Hey, let’s move Gitmo to Afghanistan!

Via Flopping Aces,

The White House is considering whether to detain international terrorism suspects at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, senior U.S. officials said, an option that would lead to another prison with the same purpose as Guantanamo Bay, which it has promised to close.

So, let’s take these people that we evidently don’t think qualify for release, and move them to a place where the enemy can more easily target the troops guarding them and try to break them out.  Just imagine the Taliban or al Qaeda propaganda an attack on a relocated Gitmo would generate; it’s hard to think of a more attractive target.  It is insane to even consider this.  While we all regret the need for Gitmo to exist, as Wordsmith at Flopping Aces put it, “Guantanamo remains the least bad option.”

Gitmo-bashing judge smacked down!

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Gitmo-bashing District Judge John C. Coughenour received a smackdown from, of all institutions, the exceedingly liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. With regard to the Millenium bomber case, they

ruled that his sentence was too short, unreasonable, and in blatant violation of federal sentencing guidelines.

Amazing.  More on this at Michelle Malkin’s.

Gitmo NIMBYism

VA Gov. Bob McDonnell says no thanks to hosting the KSM civilian trial and supports military tribunals.  Which, coincidentally, is what the Nuremburg trials were, but with fewer rights for Nazis than Gitmo detainees enjoy today.

Now the question becomes, what other governors will step forward? Is there any state willing to take on the financial burden and security risk of the Obami’s grand experiment? I think it unlikely.

Read more here at Commentary.

Debatable Wisdom

via Powerline (again, and yes, I do read other blogs… but they’re on a Gitmo streak lately):  The Holder hangover (and whence it comes)

Speaking at a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania during the presidential campaign in June 2008, Barack Obama addressed the Supreme Court’s Boumediene decision granting Guantanamo detainees the right to challenge their confinement through habeas corpus proceedings in federal court. Obama asserted that the “principle of habeas corpus, that a state can’t just hold you for any reason without charging you and without giving you any kind of due process — that’s the essence of who we are.” He explained:

I mean, you remember during the Nuremberg trials, part of what made us different was even after these Nazis had performed atrocities that no one had ever seen before, we still gave them a day in court and that taught the entire world about who we are but also the basic principles of rule of law. Now the Supreme Court upheld that principle yesterday.

Obama’s comments derive from what I facetiously call “the higher wisdom” that fueled his campaign and that is now operative in his administration. Attorney General Eric Holder perfectly reflects it. In designating the mastermind of 9/11 and his co-conspirators who are detained in Guantanamo for trial in federal court in Manhattan, cloaking them with the rights of American citizens under the Constitution of the United States, Holder sought to give them their “day in court.” He also sought to “t[each] the entire world about who we are but also the basic principles of rule of law.” The only appropriate response to Obama’s campaign comments on Boumediene is: “Not true.” The higher wisdom is founded on false precepts. The Nuremberg trial was conducted before a military commission composed of representatives of the United States, Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union.

I am baffled why anyone would want to extend the benefits of American citizenship to those with whom we’re at war.   As for “teaching the entire world” anything… they’ve had a couple of hundred years to watch us, and if they haven’t caught on yet to our values and principles, they never will.

Category Error

Powerline asks, Whither KSM?

We have incessantly insisted that the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his 9/11 co-conspirators held at Guantanamo should not take place in federal court in New York. If they are to be tried at all, the trial should be held before a military commission at Guantanamo.

…

Like picking a new site for the Guantanamo detainees, this is an exercise in stupidity. We don’t need a more convenient federal courtroom; we need a venue that recognizes the status of the defendants as enemy combatants. Gitmo is it.

What we have here is a category error. The perpetrators of 9/11 are not criminals; they are unlawful combatants and enemies of the United States of America. They do not belong in an American courtroom shielded by the protections accorded American citizens under the Constitution of the United States.

The Obama administration seeks to end the war against Islamist terrorism by closing its eyes. No more war against terrorism in word. No more Gitmo in deed. No more military commissions. The higher wisdom operative in the Obama administration takes its cue from the late John Lennon, who proclaimed “WAR IS OVER! (IF YOU WANT IT).” It wasn’t true then, and it isn’t true now.

President Obama can click his heels all he wants; he won’t find himself on 9/10/2001.

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