McConnell: Don't close Gitmo

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wrote an op-ed yesterday for Sunday's Washington Post about Gitmo. He doesn't want the terrorist detention center to close.

As administration officials huddled privately last week, thinking of ways to close the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, many of us hoped that they would think again. President Obama's decision to shut down Guantanamo may have cheered critics of the Bush administration, but the alternatives under consideration show how elusive a satisfying resolution to this issue has become -- and how dangerous closing Guantanamo could be.

Attorney General Eric Holder captured the dilemma after a recent trip to Guantanamo when he offered a glowing report on the facility, said the prisoners were being treated well -- and then reiterated the administration's intent to close it within the year. Holder was less expansive on what the administration plans to do with the detainees after Guantanamo is closed. The reason for his silence: No acceptable alternatives exist.

It's not for lack of trying. Ever since the United States began using Guantanamo as a detention facility after the October 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, government officials and legal scholars have puzzled over what to do with enemy combatants who don't fall into the traditional categories of war. No one denies that the United States is legally entitled to capture and hold enemy fighters and prevent them from returning to battle. But their release and repatriation have proved to be vexing questions, and over time the answers have become both more difficult and more critical.

He goes on...

Some have proposed solving this problem by sending detainees to the United States. The most obvious flaw in this plan is that no one can say where. Two of the likeliest spots, the ADX "SuperMax" facility in Florence, Colo., and Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, are in states that are home to a member of the Cabinet, former Colorado senator Ken Salazar, and an incoming member of the Cabinet, Kansas's Kathleen Sebelius. Both are opposed to using the facilities in their states. When the question of sending detainees to U.S. soil was put to the Senate, the vote against was 94 to 3. It's hard to find anyone anywhere who wants his or her state to house the next Guantanamo.

Other countries don't want "the next Gitmo" either.

Right now, there is no feasible alternative to the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

If one develops, let's take a look.

Oh, don't forget that ex-Gitmo inmates are being recaptured as enemy combatants at an increasingly higher rate.

We need to keep America safe.

Technorati tags: law Gitmo guantanamo War on Terror Democrats Obama politics Barack Obama Kansas Republican McConnell colorado