As a practical matter, I have never understood all of this left wing obsession with GITMO.
After all, didn't the Clinton administration keep secret rendition prisons in other countries:
"The Rendition Program was initiated because President Clinton and Messrs. Lake, Berger and Clarke requested that the CIA begin to attack and dismantle al-Qaeda.
These men made it clear from the first that they did not want to bring those captured to the United States or to hold them in U.S. custody."
Don't get me wrong. I'm glad that Pres. Clinton created these prisons. I want these people off the streets where they can't kill my family or fly an airplane into a building.
By the way, where would rather be? GITMO or some rendition prison in Egypt?
We are fighting a very different war. We are not fighting soldiers who wear uniforms and adhere to some military discipline. We are not in conventional combat with people who are part of a nation's armed forces.
No way.
We are fighting people who hide in residential areas, murder at will and do whatever it takes to kill.
Again, what's the beef?
First of all, these are enemy combatants, some of the worst people in the world.
Second, they get 3 meals a day and even have a Red Cross office nearby.
Third, and most important, what in the world are you going to do with them?
Today's WSJ editorial is right on target:
"Campaign promises are so much easier to adhere to when they're strictly hypothetical, as Barack Obama is discovering.......
The first practical question is where to transfer Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the 245 or so other remaining Gitmo prisoners.
Dangerous enemy combatants can't simply be released into the streets.
The Obama camp says that after reviewing the classified files, it will try to repatriate as many as safely possible.
But 60 already cleared for release remain because they may be persecuted by their home countries.
And even Mr. Obama's vaunted diplomacy is unlikely to convince rights-protecting countries to resettle people he believes are too dangerous to release in the U.S. -- and the more willing Mr. Obama is to release prisoners, the more difficult this problem will become." (Obama and Guantanamo: Fighting terrorism is simpler when you're a candidate)
You can't release them. Nobody, specially Dems, want them in their districts. What congressman wants one of these types in their country jail?
What in the world do you do with people who want to blow up a Western city or kill your family if they had the chance to do it?
Also, wouldn't some of these people face "real torture" in another country?
Welcome to the real world:
"On wiretaps, interrogations and now Gitmo, the new Administration is discovering that the left-wing attack lines against Bush policies are mostly simplistic illusions.
Now those critics are Mr. Obama's problem."
What's the best solution? Keep them in GITMO where they can't kill you or me!
P.S. Hooray for our friend Ed:
"In the end, Gitmo really is two problems: location and process.
If the process gets changed, then there’s no reason to change location.
If the location was all that was at issue, then the process doesn’t matter.
These terrorists have to remain detained to keep Americans from getting killed, especially KSM and the 9/11 plotters.
Their guilt is not in doubt, nor is the danger they represent."
