One of the worst promises Barack Obama ever made - and that's saying something - continues to vex him and his administration because of the political and logistical nightmares involved with carrying it out. Thank God for small favors. So despite an executive order he signed on the first day of his presidency, the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay remains in operation, and the administration continues to stumble in its pursuit of a way to close it down.
Let's just say this up front: Guantanamo should never close. The establishment of the prison there was one of the Bush Administration's more brilliant moves in the war on terror, as it offers excellent security without the threat of the terrorists coming onto U.S. soil and being afforded the assistance of U.S. lawyers who could litigate the manner of their capture on the battlefield as if it were a traffic stop requiring the reading of Miranda rights. The only reason anyone talks of closing Gitmo is the yelping of the left that it represented some sort of abomination against human rights. And this was never sincere. Its sole purpose was to reduce political support for Bush in order to pave the way for Democrat gains in Congress and an ultimate re-taking of the White House.
That was successful, but once it was achieved, the Democrats found themselves in the unenviable but richly deserved position of needing to grapple with the foolish promise they'd made to close the facility. The problem there, of course, is that you either have to release all the terrorists (which is probably Obama's preference but is a political bridge too far even for him) or put them somewhere else. What the administration has always wanted to do was move them to the prison in Thomson, Illinois, which became federally owned in 2012.
But when the federal government purchased the prison from the state of Illinois, then-Attorney General Eric Holder agreed to make the deal contingent on a promise that the feds would not put Gitmo prisoners there. Only under that condition did Illinois agree to the sale.
Fast forward three years, and Obama doesn't want his presidency to end with Gitmo still open because he'll look like the impotent, unserious president he . . . er, actually is. So out come the latest plans to close Gitmo, and as we examine the options floated for housing the prisoners, well, gosh - this is a surprise:
The White House had intended to provide lawmakers with a new road map for shuttering the facility — a top priority for President Obama’s remaining time in office — before lawmakers went on their August recess.
As part of the plan, the administration had considered sending some of the 116 detainees remaining at the prison to either a top-security prison in Illinois or a naval facility in Charleston, S.C.
But during a recent video teleconference among top administration officials, Scott Ferber, senior counsel to the deputy attorney general, said the Justice Department could not support the use of the federal prison in Thomson, Ill., according to the officials, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Ferber said the Justice Department had made a public commitment in 2012 when it purchased the facility from the state of Illinois that it would not relocate detainees to Thomson. Then-Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee: “We will not move people from Guantanamo, regardless of the state of the law, to Thomson. That is my pledge as attorney general.”
Holder’s commitment, made during sworn testimony, was apparently overlooked by officials when the most recent plan was drawn up.
Thomson is no longer being considered, and the White House is again looking at other federal facilities, officials said.
A few things stand out about this. If the Justice Department made a "public commitment" not to move Gitmo detainees to Thomson, and Holder reiterated it under oath, it strains credulity to suggest anyone in the administration who was working on this issue didn't know about the commitment. They didn't merely "overlook" it as the Post charitably claims. They intended to simply ignore it, and apparently Scott Ferber pointed out that they would be bringing a world of trouble on themselves if they did so.
Also, by promising Illinois that it would not bring Gitmo terrorists to Thompson, does not the administration implicitly acknowledge that doing so presents a real threat - however remote they may think the threat is? It's not as if no terrorist ever escapes, and the last thing any community in America needs is a bunch of bitter jihadists running around looking for revenge after upwards of a decade in U.S. captivity. The detainees pose no threat to anyone on the U.S. mainland as long as they're locked up at Gitmo, so why not simply keep them there? The only conceivable reason is that the Democrats themselves talked so much trash about the place when they were out of power, selling leftists and the media across the globe on the idea that it was some sort of torture hellhole, and now they'll look like abject fools if an eight-year Democrat presidency comes and goes and they don't manage to shut it down.
Finally, this is not good news for the folks in Charleston, South Carolina, whose naval base serves as another favorite option of the Obama White House. The Republican Congress seems determined not to approve the move of Gitmo terrorists to the U.S., but when have they ever succeeded in stopping Obama from doing anything he wanted to do - legal or otherwise?
People in South Carolina might want to buy some guns.
One of the worst promises Barack Obama ever made - and that's saying something - continues to vex him and his administration because of the political and logistical nightmares involved with carrying it out. Thank God for small favors. So despite an executive order he signed on the first day of his presidency, the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay remains in operation, and the administration continues to stumble in its pursuit of a way to close it down.
Let's just say this up front: Guantanamo should never close. The establishment of the prison there was one of the Bush Administration's more brilliant moves in the war on terror, as it offers excellent security without the threat of the terrorists coming onto U.S. soil and being afforded the assistance of U.S. lawyers who could litigate the manner of their capture on the battlefield as if it were a traffic stop requiring the reading of Miranda rights. The only reason anyone talks of closing Gitmo is the yelping of the left that it represented some sort of abomination against human rights. And this was never sincere. Its sole purpose was to reduce political support for Bush in order to pave the way for Democrat gains in Congress and an ultimate re-taking of the White House.
