Bring on the Bulldozers

Tom Friedman writes about the prisons at Guantanamo Bay in todays Times. It's called "Just Shut it Down." Read the whole thing (before it goes behind the pay wall in a week), but here's the key graph:

Guantánamo Bay is becoming the anti-Statue of Liberty. If we have a case to be made against any of the 500 or so inmates still in Guantánamo, then it is high time we put them on trial, convict as many possible (which will not be easy because of bungled interrogations) and then simply let the rest go home or to a third country. Sure, a few may come back to haunt us. But at least they won't be able to take advantage of Guantánamo as an engine of recruitment to enlist thousands more. I would rather have a few more bad guys roaming the world than a whole new generation.

He's right. This place should go. We should make the cases against the people we can, and free the rest, sending them to other countries if we truly believe they're dangerous (but we can't hold them) and letteing them resume their lives if they're some of the folks erroneously picked up in the hamhanded enfocement of the PATRIOT Act. Review the cases, decide who goes where, and bring on the Bob the Builder.

And don't do it gradually, or secretly. Acknowledge that the place has become the symbol of a behavior we're ashamed of, and we won't be doing it anymore. Then take the wrecking balls and the bulldozers and raze the place, for all the world to see.

Becuase people don't riot because of Newsweek.

Rob