Obama to move some Guantanamo detainees to Thomson, Illinois

The worst of the worst are coming to Illinois. Anywhere from 35 to 90 of the allegedly al Qaida-linked detainees at Guantanamo Bay will be moved to a vacant prison in bucolic Thomson, Illinois:

President Obama has directed the federal government to buy the near-empty state prison in rural Thomson, Ill., to house federal inmates and up to 100 detainees from the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, officials said late Monday.

The official announcement is planned for Tuesday and follows weeks of consideration of the Thomson Correctional Center as the most secure site in the federal prison system.

[...]

Under a plan officials will unveil in the coming days, the administration plans to send some of the detainees to their home countries and others to third countries, some of which operate rehabilitation programs for suspected terrorists.

The Thomson prison could house between 35 and 90 of the Guantanamo detainees, said one source familiar with the discussions.

via White House: Thomson to house federal inmates, Gitmo detainees – Chicago Breaking News.

I’ve previously suggested that this was a good political move for President Obama and the Democrats. Beyond Illinois being the President’s home territory, the likely Republican Senate candidate, Mark Kirk, effectively has already made this matter a political non-issue for the 2010 campaign because he’ll need to explain to voters how why he voted for it after he voted against it. It’s the same argument that Republicans have used about voting to begin and end debate on the health care reform bill in the Senate – they won’t let Democrats like Blanche Lincoln say they ultimately voted no on a bill that they let proceed to a final vote.

On the other hand, speaking of health care, what the hell is going on in the White House? It’s 11 pm in Washington, DC, do you know where your president’s focus is?

Unless the President is trying to flood the zone, it would seem like he should be focused on health care reform almost exclusively – he’s having a big Democratic Caucus meeting in the White House tomorrow during the day, and plenty of Senators up for election are going to have this issue on their minds in addition to the troubled health care legislation.

So why did this happen tonight, when it is certain to suck up all the oxygen in Washington in the morning? Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com published a memo at the weekend that showed the decision to move detainees to Thomson, Illinois was already made. The White House hemmed and hawed, saying it was a draft, and the language in the Breitbart version of the memo is a bit sweeping. Was someone else ready to drop a version of the story on a front page tomorrow in a more persuasive form than Breitbart’s agitprop? Was President Obama’s hand forced?

It’ll all come out in the wash. All I can say is: It’s about time.

Gitmo is a lasting reminder of the Bush administration’s lawless approach to the global war on terrorism with a cyclone fence around it. Moving the prisoners to Thomson and prosecuting them in New York is a useful reminder that America applies the greatest justice system in the world to terrorists it doesn’t kill during the fight. Too many of President Obama’s critics lay into him for pursuing a show trial approach to justice for alleged Al Qaida collaborators when what they really want is show executions. Using the Justice Department to prosecute accused terrorists who are far from the battlefield is a useful reminder to the world that America, more than a nation of unstoppable might, is unquestionably a nation of laws.

Now let’s do something about Bagram before it becomes Abu Ghraib part two…