Endless, pointless detention

Updating and reinforcing the 'Bread and Roses' post below, this Reuters story says that our government has cleared almost a third of the prisoners in Guantanamo -- but won't release them, and won't even name them.* The claimed obstacle is that releasing them to their home countries would expose them to torture (!), and that it's difficult to find countries that will take them. David Luban at Balkinization has more analysis, and a suggestion:

In the case of detainees cleared by the CSRTs – who U.S. processes found not to pose a danger to the United States – mere decency requires us to offer them another option: green cards, or at least political asylum, if they want it. ... Maybe the exonerated detainees don’t want to live in the United States. Maybe their all-expenses-paid tropical holiday in Gitmo has not exactly endeared the United States to them. Maybe, just maybe, they want to be as far from the United States as possible. But we owe them the right of refusal.

*Since this was posted, the U.S. government has, after four and a half years, finally provided a list of all those held at Guantanamo.