Moving Gitmo detainees to America is necessary

U.S. prison officials are perfectly capable of managing the detainees.

South Carolina politicians are rallying to prevent the federal government from sending suspected terrorists from the Guantanamo Bay detention center to the U.S. Navy brig in Charleston.

Why? Well … because they're suspected terrorists.

“It is dangerous to bring these terrorists onto U.S. soil and make targets out of our own communities,” said Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. “Guantanamo Bay may cause the Obama administration heartburn, but shutting it down puts American lives in danger.”

DeMint has sponsored a bill that would prohibit the use of federal funds to transfer detainees to the United States.

S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster, a candidate for governor, has called for an immediate act of Congress to stop the transfer to South Carolina “or any other state on the American mainland.”

U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett, R-S.C., another candidate for governor, is sending around a petition to fellow lawmakers objecting to the proposed transfer, saying it “endangers our state's citizens and makes them potential targets for some future terrorist attack.”

DeMint, Barrett, and U.S. Reps. Henry Brown and Joe Wilson, both South Carolina Republicans, also sent the president a letter urging him to remove the state from consideration as a new home for Gitmo detainees.

S.C. state Rep. Nikki Haley, also a candidate for governor, said the transfer could endanger South Carolina citizens, “and everyone in our state should oppose it.”

The proposed transfer still is tentative. But the Naval Consolidated Brig in North Charleston is thought to be the leading candidate to house some or all of the 245 alleged terrorists at Guantanamo.

Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and the Marine Corps' Camp Pendleton in California also are potential sites for the transfer.

The fact that the president intends to close the Guantanamo Bay facility should not come as a surprise. During last year's presidential campaign, Obama pledged to do so within a year of taking office. While he said recently that he might not make that deadline, he still is committed to closing the detention center.

In doing so, he will attempt to find a workable solution to the problem of what to do with prisoners who have been held for seven years or more in legal limbo — something President Bush failed to do during his two terms in office. That almost certainly will entail bringing the detainees to the United States for prosecution.

Many of the detainees may be battle-hardened terrorists as DeMint and others claim. But some may be innocent bystanders, caught up in battles in Afghanistan or Iraq, or “sold” to American authorities for reward money.

The point is we can't know for sure until some legal process has occurred to determine their guilt or innocence. Until then, they are merely suspects, held without legal recourse, symbols to the world of America's inability to resolve their fate in a timely way.

We can't be sure why federal authorities might want to transfer the detainees to Charleston. A large number of maximum security facilities are available around the nation to house the prisoners.

If major renovations of Charleston's Navy brig and surrounding facilities would be required to properly hold the prisoners and conduct tribunals, why not send them to a site that already is suitable for that purpose? That said, we do not understand the objection to bringing the detainees to the United States.

Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, the only person known to be held as an enemy combatant in the continental United States, spent six years in the Charleston brig. He now is being held in a prison in Illinois.

Seven convicted terrorists, including Richard C. Reid, the so-called “shoe bomber,” are being held at the supermax prison in Florence, Colo. Timothy McVeigh, who bombed the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City killing 168 people, was held at the same prison until his execution in 2001.

U.S. penal authorities and military police are entirely capable of keeping the most vicious prisoners imaginable locked up where they can't harm people. To imply otherwise is to slander prison officials who are good at their jobs.

The Guantanamo prisoners must have their day in court. Those guilty of plotting attacks against the United States or any other country must be tried, convicted, and punished. Holding them year after year without any formal legal proceeding violates what America stands for. Our strength comes not in indefinitely holding suspects at an off-shore military base. America's strength comes from its values, of which due process is perhaps the most important.

The Guantanamo Bay holding facility and what it has come to represent is counterproductive to efforts to fight terrorism around the world. It must be closed, and the fate of the prisoners must be resolved, even if that means bringing them to the United States to be tried.