Disastrous Inheritance

The difficulty posed by Guantanamo: Obama must close it, or the United States will never recover from the shame George W. Bush brought upon it.

Barack Obama already called for the closure of Guantanamo two days after he took office, and he surely must have expected problems along the way. But only the most cynical would have predicted it would be his own party that’s now making life difficult for him.

The Senate voted overwhelmingly to withhold the money needed to close Guantanamo. That means the opposition is coming not only from Republicans, who still defend George Bush’s disastrous legacy, but also on a broad front from Obama’s own party supporters.

That’s a sign of mindless panic. They’re frightened of allowing themselves to be defined by the Republicans. Led by the sinister ex-Vice-President Dick Cheney, Republicans are claiming that Democrats are playing fast and loose with America’s safety and security by bringing terrorists into the country. That’s demagoguery, but it works.

America’s prisons aren’t secure enough to hold a few dozen terrorists? That’s sheer nonsense. Islamist terrorists are already serving sentences in American prisons. The recidivism rate among those released from Guantanamo is high? One in seven of those released from Guantanamo pops back up in terrorist circles. In the U.S., on the other hand, the recidivism rate among released convicts, in general, is two out of three.

Obama has to take these problems seriously, and he has to make compromises. But he should remain steadfast to his principles. He must close Guantanamo and ensure that the inmates receive fair trials. Obama has to insist on this, even to his own supporters. Otherwise, America can never rid itself of the shame brought upon it by his predecessor.