The Gitmo Detainees

Immediately following Barack Obama's inauguration as president of the United States, one of the first executive orders that he signed was to close the Gitmo detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba within a year. That was one of his campaign promises. The Gitmo detention center was started under the George W. Bush administration following the war in Afghanistan in October 2001. The Left along with some Congressmen and Senators has wanted to close Gitmo for the last several years. The immediate question that needs to be asked is where are all the Gitmo detainees going to be transferred?

There are reports surfacing that six of the Gitmo detainees may be transferred abroad to different countries. There are other reports some of the detainees may be headed to a prison in Central Michigan. Many residents that have attended town hall meetings there are not very happy about that prospect. The detainees that could be transferred to a U.S. prison were terrorists. They are ruthless. Those types of people will die for their religion. Mixing a group of terrorists with normal prisoners may pose a security risk for those that live in Michigan.

What should be done with the Gitmo detainees? This issue should've been taken care of during the previous administration. This is something that Obama shouldn't have to be dealing with. You don't keep prisoners that fought for Al-Qaeda that long in a detention center without prosecuting them. The Left believes they should be given American lawyers to represent them in court. However, they aren't American citizens. The Bill of Rights and the Constitution don't apply to them. Some critics have said that the provisions of the Geneva Convention should apply to them. However, these terrorist thugs didn't wear an army uniform and they weren't fighting for a specific country. They're part of a terrorist network. You couldn't easily identify them because they dressed like ordinary civilians.

Bush should've had Congress immediately following the war in Afghanistan to establish a military tribunal to try these terrorists. There's no reason for this to be lingering like it has been. I believe if he pushed it through Congress immediately following the war, Congress would've passed it and we could've had these thugs tried. That's what America did following World War II. We had the Nuremberg Trials in 1946 and 1947. President Obama needs to ask Congress to authorize a military tribunal immediately to try these detainees in Gitmo. That's the solution. They don't need American lawyers or to go to some prison in America. These are a special class of people which don't possess any constitutional rights.

President Obama is not going to establish a military tribunal through Congress. Those that help put him in power are opposed to that method. However, that's the right way to treat war criminals. They're not American citizens and it would be a long ordeal giving everyone of these war criminals American lawyers. We need to try these criminals as quickly as possible.