President Obama released five more terrorists from Guantánamo Bay this week, though you'd be hard-pressed to understand it from the New York Times headline: "US Moves Five Yemenis from Guantanamo."  Moved?  Where did they move to?

It's only when you get into the article that you see that the Yemenis were not simply "moved," but released, and that these were not simply Yemenis, but suspected combatants.

But the men were all cleared for release five years ago by the national security team made up of officials from the Pentagon, the State Department, the Justice Department and other national security agencies charged with reviewing the cases.

This shouldn't make us comfortable, however, as all the other releasees who returned to the battlefield were also cleared for release by these same departments.  At least 100 of those released (and as many as 174) have returned to terrorism.  So why does Obama keep releasing them?

To answer this question, you have to understand how the left views America.  Domestically, the left sees an all-powerful government as a power that can improve America, and impose its economic, social, and political diktats to "transform" the nation.  But internationally is another story.  The left views people in third-world countries as oppressed by the actions or even the inactions of the United States.  The United States intervenes?  It's a bully.  The United States doesn't get involved?  It's uncaring.  And so on.

When it comes to radical Muslim terrorists, three words liberals would never use in the same sentence, the left feels sympathy.  Leftists believe that radical Islam has legitimate grievances.  We did, after all, invade Afghanistan, even though we did it because we were attacked by radical Muslims who were trained there.  We did, after all, invade Iraq, even though we did it to rid the world of a brutal dictator, Saddam Hussein, and his stockpile of weapons of mass destruction (of which we found the chemical weapons).  We were attacked on 9/11, but leftists will tell you smugly that we had a history of supporting Arab dictators against the popular will of the Arab people.  Liberals won't tell you that the deaths of 3,000 Americans was justified by our foreign policy, but they will be the first to tell you that there was an explanation for it, that we made the Arab world "angry" because we had diplomatic relations and even gave economic aid to governments the radical Muslims disapproved of.  (A footnote: the radical Muslims have no problems with dictatorships, as long as they are in charge of them.)

After all, according to the left, the West has been oppressing the Arab world for years, first by colonizing (an act in which America took no part), and then, after they became independent, by propping up dictators.  Not the right kind of dictators, like the ayatollahs of Iran, but the wrong kind of dictators, like Mubarak in Egypt.  So while the left doesn't believe that radical Muslims should slaughter Americans, they understand their anger.

What also plays into this is the left's preposterous belief that every prisoner should have a trial or be released, just like a common criminal.  Even though this is a war, they feel that these combatants should get a trial, which would be unprecedented for POWs of any ongoing war (unless they were accused of war crimes).  What is really unprecedented, of course, is releasing these soldiers while the war is ongoing.  I use the term "soldiers" loosely, of course, for these are unlawful combatants, who don't wear uniforms, target civilians, and don't respect the Geneva Conventions.

So given the tremendous guilt the left feels, it is no wonder that Obama is doing everything he can to release these terrorists, many of them killers, to go and kill again.

“This administration continues to irresponsibly release detainees from Guantánamo Bay,” Senator Kelly Ayotte, Republican of New Hampshire, said Tuesday in announcing proposed legislation to stop the releases. “Many of these detainees have returned to the battlefields from which they came and are looking for ways to kill Americans and our allies.”

Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, said he had been re-evaluating his views about the prison since a visit there in December. “Like most Americans, I took a broad approach to thinking about Guantánamo,” he said. “It was ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ I knew I was safe here, and thought to just put these people on another island in Cuba and keep them there.”

But Mr. Manchin said his views were changing. “We’re up to $3.3 million per detainee. The average annual cost per prisoner in a maximum-security prison in the United States is $78,000. And that’s at the most expensive supermax prison.”

Ever notice that liberals get worried about costs only when it comes to things like prisons, border protection, and national security?

Pedro Gonzales is editor of NewsMachete.com, the conservative news site.