Colorado, South Carolina, Kansas among potential terrorist homes under Obama's Gitmo closure plan

On his first day in office, President Barack Obama signed an executive order calling for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay terrorist prison in Cuba. Unlike some of his executive orders, fortunately, this one was meaningless. He didn't have a way to do it, and he still doesn't. His presidency will come and go with Gitmo still open, not because Obama wants it that way, but because there's no way to square his leftist dream of giving foreign enemies American lawyers with actually following U.S. law. But Obama isn't done pretending to be serious about closing Gitmo. Today he announced a so-called plan to do so. There is nothing serious or achievable about this plan, but you'll be excited to know that if you live in one of 19 U.S. states, Obama is more than happy to bring the terrorists right to your neighborhood where they can get the best U.S. defense attorneys, who will quote Obama himself in making their defenses. More about that presently. First, here are some more details of the "plan":

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Obama outlined a blueprint that involves transferring the bulk of remaining detainees to other countries and moving the rest -- who can't be transferred abroad because they're deemed too dangerous -- to an as-yet-undetermined detention facility in the United States.

Among the potential U.S. locations to house the terrorists are the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado; the military prison in Leavenworth, Kansas; and the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, South Carolina. Ten other federal or military prisons are also on the list. Now, Obama claims we have to close Gitmo, not because it isn't effective in protecting the world from the terrorists housed there, but because "keeping this facility open is contrary to our values." Wait, whose values? I think he means his values, and that means he doesn't like the idea of the U.S. actually keeping terrorists locked up without giving them having been mirandized or giving them lawyers, because Obama rejects and always has rejected the notion that we are in a war against these people. And that leads to one of the biggest problems with bringing them to the U.S. and giving them lawyers. Once on the case, their lawyers will claim they were illegally detained. And do you know who they will cite to back up that assertion? Barack Obama. From the very same story linked above:

"The plan we're putting forward today isn't just about closing the facility at Guantanamo. It's not just about dealing with the current group of detainees, which is a complex piece of business because of the manner in which they were originally apprehended and what happened. This is about closing a chapter in our history," he said during short remarks at the White House.

Every defense attorney assigned to a Gitmo terrorist will cite that comment and insist Obama was calling the original detention illegal. And they will be able to cite all kinds of other Obama statements prove their assertion that this is what Obama believes. There you have it. The president of the United States himself thinks my client was illegally detained. What more do I need to show you? What indeed? Not only is Obama trying to give them lawyers, he is making the lawyers' cases for them. And about this business that Gitmo represents some shameful chapter in America's history. Bolshevik. It does not. The establishment off the prison at Guantanamo Bay is one of the most brilliant moves the Bush Administration ever made. It solved a very tricky problem - what to do with detainees picked up on the battlefield, but not part of any organization that had signed the Geneva Convention. The U.S. obviously wouldn't want the detainees on its own soil or that of an ally, but they had to go somewhere. Solution: The naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which the U.S. had leased from the Cubans since early in the 20th Century. After the communist revolution in Cuba in 1957, Castro tried to kick us out but we refused to go. We kept sending him checks to cover the lease, although he refused to cash them, but we still had control of the base and if we put the terrorists there we no longer had to worry about them attacking Americans or our allies. And because Gitmo was not on U.S. soil, the terrorists would have no claim to U.S. constitutional rights. It was perfect because everything about it was in the interests of the U.S. and against the interests of the terrorists. That is what's contrary to Obama's values. It's called America winning, and we all know he has a problem with that. He thinks it hurt our "standing in the world" that we locked these thugs up at Gitmo. Most of us understand that what helps your standing in the world is when you successfully stop evil, and that's exactly what Gitmo was and still is all about. The fact that left-wingers, journalists and people at the UN belly-ached about it doesn't mean it was any less brilliant of Bush and Cheney to do it, nor does it mean it was any less in our interests. Gitmo should never close. We should always have a place we can stash enemies who respect no laws or treaties, and will stop at nothing to kill us - ideally a place where such people would have no rights. And if that bothers you, then you probably don't value America winning any better than our lamentable current commander in chief does. And that's too bad, but at least you're just some idiot, and not the president.

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