What about Gitmo?

Ed Morrissey, via ABC News, reports that Bush may consider shutting down Guantanamo Bay.

This could become Congress' nightmare soon.  If Bush decides to close Gitmo, the US will have to decide what to do with the 260 or so detainees currently held in the facility.  Unless all of them get freed or returned to their native governments for prosecution, the US will have to find a new facility to hold them, and the Bush administration is most likely to put that burden on Congress after the years of heavy criticism Bush received for Gitmo.

Well, it was a silly idea from the start anyway, because there was no need to keep terrorists in a separate system.

Murder is murder, simple as that, whether it's committed out of greed or in the name of a religion. The only thing we must do to modify our laws is to up the punishment for crimes committed as a result of terrorism.

For example, any death resulting from a terror act must be treated as first-degree murder. No bail must be granted (i.e., bail is automatically denied for charges related to terrorism), and the punishment, if convicted, must be at least double the punishment attached to the "standard" criminal offence, with no chance of parole.

So, if a criminal offence warrants, say, ten years in jail, the same offence, if motivated by terrorism, must carry a sentence of at least twenty years without parole or that moronic release after a convict has served two-thirds of his term, etc. Plus, these must be minimum sentences, with judges not being allowed to dilute the outcome (too many bleeding-heart judges would shed tears for "poor and misunderstood terrorists" and reduce the sentence, so this must be prevented right from the outset).

But the point is that all criminal offences (and acts of terror are also criminal offences, only of a more heinous nature and therefore deserving of at least twice the punishment) should be dealt with in one and the same court system -- i.e., no need for separate tribunals or offshore prison camps and jurisdictions.