Civil Libertarians Reject Obama’s Guantanamo Closure Plan
By SPENCER ACKERMAN
The Washington Independent
If there was any doubt that Republicans in Congress will oppose this year’s push from President Obama to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) speech Wednesday to the Heritage Foundation ought to have laid it to rest. In the course of a half hour’s worth of invective against the administration’s counterterrorism policies, the Senate minority leader pledged to block funding for any efforts at giving terrorism detainees trials in civilian courts. But he held out a special reverence for the much-vilified locus for military commissions and indefinite detention. “Thankfully, Gitmo is still open for business,” McConnell said.
McConnell then turned, briefly, to an argument that is starting to be shared by McConnell’s typical political enemies — and which could seriously complicate the administration’s plans for the final closure of Guantanamo Bay. If Obama simply moves the military commissions and indefinite detentions featured at Guantanamo to a new detention facility in Thomson, Ill. — as the administration currently plans –then there is “no doubt” that al-Qaeda will use Thomson “for the same recruiting and propaganda purposes” it’s used toward Guantanamo, McConnell said, a prospect that “eliminates the administration’s only justification for closing Guantanamo.” (more)