Gitmo is now closed!

I had you for a second, didn't I? It's been a year since Obama made those Executive Orders to scrap the place, so I just wanted to briefly mention, after noting outcries by two of my favorite human rights groups: "an administration task force has recommended the detention without trial of nearly 50 of the 198 prisoners held there because 'they are too difficult to prosecute but too dangerous to release.'" via ACLU, my bold for emphasis.

Guantanamo Bay is one of the cited reasons for anger against the United States in the Muslim world and elsewhere abroad and it is clear that our closing of the facility, an end President Obama seemed to be pursuing as of a year ago, will notably increase our rapport with the people of nations who have been the victims of illegal detention facilities. Not only that, it will say that we are not stooping to the level of terrorism and illegal activity against which we are currently fighting.

One of the serious problems with Guantanamo is that many administration officials in the Bush and Obama Presidencies will tell you that Guantanamo Bay is a very useful "terrorist" recruiting center even within the prison, and even if any of the people aren't extremist when they come in, they certainly are when they come out. Those proven innocent of crimes or released with lack of evidence often go straight to the front lines and join Al Qaeda in the fight against the United States. Given this result, it's not surprising that the administration task force would want to continue to indefinitely detain some of the more dangerous (looking) "terrorists". The reasonable problem with this approach is that it's not certain that all of the 50 or so people who would be detained have actually done anything against the law. Especially if the government can't come up with the evidence to try them, there is more risk of this problem.

If even one of the people who may be indefinitely detained was innocent, it would make unjust the entirety of the rest of the detentions. This is not an opinion shared by most Republicans, and even a lot of Democrats, but if Obama is serious about keeping the "moral high ground" on this issue, he will follow through on his word and close the facility like he promised one year ago to accomplish IN ONE YEAR. This includes accepting the responsibility that American policy-makers and... American citizens... share for using Guantanamo Bay in the first place, and dealing with these people only once it's certain they have taken criminal action. Until then, we are not better than the "terrorists", because neither do we respect the rule of law.