Gitmo priorities

NY Post Editorial:

Good news from Pakistan in the War on Terror: Abdullah Mehsud, a senior Taliban commander in that coun try'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.

...

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.

It is also the place captured enemy combatants should stay until the end of hostilities. If the NY Times and other bleeding heart liberals are concerned that it is in effect a life sentence, they should do more to speed our victory rather than impeding it with frivolous complaints about the phantoms of lost liberties at home and the whining about the treatment of demented killers.

Dick Morris has more on the Gitmo follies. Strategy Page has the back ground on the release of the Taliban commander who was recently killed. Hint, it had to do with Pakistan politics.