Closing Guantanamo

Talk Left reports that Senator Tom Harkin has introduced a bill to close Guantanamo:

Under this legislation, prisoners currently being held at Guantanamo Bay would be transferred to the United States Detention Base at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, a state-of-the-art, maximum security facility. The bill would require the Administration to resolve the legal status of at least 385 prisoners currently held at Guantanamo Bay by either charging them with a crime or an offense under the Military Commissions Act, returning them to the custody of their home country, or, where necessary, returning them to a country where they do not face torture.

"It is time to close Guantanamo Bay. It is time to charge the terrorists who have been caught. Secretary of Defense Gates knows it. Secretary of State Rice knows it. This bill does it." Harkin said.

The bill (S. 1469) has since been referred to the Armed Services Committee. And it's not the only one: earlier in the month, Democrats introduced matching bills into the House and Senate requiring Guantanamo to be closed within a year, as well as amending the 2008 defence appropriations bill (the same one they betrayed the voters on by continuing to fund the war in Iraq) to require the Secretary of Defence to draw up plans for the base's closure. These measures may not succeed, but they're a start, and a welcome sign that the United States is perhaps beginning to return to sanity.