Republicans Outfox Democrats on Gitmo

In one of his first acts as president, Barack Obama delivered on his campaign promise to shut down our military prison at Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay, giving the Pentagon a year, until January 2010, to come up with a plan for closing the facility and transferring the remaining 240 prisoners.

But, suddenly, Senate Democrats have joined Senate Republicans in undermining his decision. Because, they say, they don’t want “terrorists” on American soil. From both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill, anguished politicians are pleading: “Please, Mr. President, don’t send those dangerous terrorists to my home state, or my congressional district.”

What a bunch of weenies.

First, Gitmo detainees are not terrorists. At best, they’re “suspected” terrorists. But, of almost 600 originally sent to Gitmo, not one — NOT ONE! — has yet been found guilty of terrorism.

Second, the idea that there’s no prison in the United States strong and safe enough to house those detainees while they await trial, or after they’ve been convicted, is absurd. What about the new maximum-security military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.? Or Supermax in Florence, Colo., which now holds convicted terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, shoe bomber Richard Reid and Timothy McVeigh partner Terry Nichols?

Let’s be honest. This whole argument is just a smokescreen, stirred up by Republicans, to keep Bush’s war on terror alive and to keep Bush’s Gitmo open. Too bad so many Senate Democrats were dumb enough to fall for it.

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