Gitmo Still Open For Business

Much to the consternation of Farah Stockman at the Boston Globe, Guantanamo Bay remains open for business and is taking in new clients. This, of course, does not go over well with the media lapdogs who specialize in printing press releases from terrorist-loving "human rights" groups.

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has transferred three suspected terrorists to the Guantanamo Bay prison since March, despite recent legal setbacks and President Bush's statement that he would like to close the controversial facility.

Other than leftwing agitators, exactly who is Gitmo controversial with? Stockman doesn't elaborate.

The three detainees are the first to arrive in Guantanamo Bay since 2004, with the exception of those who were abruptly transferred last fall when Bush closed secret CIA prisons in Europe after their existence became known. Two of the recent transfers were captured in a sweeping counterterrorism operation in Somalia. The third is Iraqi.

Secret prisons that were secret, until the media divulged their existence, that is.

The lack of new arrivals -- and the large number of detainees who were being sent home -- had led many human rights advocates to believe the Guantanamo Bay prison was being phased out amid widespread international outrage.

Again, manusfactured outrage fomented by the left, who clearly are not rooting for America to win in the war on terrorists.

But now, new detainees are arriving and the flow of releases has slowed significantly -- from 102 last year to 15 this year.

"It's like Guantanamo is getting its second wind, and becoming a permanent option," said Joanne Mariner, director of the Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program at Human Rights Watch, a New York-based human rights organization.

Some legal advocates for detainees expressed concern that the prison is being used for detainees from the Somali operation.

"Rather than closing Guantanamo, they are using it for the next phase, in another front in the war on terror," said Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer at the Brennan Center for Justice, a New York-based law institute that focuses on justice and democracy. "It shows that the administration still believes Guantanamo is a viable way to hold people indefinitely without due process.

Why is it we rarely, if ever, hear about human rights on the rest of the island of Cuba?