Riiiight.

The only shred of an excuse for the abomination that is the Guantanamo Bay detention center has been that these were "very bad men" who were out to destroy America.

This has been the alleged justification for keeping them away from proper legal process, for questionable interrogation methods, and for the threat of keeping them in prison indefinitely. While none of these arguments really stood up to informed scrutiny, especially once it became clear that a number of the inmates had been turned over by local Afghan warlords we had little reason to trust, for a bounty, the cadres of Bushian apologists have repeated them over and over. Very bad men; may need to keep them indefinitely; serious, deadly threat to America, with the sotto vocce they deserve what they get.

So, then, what's up with this?

The Bush administration is negotiating the transfer of nearly 70 percent of the detainees at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to three countries as part of a plan, officials said, to share the burden of keeping suspected terrorists behind bars.

U.S. officials announced yesterday that they have reached an agreement with the government of Afghanistan to transfer most of its nationals to Kabul's "exclusive" control and custody. There are 110 Afghan detainees at Guantanamo and 350 more at the Bagram airfield near Kabul. Their transfers could begin in the next six months.

Ambassador Pierre-Richard Prosper said talks are also underway with Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

We're going to turn these very bad men over to a teetering government barely in control of the capital of its fractious country? And that only by virtue of continuing US military support? We're giving control over these "continuing threats" to a government we can't even trust to be there, or be friendly, in a few years? And we think it's a good idea to send them back to the countries where their friends, families and tribal relations are quite possibly running the prisons?

How does it make sense to send these guys back to Saudi Arabia, where the aging sons of the founder increasingly depend for their rule on their compromising support for the Wahabi clerics, the ones that create the rhetorical justification for the terrorists? Why send them to Yemen, another government that doesn't inspire confidence in its long-term stability?

The only way in which this is not going to seriously compromise our national security, the only way this move makes sense, is that everything they've been telling us about the threat of these inmates at Guantanamo is wrong.

In the short term, however, I expect it'll allow for more torturing, brutalization and murder of the captives, without the need for those pesky questions from Congress or the need to burn some staff sergeant's career. Gitmo hasn't really been working out as planned since the Supreme Court got involved, and the documents started leaking.

A major obstacle to the transfer of detainees to Afghanistan is infrastructure. U.S. officials have agreed to help Afghanistan build an appropriate prison and to train its guards.

One possible interim solution under consideration is that Afghan detainees at Guantanamo could be transferred to Bagram until permanent facilities are built. Prosper said such facilities could allow a gradual transfer over the next six months.

Bagram. Oh, good.

The United States considers all the remaining detainees to be medium- or high-risk and therefore not eligible for release once handed over, as has happened with about 70 detainees released earlier to about a dozen countries.

Riiiight.