If we DON'T criticize the admin for this, there's something very wrong

[hughee99]

158. This sounds correct, and is certainly more comprehensive than my explanation.

Closing the prison camp isn't the issue, it's what to do with the prisoners. Congress, if I understand correctly, has blocked funding if he wants to try to move the camp in whole (and build a new one). It sounds like 1027 is about the President moving existing Guantanamo prisoners to existing prisons (which avoids the funding issue). Even if he declares and end to the hostilities, how do you put an prisoner who hasn't yet been charged with a crime in a federal prison indefinitely?

He'd take a serious political hit for just releasing all the prisoners, though I believe he does have the authority to do that, and I think they'd have a hard time making a winning case against some of them, even some who they might consider to be "the worst of the worst".

In the end, there are several ways in which the camp can be closed but none of them seem to be palatable to the administration. I think they see the current situation as the best of a bad set of options. I can't see how they do anything about this until at least after the mid-terms, and I wouldn't be surprised to see this just get punted to the next Administration, who will have to deal with the same "political nightmare" options to deal with.