Fear Will Keep The Systems In Line

Dick Cheney and Fear have won the Gitmo debate, hands down.

Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to closing the detention center for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay and moving some of the detainees to prisons on U.S. soil, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds.

By more than 2-1, those surveyed say Guantanamo shouldn't be closed. By more than 3-1, they oppose moving some of the accused terrorists housed there to prisons in their own states.

The findings underscore the difficult task President Obama faces in convincing those at home that he should follow through on his campaign promise to close the prison in Cuba, especially in the absence of a plan of where the prisoners would go.

In many parts of the world, however, Gitmo has become a symbol of U.S. arrogance and abuse, and Obama has cited its closure as a way to lay the foundation for better relations. He is scheduled to deliver a major address aimed at the Muslim world on Thursday from Cairo.

Despite the fact American prisons house more terrorists then ever (especially the Supermax facility in Florence, Colorado) the Village and the GOP have effectively killed Obama's plan to close Gitmo. Milions of Americans are now convinced that closing Gitmo will mean whatever facility in the US houses terrorists will make the cities and towns around that prison target number one for legions of jihadi killers.

Eight years of abject, constant fear is a hard drug to quit cold turkey, but Obama's lack of a distinct plan to present the American people also had just as much to do with the failure of the initiative.

Obama fumbled this one badly...but then again, now he's under no political pressure to close Gitmo.

And maybe that was the plan all along.