President-elect Barack Obama is preparing to issue an executive order his first week in office — and perhaps his first day — to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, according to two presidential transition team advisers. It's unlikely the detention facility at the Navy base in Cuba will be closed anytime soon. In an interview last weekend, Obama said it would be "a challenge" to close it even within the first 100 days of his administration.
But the order, which one adviser said could be issued as early as Jan. 20, would start the process of deciding what to do with the estimated 250 al-Qaida and Taliban suspects and potential witnesses who are being held there. Most have not been charged with a crime.
That unpleasant reality that often accompanies turning bumper sticker slogans into policy has reared its ugly head, of course. What do we do with all those poor poets? Release them? Send them to their home countries who might torture them? Shoot them?
Oh, I know! Remember that Marine recruiting station that the Code Pink hags have been protesting?
Let's give the Left their way on this too. Close Gitmo and house the poor lost souls now held their in the building now housed by the Marine recruiters. Gitmo and the Marines are shut down and the Leftists get those poor dears they call friends and allies as neighbors!
Who can be opposed to such a win-win-win solution?
I mean, as long as the constant sound of folk music that the inmates will hear in Berkeley won't be considered a war crime by Amnesty International.
UPDATE: I'm sure their Code Pink and Berkeley neighbors won't be bothered by the relatively low recidivism rate of the misunderstood tykes who have spent some time at Club Gitmo:
We now believe that that number has increased and that the overall known terrorist reengagement rate has increased to 11 percent. The new numbers are, we believe, 18 confirmed and 43 suspected of returning to the fight. So 61 in all former Guantanamo detainees are confirmed or suspected of returning to the fight.
Personally, since the reddish-hued lasses out in Berkeley are convinced that the prisoners in Gitmo are innocent, I'm willing to risk the health and lives of Code Pink hags by putting these thugs within scimitar's reach of the ladies' necks.
But perhaps that's just me.
UPDATE: None of the Gitmo critics seem willing to put a replacement facility amongst their constituents. Not that I'm goading the Lefties to put up or shut up, mind you. I do live in Ann Arbor, after all ...
