I don’t necessarily agree that Gitmo isn’t a recruiting tool — sure, there are plenty of other reasons for people to attack us, but to say that other attacks have happened for other reasons and that means Gitmo doesn’t matter just doesn’t quite wash.

This does not address my point that the jihadis don’t need ANY motive to attack us, as witnessed by the 1993 WTC bombing and 9/11. You could detain the terrorists in a Beverly Hills hotel and their cohorts will still attack us because their religion requires them to kill. As they like to say, “We love death more than you love life.” Gitmo is a red herring. It is irrelevant to their cause.

In re the flag-waving rhetoric, please accept my apology for being unclear, as I am not fond of “red, white, and blue” arguments and I certainly did not mean to suggest anything along those lines. Therefore I shall be more specific: When our government confers the rights & privileges guaranteed to US citizens by the US Constitution on our enemies, then the government has nullified its responsibility to protect Americans at all costs. Put another way, it puts enemies of the Republic on the same footing as citizens of the Republic and negates the point of establishing the Republic by the Constitution in the first place. It’s a simple point — the founders of the USA did not frame the Constitution to protect British subjects — they framed it to protect US citizens. So the moment you grant constituted privileges to avowed enemies of the state, you begin undermining the foundations of the state itself. To allow enemies of the US to exploit the Constitution is absurd on its face and can only jeopardize the very truths our fathers held as self-evident.

Thanks!

In any event, I wasn’t writing specifically to argue your points per se, but rather to present an alternate reality where the Republicans were selling the plan in a way that the Democrats can’t (or won’t) do. It would be fun to watch, and naturally there was just a slight amount of tongue placed firmly in cheek.

I don’t necessarily agree that Gitmo isn’t a recruiting tool – sure, there are plenty of other reasons for people to attack us, but to say that other attacks have happened for other reasons and that means Gitmo doesn’t matter just doesn’t quite wash.

As to your other point, I would be fine with either tribunal or trial, either way I am sure KSM will be jailed or executed. (I have reasons for arguing against an execution as well but maybe I’ll get into those eventually, not here.) I’m sure there are as many arguments for a tribunal, as there were to deal with guys like Mousaui and Reid in the court system.

I will say this: To use rhetoric like “that will ultimately destroy the US as we know it” is just silly, and always impresses me that people who so often use patriotic bluster like “we are the greatest country in the world, nothing can stop us and we can accomplish anything” can equally believe that one thing will bring us down in a collapse of society and everything will end.

Either way, always good to hear from speaking buildings in any form, and it’s nice to know that more than just me reads these hunks of blithering. Hopefully my next comments will come from the school building from the old Peanuts cartoons. It’ll all be done in thought balloon.

You advanced at least one false premise for your argument in this essay, which moved me to comment.

First, no one has claimed that we located the terrorist detainees at Gitmo because we’re afraid to keep them in the heartland. This is a strawman argument but since you raised it, I’ll answer it. We keep the terrorist detainees in Gitmo because as unlawful enemy combatants, they require special handling/supervision from the military. Normal prison guards are not equipped to deal with these types of personnel (ask Louis Pepe), which is the reason the US military plans to relocate its personnel to Thomson if the detainees are transferred there.

Second, Obama’s pretext for closing Gitmo is twofold: (A) he believes it’s a recruiting tool for al Qaeda, and (B) he believes the US judicial system is eminently qualified to address the detainees. Both of these arguments are strawmen as well.

(A) Al Qaeda does not need any reason to recruit anyone, as demonstrated by 9/11. They attacked us without provocation simply because their religion requires them to kill. We detained no one at Gitmo before 9/11 and yet they had plenty of martyrs lined up to die for the cause. This says it all. They don’t need any more motive to attack us and, quite frankly, to the extent that Gitmo is a recruiting tool (which I seriously doubt), it will be replaced by Thomson faster than you can say “supermax.”

(B) The “US judicial system” argument is equally faulty because the our legal system has distinguished between federal crimes and war crimes since the days of Washington, which is the reason that military tribunals have existed in the US since our birth. More importantly, US constitutional privileges are reserved for US citizens — not terrorists — and to confer the rights that are reserved for US citizens on enemies of the US is turn the whole system on its head. This is a ridiculous concept that will ultimately destroy the US as we know it, if followed to its logical conclusion. The Constitution will become a weapon used by our enemies undo the foundations.

Thanks!