Wrong Answers On Guantanamo

Eric Umansky, a columnist for Slate, writes the typical leftist tome about Guantanamo in today's LATimes. The prison, he argues, is just the beginning of the problem. He asks the right question -- what do we do with detainees if we close Gitmo? -- but has all the wrong answers.

What he fears most is that they will be returned to their own countries and subjected to their own legal system. Who pays these guys to worry about stuff like that? They are not much for the old adage about making your bed, now sleeping in it.

I worry that they'll be put in our legal system where "prisoner's rights" attorneys and the ACLU will conspire with insane judges to release them

Umansky's entire worry is flawed, however, by its premise:

Gitmo has come to represent the lack of accountability and the extralegal aspects of the war on terrorism. Shuttering it would be a grand gesture. The symbolism would be important and could help improve the U.S. image.

No, Gitmo represents the fair (which is not to say coddling) treatment of thousands of difficult, dangerous prisoners, just as it represents the dangerous collusion between the MSM and the radical left: the MSM craving anti-Bush sensationalism, and the ACLU, Human Rights Watch and other front organizations all too happy to provide it.