In reviewing the right's opinions on what to do about Gitmo and its detainees I've encountered the following arguments:
That every single detainee is absolutely a terrorist, none are innocent or guilty of lesser charges,
That the detainees have no rights, national, international or otherwise,
That they cannot be relocated to American soil for some reason,
That they are potential sources of intelligence and should be treated as such,
That they are too dangerous to ever let go,
That the American people should remember we are still at war.
If you agree with this interpretation then there is a way to close Gitmo that the right should support, and that is to execute the detainees.
They are all terrorists, and they have no rights. Even American citizens sentenced to death for their crimes, crimes like murder, have at least some rights. Surely terrorism is at least as bad as murder and the detainees at Gitmo have even less rights than prisoners on death row. No automatic appeals to wait for or anything. We can't release them, we're told. They're too dangerous. Do we really plan to hold them the rest of their lives in this indefinite war, some 60, 70 years for the younger detainees? What is the justification for spending the money and resources to do this instead of just executing these conclusively dangerous terrorists?
And this is wartime, after all. We kill people on the battlefield. Why not kill them in custody? What's the difference? They don't magically obtain any rights upon becoming prisoners, that has been made perfectly clear. They are not convered under the Geneva conventions like the German prisoners kept in camps on American soil during WWII. It's not good enough to simply say "it's just wrong" to kill them once in custody; you need a reason why. What possible reason could be given that does not inevitably lead to affording these prisoners some basic, fundamental rights; rights we've already been told they don't have?
No, executing the prisoners should be the perfect solution to the right. The neo-cons will love it cause it shows we mean business. THe fiscal conservatives will love it cause it saves money. The religious right will love it cause it's one more victory in their Holy War against Islam. And the cultural coservatives will love it cause it keeps away the darkies and the other, lesser races. It is the only logical conclusion to the right's interpretation of the situation. My only question is, what are we waiting for?
[And just so we're clear: yes, I'm being sarcastic.]