AG Eric Holder on Guantanamo Bay Detainees

Interesting interview with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on NPR today, which can be read or listened to here. He echoes some points I raised back in May as to the weak arguments raised in opposition to holding some of the Gitmo detainees in the U.S. pending trial. Holder stated: "Some of the concerns that have been expressed by at least some in Congress seem illogical to me....We have in our prison system now people who are terrorists, people who are unbelievably bad criminals — and they are no threat to the surrounding community." Exactly. The concerns are not just illogical but, as I explained in an earlier post, just plain wussy. And hypocritical--especially coming from those who also ordinarily thump their chests about American exceptionalism.

It looks like the timidity finally may be waning. Today, House Democrats turned back a Republican effort to block the transfer of any prisoners to the U.S. for trial. There's absolutely no reason why we should expect other countries to take in all of the Gitmo detainees and bear the entire burden of our foreign policy misstep.