Closing Guantanamo causes terror problems for America

Less than 48 hours after Beyonce's lyrics drifted off with the music, ushering out a joyous inaugural day, America became less safe.

President Barack Obama Thursday ordered the closure of the U.S. detention facility for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, a U.S. property in Cuba, where he had already ordered a cessation of hearings involving people suspected of doing or meaning harm to American troops and civilians.

The president's actions were meant to show America's humanity, our ambition to live by a higher standard than the terrorists who continue to plot acts of violence against us. But how will our country deal with the plotters once they are rooted out?

Even as he signed the executive order to close Guantanamo, Obama was not even aware of what was in a second executive order dealing with Guantanamo inmates.

"Is there a separate executive order, Greg, with respect to how we're going to dispose of the detainees?" Obama asked White House Counsel Greg Craig.

"We will be setting up a process," was the answer. In other words, the administration will figure it out later.

This is how we'll now fight the war on terror, flying by the seat of our pants? And what happens to future detainees on the battlefield of war?

Of course, using the word "war" with terror does not seem to be part of the new administration's lexicon. Obama chose to describe the battle against terrorism as a "struggle."

The president also outlawed the controversial technique of waterboarding, used as part of the Central Intelligence Agency's "enhanced interrogation techniques" to pry information from captured terrorist suspects.

Waterboarding worked. The final Sept. 11 Commission report detailed the evidence gathered this way from 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, USS Cole attack planner Abd al Rahim al Nashiri and al-Qaida's training and travel coordinator Abu Zubaydah.

The argument for closing Guantanamo and ending tough interrogation methods has been that the world thinks less of us because of these issues.

But the attacks of 9/11 and earlier -- the bombings of the World Trade Center, African embassies and Marine barracks in Lebanon -- all occurred before Guantanamo became an adjective and when waterboarding became a U.S. practice. The terrorists attacked anyway because of their religious hatred of the West and its way of life.

Also Thursday, a leading al-Qaida figure posted a video on an Islamist Web site calling for attacks against the United States, Britain and other Western countries.

This time, the creation of the Israeli state was the stated reason. Next time, it will be another imagined slight.

These terrorists scoff at our freedoms. We need to protect those liberties.

But we also value our lives, and count on our government to protect us from harm. Sadly, the executive orders have made us more vulnerable, and the terrorists will notice.

Frank Beckmann is host of "The Frank Beckmann Show" on WJR (760 AM) from 9 a.m.-11:30 a.m. Monday-Friday. E-mail comments to letters@detnews.com">letters@detnews.com.