consequential issues.

Now I would like to outline three facts:

(1) Guantanamo Bay is an American Gulag.

(2) The Israeli initiative in Gaza is nothing less than an ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

(3) Universities are a place for liberal minded hipsters with no sense of morals or direction who will cling to any fleeting cause just to increase their sense of self by the smallest of margins.

Do you see how important it is not to exaggerate things?

Following one of our nation’s most memorable moments in history, newly elected President Obama swiftly enacted several executive orders. One of the orders called for the closure of America’s intensely debated terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay. While many fear this and feel that a prison such as Gitmo is necessary for fighting terrorism, the practices used there are in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution and the rights guaranteed to the accused. When defending our nation it becomes easy to neglect the rights of those involved in terrorist activity, but is this fair for a country which was founded on principles of liberty, justice, and equality?

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The re-emergence of two former Guantanamo Bay prisoners as al-Qaida terrorists in the past week won’t likely change U.S. policy on transfers to Saudi Arabia, the Pentagon said yesterday.

More than 100 Saudis have been repatriated from the U.S. military’s prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Saudi Arabia, where the government puts them through a rehabilitation program designed to encourage them to abandon Islamic extremism and reintegrate into civilian life.