Today’s Washington Post has an article saying that the White House is curently working on an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely.  As President Obama encounters numerous roadblocks in closing Guantanamo, he is looking for ways to proceed.  The problems in closing Guantanamo have come from Congress and from countries who have not been willing to allow the inmates to be transferred to their countries.

The key paragraph in the article states:

“Concerns are growing among Obama’s advisers that Congress may try to assert too much control over the process. This week Obama signed an appropriations bill that forces the administration to report to Congress before moving any detainee out of Guantanamo and prevents the White House from using available funds to move detainees onto U.S. soil.”

As much as I am not a big fan of the current Congress, they have a role to play in this process, and I don’t think it is wise to leave them out.  Here are some of the ideas for the plan of dealing with the Guantanamo terrorists:

“Such detainees — those at Guantanamo and those who may be captured in the future — would also have the right to legal representation during confinement and access to some of the information that is being used to keep them behind bars. Anyone detained under this order would have a right to challenge his detention before a judge.

Officials say the plan would give detainees more rights and allow them a better chance than they have now at Guantanamo to one day end their indefinite incarceration.”

We need to remember who these people are.  They are not simple lawbreakers–they are terrorists.  They are not prisoners-of-war.  Even if they were prisoners-of-war, they would not be released until the war was over, but since the Obama administration will not admit that there is a war on terror, they cannot declare it over!