# What's gonna happen to the unlawful combatents in the long-term? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 4, 2007, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-gonna-happen-to-the-unlawful-combatents-in-the-long-term/386657 "2007-01-04T06:16:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-gonna-happen-to-the-unlawful-combatents-in-the-long-term/386657/1 "2007-01-04T06:16:21Z")
What exactly is the government’s long-term plan (if any) for everyone being held in detention at Guantanamo Bay? Even if they’re “tried” by a military tribunal and found not guilty that doesn’t meant they’re gonna get released. Holding them until the war’s over and then repatriating isn’t going to work since we’re not actually at war with their home countries. There’s nobody we can since an armistance with. This war could last so longer that we’ll stop thinking of it as war and simply think of it as “normal:”. Are we just gonna keep them prisoner until they die or become senile? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-gonna-happen-to-the-unlawful-combatents-in-the-long-term/386657/2 "2007-01-04T06:24:10Z")
Well, a Democrat president in 2009 would probably help. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-gonna-happen-to-the-unlawful-combatents-in-the-long-term/386657/3 "2007-01-04T06:59:20Z")
I have no idea. By all rights we should give them some serious compensation and send them on their way with our apologies, but it’s too late for that. Can we bring them here? Would you live next to a released Guantanamo refugee, even if you know he/she is innocent? We have made these people “nonpeoples”. Nobody wants them even when they are found to be innocent and released. Yet we can’t leave them in perpetuity. Perhaps they would make good ranch hands in Crawford. That would help President Bush clear the brush a lot faster. How about $50,000 a year and full benefits? Think President Bush would spring for that? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-gonna-happen-to-the-unlawful-combatents-in-the-long-term/386657/4 "2007-01-04T07:52:00Z")
Knock down old blind justice and in her place put their jailed likenesses before every court and lawschool in the land, lest there is any doubt as to the status of the rule of law in the United States of America. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-gonna-happen-to-the-unlawful-combatents-in-the-long-term/386657/5 "2007-01-04T17:37:46Z")
My guess is that at some point the President (but probably not the current one) or Congress will order the creation of some special review board to determine which “suspects” can be released. The board will mostly be a rubber stamp to repatriate the majority of the detainees back to their native countries. Some of them will become stateless persons whose native countries refuse to accept them back. And several thousand of them will get out and start lawsuits against the United States that will probably last a couple of decades. At some point, the remaining detainees will either be given a general release or be tried and transferred to normal custody in the federal prison system - this will mark the symbolic end to “Gitmogate”. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-gonna-happen-to-the-unlawful-combatents-in-the-long-term/386657/6 "2007-01-04T19:58:53Z")
What **Little Nemo** said, except I think the worst abused will die from “natural causes”, or just disappear.