Is closing Guantanamo Bay really a bad thing?

Pres. Obama has been taking flak for a few days now since he signed an executive order to close the infamous prison at Guantanamo Bay. Critics of the step made the rounds of the Sunday chat shows this morning talking about the dire consequences of shutting the prison. The 240-odd inmates locked up there were described as being "hardcore terrorists" or "the worst of the worst" among other fear-inducing names.

Ignored by the critics were the guys in Gitmo that we know didn't do anything, like the 17 Chinese Uighurs who have been cooling their heels there since we scooped them up in Afghanistan in 2002. I wrote about their plight back in October (see this post "Release of Chinese Muslims Ordered"), but the highlights are that the US government has admitted that the 17 were not guilty of terrorist acts against the United States, and had long ago given up trying to prove that they were even “enemy combatants.” The only reason we haven't sent them back to China is that the Chinese government is actively trying to eradicate the Uighur’s culture from Xinjiang Province (much like they are trying to do with the Tibetan culture), so we are pretty sure the Chinese would arrest these men on sight, and likely torture and shoot them soon afterwards. We let six of their compatriots go in 2006 after Albania agreed to host them.

It makes you wonder how many other innocent men are among the “worst of the worst…”

Keith Olbermann took a shot at debunking another Guantanamo scare tactic on MSNBC ‘Countdown’ Friday night - critics also point to the number of former detainees that have been released who then became involved with terror groups in the Mid-East. Olbermann said though that the official Pentagon numbers on how many detainees became terrorists keeps shifting - ranging back and forth between several dozen down to as few as two - and that they Pentagon gives no details on what these terrorists are actually doing, making the whole story seem a bit dodgy.

Meanwhile a senior Pakistani official said that closing Guantanamo would, in fact, have a positive effect on the War on Terror in his country. “It bore no fruit for the Americans nor did it provide any leads in the war on terror,” said Tasnim Noorani. When Mr. Noorani was a senior Interior Ministry official, one of his jobs was to turn suspected militants over to the US, so I'd think he knows what he's talking about. Another unnamed Pakistani official told the AFP that “the very fact that the Americans announced they will close down this infamous prison will have a positive effect on efforts to curb militancy,” adding that it would take away one of al-Qaeda's main anti-American propaganda tools.

Pres. Obama wants Guantanamo Bay closed within a year.