It’s a battle that many of us realists thought was lost on November 3rd and then again on January 21st, when the president pledged to close Guantanamo within a year and halted all trials including that of the terrorists who bombed the USS Cole. Well, it looks like the Naïveté Brigades currently heading the US government are wavering because of how difficult it is proving to find a place to relocate a lot of the detainees. With the limited willingness of Europe to accept some of these detainees and due to the fact that we cannot relocate a lot of them because their home countries would probably release them, the pressure on the current administration to relocate them to mainland United States has increased. Fortunately for us, unfortunately for the president, House Democrats rejected the president’s request for $50 million to relocate Guantanamo detainees. House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-WI) expressed that the relocation plan was too ambiguous and would face enormous pressure from lawmakers who do not want suspected terrorists in their “backyard.” Looks like not all Democrats are immune to common sense. To their credit, Republicans have generally agreed that bringing the detainees to the United States would pose a national security threat. Imagine the possibility of mixing hardened terrorists with common criminals, that was probably Al Qaeda’s intention all along.

Not So Fast, Barack

These developments, including the fact that some detainees who have been cleared cannot be sent back to their home countries because they would be persecuted like the Uighurs from China, might lead the Obama administration to break two key campaign pledges. The first being the possibility of restarting the military tribunals, which is opposed by human rights groups, as admitted by Attorney General Eric Holder. The second being the possible continued indefinite detention of the most dangerous detainees, as admitted by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. It took a cold splash of reality from a complicated international scenario and from Democrats and Republicans in Congress to snap the Obama administration out of this dream that it would be easy to close Guantanamo.

Personally, I believe that we should make the detention facility more transparent, process and try the suspects more quickly, and use a military tribunal system that is suited to this task. Indefinite detention costs the taxpayers money which could go to more useful programs. I am not thrilled that my money is being used to keep terrorists clothed, housed, and fed. We should be very sure before we release any of these suspects as well, else they rejoin the ranks of Al Qaeda. To make Guantanamo more efficient at processing suspects and to establish a definite set of legal guidelines for interrogations should be the goal. Instead, I see this administration disregarding security in order to score political points. Fortunately, reality has prohibited them from realizing their agenda. We may finally see security defeat naïveté, at least in this single case. I hope this realism spills over into the rest of his foreign policies.

-AG