Very Odd

Obama is backtracking a bit on the immediacy of closing Guantanamo.

His position is entirely reasonable:

"It is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize," the President-elect explained. "Part of the challenge that you have is that you have a bunch of folks that have been detained, many of whom who may be very dangerous who have not been put on trial or have not gone through some adjudication. And some of the evidence against them may be tainted even though it's true. And so how to balance creating a process that adheres to rule of law, habeas corpus, basic principles of Anglo American legal system, by doing it in a way that doesn't result in releasing people who are intent on blowing us up."

The left has been clamoring for the closure of Guantanamo for several years now. One would think - if this was important in and of itself - that would be adequate time to come up with a proposed alternative. But, as I suspected, the closure of Guantanamo is more about stabbing Bush and his policies in the eye, rather than actually dealing with the problem of terrorist detainees.

In a related note - why can't we try Islamic terrorists as war criminals? I agree leaving them in this weird limbo state as enemy combatants is unsustainable since the war is with a stateless entity who will never surrender. And since they directly target civilians as routine practice, it seems they are by definition engage in war crimes simply in the plotting of such attacks.