What a welcome change, said Asim Qureshi in Britain’s The Guardian: America’s new president, Barack Obama, ordered a stop to the military tribunals at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, so he could consider how to overhaul them. But it will take a lot more than this to prove “that the U.S. has truly changed its attitude” toward detaining Muslim suspects in the “war on terror.”
It’s encouraging that Obama has backed away from his campaign promise to close Guantánamo entirely, said Investor’s Business Daily in an editorial. “That shows flexibility and wisdom. He'll need both, since the U.S. faces a terrorist threat that will take advantage of our inattention or our weakness to kill as many of us as possible, without remorse.”
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Wait, I'm confused, said Megan McArdle in The Atlantic. Suspending the military tribunals for 120 days is one thing, but the big problem at Guantanamo was that people were being held without trial. "Doesn't this just further prolong the incarceration of anyone who might be innocent?"