Gitmo can be closed as quickly as it was opened. If someone wasn’t a terrorist when they entered that place, they sure would be justified in becoming one when they left.

SHUTTER IT!

When you think of it, this is probably the least, or one of the least, complicated issues President Obama has on his to-do list. We know, I mean really know, how to do justice well in this country. It’s one of the things we do best, or at least did do best, before the Bush administrations. There are countless examples of excellence. We have wonderful organizations chock full of brilliant lawyers, such as CCR, Brennan Center for Justice, The Innocence Project, and the ACLU. Each of these can claim the gold standard in securing justice for prisoners whose rights have been trounced upon and violated in every possible way. Let’s get them at the table TODAY to devise a plan we can all have confidence in, with a timetable, and intermediate measures (such as communal living for the prisoners until we reach ultimate resolution, as Andy has suggested).

Honestly, with available technology, that meeting could be set up in an hour. It could be held by tele/video conference, and with three, maybe four hours of dedicated resources, time and attention, we could agree upon our list of next steps. Then we could go to the strikers themselves with the required proofs and ask them to stand down from their battle. Then we wouldn’t have to ask doctors and soldiers, many of whom are as compassionate as the most gentle and idealist among us, to do horrible things, like shoving tubes up fellow human beings’ noses.

I truly believe that we cannot bear another tragic outcome in Guantanamo. One more single death would be a stain and a taint on the aspirations (so many wishes are coming true!) we hold for the Obama presidency, a scarring mark of shame that we would not easily, or perhaps ever, be able to rinse away.

Nation! (as Mr. Colbert likes to say), it’s a couple of calls, a few e-mails, some text messages, some Twitter feeds, some RSS streaming, a sit-down, a good facilitator, throw in a PowerPoint presentation if you want, refreshments are optional, and it’s done. I mean it. That’s all it takes. That, and a shred of decency. I think that, too, is something we have, individually and collectively, in ample supply.

I love my country. I love the people charged with running it. I love the reformers who pursue justice above all other pursuits. These are not separate categories.

I fully understand the pressures they were under with the Jeppeson case; but the appropriate response would have been a delay — pretty much what they did with GTMO… “a time for review” or “reconsideration of policy” or whatever. Instead, they were pretty definitive about just adopting the company line. It also troubles me because Obama took the “centrist”/corporatist position on wire-tapping (until it became a presidential campaign issue not to) and now takes it on rendition. He can be “pragmatic” on deciding whether Bush, Cheney, Addington and Yoo, et al. go in the dock; pragmatism on continuing the policies he ran against is not acceptable. Those have to end, and compromising on that… is not good.

I actually find that Obama’s meeting with 9-11 and Cole bombing surviving family members, where he actually promised to consider keeping the commissions in place (to demonstrate America’s propensity for collective punishment and revenge) and said the only reason he wanted to close GTMO was because it made us look bad in other countries (rather than “because we owe your departed loved ones JUSTICE and not some lame excuse for a revenge fantasy concocted by the last Administration) actually troubles me more.

Well… what can I tell you! The perfect is the enemy of the good, Barack keeps saying. But I’d sure as hell like to see “the good” be anything more than just rhetorical flourish.