Without Gitmo, we'll need...another Gitmo!

(Hat tip: Donklephant)

It looks as if the Obama team is seeking a way to take a bow for closing Gitmo while shifting the problem of how to detain guys we can't let go and can' try in a federal court (without spilling countless intelligence sources and methods)to some new, yet-to-be-fashioned forum:

AP, November 10: WASHINGTON – President-elect Obama's advisers are crafting plans to close the Guantanamo Bay prison and prosecute terrorism suspects in the U.S., a plan that the Bush administration said Monday was easier said than done. Under the plan being crafted inside Obama's camp, some detainees would be released and others would be charged in U.S. courts, where they would receive constitutional rights and open trials. But, underscoring the difficult decisions Obama must make to fulfill his pledge of shutting down Guantanamo, the plan could require the creation of a new legal system to handle the classified information inherent in some of the most sensitive cases.

These guys were not captured by cops who gathered evidence to convict them. They were captured by the smart use of intelligence assets with the goal of shutting them down to protect the US from more attacks.

In 2001-02, there was no chance that we could have succeeded in doing this by sending the FBI out to Khandahar with warrants. Anyone who suggested that due process came before the nation’s safety then would have been derided -- rightly -- as a fool. Now we have the luxury to worry about due process — but only up to a point that will always fall short of that found in a federal court. No sane U.S. government is going to release Khalid Sheik Mohamed for lack of admissable evidence. Obama, et al. are going to find that if we did not have a Gitmo, we’d need to create one.

And that’s exactly what they appear to be doing.