While there are a myriad of problems that Obama will need to overcome if he is to close Guantanamo, as David Rivkin and Lee Casey suggest, there is no offsetting benefit.
'At least since the 1970s, "progressive" international activists have sought to level the playing field between nation states (especially the U.S. and Israel) and nonstate actors such as the Palestine Liberation Organization and Hamas. Although international humanitarian law is supposed to apply neutrally to all belligerents, international opinion now gives nonstate actors far more leeway to ignore fundamental norms such as the rule against deliberately targeting civilians. The underlying implication is that terrorist tactics, however regrettable, are justified as the only means of achieving laudable goals like national liberation.
This mindset will not change if Guantanamo closes.'
It is from that progressive activist mindset that Obama formulated a political philosophy. He is an activist at heart. It is to that progressive activist mindset that Obama panders with his repeated promises to close Guantanamo. But, he has been slowly coming to realize as Commander-in-Chief responsible for national security, his job is not to level the playing field. His awakening in this regard can be observed in his retention of so many Bush administration antiterror policies, after roundly condemning them, of course.
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