Keeping America Safe

Now that we’ve been protected from the diabolical mastermind that is the guy who drove around Osama bin Laden, the Washington Post is reporting that the Defense Department isn’t sure that they’re even going to let the guy go after his sentence is fulfilled. Honestly, if they aren’t planning on letting these guys go, even people like Hamdan who are of little or no importance, what are we planning on doing with them?

What I find truly shocking about the Bush Administration and the abhorrent way they’ve conducted the push back against al Qaeda is not the ugly, illegal way they’ve treated people – we still have people in Guantanamo Bay who are innocent of any crimes – although that’s bad enough – but the impression that they give of not having put any thought at all into what they were going to do down the road.

Seriously, did they just envision keeping these men in a prison until they all died of old age? One reason they don’t want to let them go is the fear that they’ll go back to their old terroristin’ ways. Did we not think about this before we decided to keep these men locked in an extralegal limbo for years and years?

So, my question for you guys. January, 2009, President Obama is sworn in. What does he do with Guantanamo Bay? What does he do with these prisoners? Does he transfer the ones who really were involved in terrorism to federal prisons? What about the innocents that have been rotting away there for years? I really don’t have any idea. But it certainly is something that bears thinking about.