Sorry, but Sullivan earned contempt LONG before this. What he deserves now is pity and obscurity.

Andrew Sullivan is alive today because he ingests a cocktail of drugs in order to keep his HIV status under control. It is quite possible that some of his more hysterical causes - the parentage of Sarah Palin's son, Trig, and this Gitmo stuff are like the reactions of someone in febrile delirium. He really shouldn't be taken seriously anymore even though the stopped clock analogy may still occasionally apply.

It has long been rumoured that the plan is to put the people concerned in the underground place in Colorado (ironically named "Florence" I believe).

No sight of the sky and no feeling of the wind - and no easy access by the Red Cross and so on.

It would be more humane to execute the people involved than to send them to this place.

However, at least they will not be raped and tortured by other inmates - as they would be at an ordinary American prison. The endless Hollywood films (going back to the 1930's) that have undermined control of prisons by the guards and Governors have led to Hell holes being created.

It is not P.C. to admit that it is OTHER PRISONERS who are, and always have been, the main threat to a person in prison - but it is the truth. The Hollywood "liberals" have a lot of dead and abused prisoners on their heads (not that they care).

Back to the Gitmo matter:

What people like Mr Sullivan refuse to understand is that Gitmo is far less bad than the alternative places the Federal government is charge of.

In the US, a person may only be held for a limited time in Federal custody before being charged with a crime and arraigned (brought to court to enter his plea.) It's 72 hours IIRC, not knowing how that relates to weekends and holidays.

From the arraignment, they have another fixed time period before the trial must begin. I think that's 90 days, although the defense can extend it and can consent to extensions by the prosecution. Delays are commonly used to allow for motions hearings, such as the 'motion to suppress evidence' or the 'motion to dismiss for want of jurisdiction.'

As I understand it (I don't work in the Federal realm and could be wrong): the accused must be brought before the Federal district court for the district in which the alleged crime occurred.

Question: When the crime at hand is in Afghanistan, which district is that?

Answer: It isn't.

Meaning that any attempt to bring these people before the civilian courts virtually guarantees that most if not all will walk. And the US Penitentiary system is only for people serving sentences. Meaning these folks will never see Florence.

They'll sit in a holding tank in the basement of a Federal courthouse until the judge says "Dismissed, free to go," and then they'll walk out the front steps.

When Gitmo is closed perhaps the human rights brigade will be able to spend some time campaigning for the release of the political prisoners in other prisons on the island of Cuba.

Or perhaps not. They never bothered about them before Gitmo opened did they? I don't remember any marches, protests or 'vigils' about them.

Sunfish puts the basic legal position better than I ever could.