The GTMO Solution (060509) by J. F. Kelly, Jr

A commentary by J. F. Kelly, Jr. Since President Barack Obama has wisely reneged on many of his campaign promises, hastily given to win votes and financial support from liberal anti-war groups, I suggest he consider backing off on a few others, also. Among them is his promise to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay which houses some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world. Members of Congress, governors and many politicians of his own party, those with actual responsibilities to constituents as opposed to, say, ACLU spokespersons and various protest group leaders, balked when it came to resettling the detainees anywhere on their own turf. They were even more horrified at the prospect of some detainees being released on U.S. soil because of insufficient evidence to ensure conviction in a civilian court or because providing such evidence in a public setting would jeopardize national security. “Not in my backyard,” was the response from those who had demanded that GTMO be closed. California’s Sen. Dianne Feinstein was aghast at the thought of incarcerating the detainees at Alcatraz, calling it a national treasure. I’ve been to Alcatraz (as a tourist, that is) and I have trouble thinking of that forlorn rock as a treasure of any kind, although it is popular with seagulls. Constructing a multi-million dollar state-of-the-art maximum security slammer seemed like a great idea until it came time to decide where to locate it. So when the time came to close GTMO as promised, both houses of Congress, the Senate by a decisive 90-6 vote, denied funding until the administration could come with a plan for what to do with the detainees. But, of course, it has no plan. Former Vice-president Dick Cheney warned that president Obama was endangering our national security by closing GTMO, saying “it’s easy to win applause in Europe for closing Guantanamo, but it’s tricky to come up with an alternative that will serve justice and national security.” Amen to that. Campaign promises come easy. Actually implementing decisions is much harder, as Mr. Obama is learning. As usual, the devil lies in the details and in the implementation process. Anyone can make promises to please the crowd and the foreign critics. So what to do with the detainees when no one wants them in his country, state, county or city? We could repatriate them to Yemen or some other Muslim state, of course where they most likely would be re-united with the terrorists to fight us again as many have already. Should we spend millions to build another ultra-secure prison that nobody wants in his backyard? Should we mix these dangerous people with other dangerous prisoners who are mad at society and ripe for recruitment into the terrorists’ ranks? Here’s a novel solution. Just keep them in GTMO where millions have already been spent to provide for the physical and spiritual comfort of the detainees whose living conditions are superior in many respects to those of many of our citizens and certainly most of our civilian prison population. So why close it at all? Permit me to answer my own question. GTMO has become a symbol of everything that liberals hate about “Bush’s war”. “Close GTMO” became an anti-war rallying cry. Here are some facts. The detainees at GTMO enjoy more amenities than military recruits do during basic training. They are not tortured there unless you define torture as indefinite detention. The military does not practice waterboarding there or anywhere else except to train its own special warfare personnel in survival skills. The CIA used it three times with significant success in saving lives on at least one of those occasions. Here’s another suggestion. Mr. Obama and his backers should stop blaming his difficulties and flip-flops on the last administration. That’s what coup leaders and dictators do in third world countries. Aside from the economic problems he inherited, which he arguably has made worse, his current quandaries are mostly self-inflicted as a result of campaign promises too freely given. Copyright 2009 by J. F. Kelly, Jr. Dr. Kelly is a retired Navy Captain and bank senior vice-president. A veteran of over thirty years of naval service, he commanded three ships and the Navy Personnel Research and Development Center in San Diego. He joined Great American Bank in 1983, serving first as Training and Development Director and later as Director of Human Resources. He retired from the bank in 1994 and has since devoted his efforts to community services. He served as foreman of the San Diego County Grand Jury in 1997-1998, president of the Lions Club of San Diego, the San Diego Council of the Navy League of the United States, the Lions Foundation, the Boys and Girls Foundation, Vice-president of the City of San Diego Salary setting commission and as chairman of the Business Council of the San Diego County Drug and Alcohol Abuse Prevention Task Force. He currently serves on the board of the Boys and Girls Foundation and the Coronado Roundtable. He currently teaches ship handling, seamanship and navigation at the Naval Base, San Diego. A freelance writer, his weekly column on current events appears in the California Republic, the Coronado EagleJournal, eCoronado.com and other publications. Dr. Kelly has degrees in education, management and leadership including a doctor of education degree from the University of San Diego. He and his wife, the former Charlane Hughes, reside in Coronado.