I have made this point before, but it needs to be made again. Opponents of closing Gitmo and transferring hundreds of terrorists to the U.S. are neglecting a major point. This is not to deny that they have been making important points. First, that it is senseless and irresponsibly wasteful to close the $200 million state-of-the-art Gitmo facility and buy a new one -- particularly in the midst of a recession. Second, if transferred to the U.S., the terrorists become subject to American domestic law in civilian courts with incalculable consequences.  But a third point is being ignored: the peril to prison guards. In ordinary civilian prisons a handful of guards move unarmed among a huge number of dangerous prisoners. How is this possible? The prisoners generally have no particular grievance against individual guards.  Their animus is generally directed against other prisoners, especially members of rival gangs or factions.  Moreover, if they attack guards they can expect prosecution to be more likely than if they just stab another inmate. Which leads to the second point: after Attica and similar incidents, they know the result of prison revolt is going to be not any compromise, but massive retaliation. And the more initially successful the revolt is, the more likely that a Nation Guard unit will be called in to turn automatic weapons fire on the entire prison population. 

Now consider how irrelevant such considerations are to prison guard safety when unarmed prison guards are required to circulate among a prison full of religious fanatics who emphatically proclaim their willingness -- even desire -- to die for Allah.

The almost certain result of moving these fanatics from military imprisonment in Cuba to civilian imprisonment in the U.S. is that prison guards will be taken hostage and eventually killed when the prison makes it clear that they will not give in to protect their hostages.

The Obama answer on security concerns is that "no prisoner has ever escaped from federal maximum security." This is a fatuous irrelevancy. Prisoners do not need to escape in order to capture or kill unarmed prison guards who are required to circulate among the prisoners. Nor is the danger from a possible revolt by one prisoner comparable to the dangers possible from a concerted alliance by suicidal, religious fanatics.

The disaster looming from closing Gitmo and transferring hundreds of terrorists to the U.S. is yet another oncoming Obama catastrophe.