We could put all of the tangos we've got into Gen Pop at one of the nice rural prisons, and tell the rest of the cons why they're there. Terrorists are pretty low on the prisoner pecking order - usually falling in somewhere above child molesters and just below pirates at sea (those who prey on the innocent - particularly children - usually end up in Iso for their own safety. Most cons have kids...)
Or put them up in Pelican Bay Supermax (or somewhere similar,) and leave them in Iso x24h.
While I don't like our having to have Gitmo Camp X-ray open, the fact of the matter is that they have made it necessary. Fighting terrorists - particularly religiously-motivated terrorists - gives us an enemy that is even worse than the Viet Cong, and a potentially greater hairball than the whole of Southeast Asia was from 1950 to 1975. The VC were fighting an unlimited war with political motivation. Terrorists are waging an unlimited campaign (I'll not even dignify it by calling it a "war" - that would presume an armed force engaging another armed force. Terrorists don't engage an armed force, and deserve less emotion when shot down than you'd reserve for a rabid dog...) that is motivated by extremist religion - so they're not looking for a payoff in the "here and now," but for "pie in the sky."
And that means that no-one has come back to tell them they're wrong about it all.
Couple that with the small factoid that this is going to end up being a war of annihilation - they won't be happy until we're wiped out, so we have to wipe them out utterly first! - and you can see the morass we're involved in. yes, they're still going to devote some attention to the former Soviet Union (they were the other "Great Satan,") but there's not much there to distract them from us anymore.
As a result, I tend to think of Gitmo as a "necessary evil" - and they're still being well cared for down there, from what I am given to understand. Turn these people loose? Not without a prefrontal lobotomy and a last ham sandwich - they'll become threats again (if not for the first time, because they're bent at us. I am likewise sure that some of the people there are there because of "wrong place/wrong time" events, and they're working up a good head of steam.) I'd like to see Gitmo shut down, but what are we going to do with them all afterwards?
I'd like to see us pull out of Iraq, but we apparently don't have a viable exit plan yet. So what - leave and utterly destablise the region? Might as well blast it into a radioactive parking lot if we're going to do that. There has to be an orderly changeover there if we're going to count the campaign a success, you know? Thus, the need for an exit plan.
I still say that we should turn elements of SFOD-Delta and SEAL Team SIX loose on them worldwide, and just cross the Jihadis off the list as fingers come back in for identification. "Hunting season is open - no bag limit. Just make damned sure of your targets first..."
Politicians would never go for it, tho.
