It seems obvious that the best place for such prisoners is somewhere outside the United States. If such detentions have to exist — and they do, for this small group — it just so happens there is a prison at an American facility in Cuba that is perfect for the job.
That’s what bipartisan majorities of Congress have said over and over again. Nevertheless, Obama wants to act on his own. “I’m going to be doing everything I can to close [Guantanamo],” the president told CNN on Sunday. “It is contrary to our values and it is wildly expensive.”
Obama conceded that “there’s going to be a certain irreducible number that are going to be really hard cases, because, you know, we know they’ve done something wrong and they are still dangerous, but it’s difficult to mount the evidence in a traditional Article Three court. You know, so we’re going to have to wrestle with that.”
The president can wrestle all he wants, but he’s not going to find a way to imprison inmates inside the United States without charge or trial that is, in Obama’s words, “consistent with our values.” The best way to deal with those cases is to keep them in Guantanamo until they die.
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