I really don’t get what all the fuss is about.

The way it’s portrayed, you’d think the moment a detainee was moved out of Guantanamo Bay, they’d be dropped off at a crowded shopping center, given $50,000 in unmarked bills, and provided with explicit instructions on how to build a fertilizer bomb.

If that’s the way our criminal justice system operates in this counry, then I count myself lucky I haven’t been shot, raped, robbed, carjacked, blown up, or kidnapped all in the same day.

I don’t know much about our national intelligence agencies, but I’m fairly confident that in the event of a Gitmo prisoner release in the U.S., they’d be on that person like white on rice. No sitting politician or agency head wants to handle the blowback from a blow-up caused by a prisoner release. And if you think they do want that blowback...well, I guess I do understand why you’re so skittish about the prospect of moving Gitmo prisoners here.

It seems to me the real problem would be moving a Gitmo prisoner into the U.S. penal system if convicted in a U.S. court. In that case there appear to be two possibilities. Either you build a separate wing for that prisoner or you deal with the consequences of fellow prisoners beating and stabbing him to a pulp the moment he’s introduced. Either way, it’s either a costly taxpayer scheme or a costly PR scheme, but not a national security issue.

The issue here seems to be people’s faith in the U.S. security apparatus and federal prison system. Along those lines, it seems disengenuous to suddenly believe that alleged mass murderers who did it for different reasons are going to be more of a problem for those institutions than other mass murderers already tried and locked up just fine.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe if we move prisoners to U.S. soil, they’ll cause all sorts of problems and even claim lives. Maybe for some reason our intelligence agencies won’t be able to track them or foil any mischief they try on U.S. soil if released. Maybe our prisons won’t be able to deal with them if incarcerated. But I have to say I don’t think that’s the case. I think we’re just being wusses.