Apparently Boehner and McConnell Don't Want to Prosecute Terrorists

The first detainee from Gitmo arriving (or may have already arrived) in the U.S. to stand trial on terrorism charges. Ahmed Ghailani will stand trial in the federal court for the Southern District of New York for his role in the 1994 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. This is good news because the more prisoners at Gitmo that we can actually try the more we can justify the need for the prison and we don't have to beg other countries to take the detainees (which is proving to be a big problem).

Prosecution for terrorism is one of the main ways we are looking to empty the cells at Gitmo, but Rep. John Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell don't like Ghailani's transfer one bit. They say that Congress and the American people have made it clear that they don't want terrorists being brought into the U.S. I personally don't know how these guys wake up every day and look at themselves in the mirror. I mean, do they really take what they say seriously? Yes, Congress and the American people do not want the Gitmo detainees to be shipped into the U.S. and held here. That much is true. But leaving it there would not be telling the whole story. The whole story is that we don't want the 200+ detainees at Gitmo to simply be transferred from Gitmo to be held somewhere in the U.S. It is not true to say that we don't want them brought into the U.S. if they are being brought here to be prosecuted. That is precisely why we go out and try to catch terrorists - to bring them to justice for their crimes. We aren't bringing Ghailani over here for the hell of it, we are bringing him here to stand trial. If Boehner and McConnell don't want to catch terrorists to prosecute them then I invite them to give us a good alternative as to what they would like us to do. I'm sure that both of them would tell you off the record that they would rather us just capture terrorists, torture them, and throw their body in a ditch - but that can't exactly be said in public. I'm glad that we are finally taking detainees to trial. I hope this is one of many trials of Gitmo detainees. Granted, I think the actual trials could get really ugly given the allegations of torture and what not, but going to trial and giving detainees due process is the right way to go.