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Obama Bows on Settling Detainees

Different Gitmo issues are being conflated by the mainstream media/blogosphere here (WashPo's inartfully worded headline didn't help). That article almost exclusively deals with the couple dozen Uighurs (who were exonerated early on and treated much better than the vast majority of long term detainees).

Certain high-profile figures (like Boumedienne) DON'T WANT to settle here. They want to go back home. The "issue" that Obama is "caving" on is allowing detainees that BushCo tortured and illegally held but now is RELEASING to settle in the US. The issue that was consuming most of the oxygen in this debate concerned the people WHO WERE NOT BEING RELEASED and still awaited incarceration or trial.

I have NO PROBLEM with transferring the actual bad guys to our Supermax facilities (Montana has a brand new EMPTY prison and could take a bunch of them). However, I think the wrongly imprisoned need to go back to their home countries. The idea of an wrongly-imprisoned, embittered and possibly converted potential jihadist being released to live here isn't a comforting thought. That's not entirely fair, but it's not entirely prudent to assume that some of these detainees would not be prime targets for terrorist recruiters.

It IS true that by denying even the most "tame" detainees (who are legitimate refugees), we make it much more difficult for other countries to share the burden, but I don't recall the President promising that the innocent Gitmonians would get to live here.

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