Closing Gitmo: Style over Substance

The GOP scored a rare victory this week by derailing the President's plans to close the Guantanamo Bay prison facility. The "Keep Terrorists out of America Act" proposed by Congressional Republicans this month was a marvelous piece of political maneuvering; it allowed the GOP to control the debate on the President's agenda.

The Act would have provided that before the Federal government transferred a Gitmo prisoner to a prison facility, the Feds would have to get the approval of that State's legislature and governor. It also required the administration to to notify Congress of the name of the detainee, and to stipulate to Congress that the release would not hamper continued prosecution of the detainee and wouldn’t negatively impact the state’s population.

The bill could also be called the "No Terrorists In My Backyard Act".

Congressional Democrats, true to form, rather than defend the President's agenda, went all spineless on there left-wing base and voted to deny the President the funding needed to close Gitmo.

It's a rare political victory for the GOP in these wandering-in-the-desert days, and its one that we would should enjoy because I don't think we will be seeing many more such political points scored on our side.

But, while this is a political victory, I think that we have to admit that the GOP's position here doesn't make much sense. The President planned to close Gitmo and transfer the prisoners to Federal Supermax prisons and other facilities throughout the country. When is the last time you heard of someone escaping from a Federal prison facility? It's not like these terrorists are being transferred to a halfway house down the street from one of us. Also, some of these Federal prisons already have some pretty scary inmates in them - from mass murders to terrorists to ruthless mobsters. If the Feds can keep those inmates from escaping into the local population, I think that they would be able to handle a few bad guys from the sandbox.

The President's position on this doesn't make much sense either. He wants to spend $80,000,000.00 to close Gitmo and transfer the terrorists to prisons in the U.S. I understand the $80 million is a drop in the bucket these days, but why transfer these prisoners to another prison? I assume that the President and his left-wing allies are embarrased by Gitmo how other nations view Gitmo. But, if the President is just going to close Gitmo because the terrorists are sitting there without a right to trial or hearing to transfer them to another prison that happens to be on U.S. soil where they can rot without benefit of hearing or trial . . . well, you get the point.

I think this is another example of this administration exhalting style over substance. Remember when the President, shortly after assuming office, announced with glee that waterboarding was torture and that the United States was not going to engage in torture? At the same time, he quietly maintained the U.S. policy of rendition, which allows the U.S. to transfer detainees to our allies that do practice torture. Hmm.