This development is certainly a concession to the negative spotlight continuously focused on the Gitmo detention facilities.
Prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay detention center and the U.S. detention facilities in Afghanistan would be handed over to the custody of Afghan authorities.
For its part the Afghan government accepts responsibility for the returnees and will work to ensure that they do not pose a continuing threat to Afghanistan, the coalition, or the international community.
Not all Afghans however will be handed over.
Some could remain at Guantanamo indefinitely. Fifteen have been selected to be tried by special military commissions.
I harbor little hope that these transferred detainees will be kept as securely as they obviously are in the isolated Gitmo. On the other hand, I have great doubt that they will be kept as secure in their persons or treated as humanely by their Afghan captors. Quite the conundrum — some scum may escape, possibly to find their way again to the battlefield, but some scum may finally get the treatment that they deserve.
I truly doubt this maneuver will relieve any of the pressure on the Gitmo detentions. Rather, it may encourage those participating in the intermittent frenzy. On the whole, I’d rather enemy combatants not subject to the Geneva conventions be kept stuck on an island for the duration. By duration, I certainly mean until the radical, expansionist Islamist threat is no longer a threat. Should this mean the detainees only leave Gitmo as elderly corpses in body bags, well, so be it.