Fantasy Island: AKA Gitmo

July 28, 2007 -- "Good news from Pakistan in the War on Terror: Abdullah Mehsud, a senior Taliban commander in that country's rebellious western provinces, blew himself up last week to avoid capture by government forces.

That's one more dead terrorist.

The catch: He shouldn't have been there in the first place. Mehsud, you see, was captured in Afghanistan in December 2001. He was then held at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay . . . until his release in March 2004.

He immediately returned to the fight, bragging publicly about how he deceived his captors into thinking he was just another innocent Afghan tribesman.

Thankfully, the Pentagon has since then instituted a more rigorous system for determining which detainees would pose a threat if released.

But the question remains: Would Mehsud have slipped through the cracks if The New York Times, et al., were as adamant about making sure the bad guys stayed at Gitmo as they are about the condition of the Korans in the camp?

Mehsud's death is an explosive reminder of something that five years of constant hand-wringing over the fate of the Guantanamo detainees have only served to obscure: By and large, these are very dangerous men - and until this war is over, America needs someplace to keep them.

Guantanamo Bay has become in the public imagination a place where innocent Muslims are not only denied their rights, but also subject to regular beatings by Dick Cheney.

In other words, it's not so much a real place as it is some dark, demented cartoon.

It's certainly possible that some Gitmo detainees have been largely innocent, but that's because the thugs killing American troops in Afghanistan don't wear uniforms, so it's hard to distinguish them from noncombatants.

Meanwhile, it is beyond dispute that some very guilty guys are to be found there - witness the further adventures of Abdullah Mehsud.

Plus, as his case demonstrates, the Pentagon has made a good-faith effort to distinguish the real unlawful combatants from the innocent bystanders caught in the same net.

But that's not enough for some, who wouldn't stop until every captured Taliban fighter had a court-appointed attorney and the opportunity to post bail.

Let's not forget that this is a war."

Picture can be found at Rush Limbaugh's Club Gitmo. The above editorial from the NY Post. All abject stupidity concerning the lefts fantasy about treating our avowed enemies as simple scofflaws courtesy of Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Nancy Pelosi, Al Gore, John Kerry, Harry Reid, Hussein Obama, and a cast of thousands of other Blame-America-First moonbats.