Senate Conservatives Fund

WSJ reports this morning that President Bush may close Gitmo and do away with military commissions for trying enemy combatants:

The Bush Administration is currently debating how to respond to Mr. Kennedy’s war-fighting ukase in Boumediene v. Bush, with President Bush set to make a decision soon. Some in the Administration want Mr. Bush to abolish not merely Guantanamo but even military commissions, the special tribunals set up to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others for their war crimes. This would compound the mistake of Boumediene, and do away with what has long been a useful tool of military justice.

Closing Gitmo is the easy part. Then we have to figure out where to put these guys. This is where Congress gets involved. HotAir sums up the situation:

This could become Congress’ nightmare soon. If Bush decides to close Gitmo, the US will have to decide what to do with the 260 or so detainees currently held in the facility. Unless all of them get freed or returned to their native governments for prosecution, the US will have to find a new facility to hold them, and the Bush administration is most likely to put that burden on Congress after the years of heavy criticism Bush received for Gitmo.

If Bush closes Gitmo, KSM and the other terrorists there should be sent to Vermont where the state’s two senators voted in favor of transferring them to U.S. soil. Last year, Senators Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders were 2 of only 3 senators to vote against this resolution protecting Americans from these terrorists.

Sense of Senate. It is the sense of the Senate that detainees housed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including senior members of al Qaeda, should not be released into American society, nor should they be transferred stateside into facilities in American communities and neighborhoods.

Perhaps the Southwest State Correctional Facility in Windsor, Vermont would work. It’s in the far northeast corner of the country and the state’s senators apparently want the terrorists. The Windsor prison is a converted dairy farm that currently holds 96 women, but the Vermont Department of Corrections announced plans this year to close it, and it could be restructured to hold the Gitmo detainees. Don’t turn out the lights yet guys.