Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the Obama administration had no choice but to order the shutdown of the prison at Guantanamo because "the name itself is a condemnation" of U.S. anti-terrorism strategy.
In an interview broadcast Friday on NBC's "Today" show, Gates called the facility on the island of Cuba "probably one of the finest prisons in the world today." But at the same time, he said it had become "a taint" on the reputation of America.
A "taint." Indeed, President Obama said in his speech on the topic that the image of the prison helped enemy recruiting. But the facility is one of the finest in the world. So why the taint? Why is the image so bad?
Why? Because of the constant drumbeat of lies about the facility that the global Left has mounted on it:
... the aggressive and unending efforts of a cadre of lawyers, activists, left-leaning Democrats in Congress, and civil libertarians against the facility, its purpose, its goal, and its existence. These efforts began even before it was opened, in November 2001, and continue to this day. The anti-Gitmo forces worked tirelessly to shape the public perception that Gitmo was the red-hot center of an aggressive policy approach that led the leftist financier George Soros to declare: “The biggest terrorist in the world is George W. Bush.”
I fault the Bush administration for failing to rebut this campaign of lies. But the Bush administration was awful on communications even as it was stalwart in defending our nation despite the poor press it got. So despite the facility's actual quality and the need we have to hold the prisoners held in Guantanamo, President Obama is committed to closing it. Well, eventually, if they can figure out what to do with the poor poet Pashtuns we just happen to have swept up (ignoring that only a tiny fraction of the men we "swept up" ever made it to Gitmo).
So we will hold the terrorists somewhere. And wherever we hold the terrorists, the global Left will protest and allege inhuman conditions and torture. Because ultimately, the campaign against Guantanamo Bay was never about Guanatano Bay or even the fate of the prisoners, or even about bashing President Bush, but a tool to bash America.
