Inquirer Editorial: Obama retreats on Gitmo

President Obama's troubling decision to resume military tribunals for terror suspects in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - rather than having them face criminal charges in federal court - doesn't make much sense.

It's bad public relations, and it's probably bad legal footwork.

With good reason, the administration and civil-liberties' advocates once had agreed that it made more sense to try detainees in the federal courts. They understood, presumably, that resuming Bush-era tribunals that provide suspects with fewer legal rights sends the wrong message about American values. With dozens of detainees held for years without charge or trial, Guantanamo calls into question the nation's respect for the rule of law.

The reversal of that strategy now defies legal logic as well. Wasn't it only a matter of weeks ago that Justice Department lawyers completed the first successful federal court prosecution of a Guantanamo terrorist? Changing course now is the equivalent of a commander's declaring victory, but then sounding the retreat.

The conviction in late January of former al-Qaeda operative Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani put him away for life. That proved that the criminal courts can handle these trials. It was an outcome reached in open court, demonstrating to the world community that everyone - even a terror suspect - is entitled to his day in court.

If anything, that trial was a vindication of Obama's strategy of moving terror cases to the federal courts.

While the federal courts can boast of hundreds of other convictions in terrorism-related cases, no amount of tinkering with the rules for detainees' tribunals or periodic reviews of their detention - as proposed by Obama officials - will match the due process afforded by U.S. courts.

Sure, the Guantanamo decision allows a president facing a spirited reelection battle to take the course of least political resistance - by breaking his pledge to close the island prison.

While, officially, Obama says he hasn't given up on closing Guantanamo, he wasn't close to doing so. Besides being slowed by the daunting logistics of determining the fates of 170 detainees, the White House faces roadblocks thrown up by Congress to closing the prison and trying suspects in the mainland federal courts.

The blame is widely shared for the Guantanamo situation. Despite that, the goal of national policy shouldn't change: The United States needs to get out of the business of indefinite detention, which the American Civil Liberties Union aptly describes as "unlawful, unwise, and un-American."