THE ISSUE: Bringing Guantanamo Bay detainees to S.C.

OUR OPINION: While no one in S.C. can favor the action, Obama not likely to be derailed if that is the decision

It’s not surprising that S.C. gubernatorial candidates are entering the fray over what is reportedly the Obama administration’s plan to use the Navy brig in Charleston to house prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and conduct military tribunals for the terror suspects at facilities nearby.

President Barack Obama enjoys some support in his pledge to close the Guantanamo Bay facility, where people have been held as detainees in the war on terrorism. The promise has been to move the United States away from indefinite detention of the suspects, with no guarantee of trial, to putting them into the civilian judicial system or before military courts.

That means bringing the suspects to U.S. shores, holding them here before trials and very likely imprisoning many here afterward. No state wants the detainees.

Yet what is South Carolina to do? It is within the power of the president and Congress to make the move. And the issue has Republicans and Democrats divided in predictable fashion.

While the issue was not raised at Tuesday night’s debate in Orangeburg, some of the gubernatorial candidates have weighed in.

During the day Tuesday, GOP candidate Congressman Gresham Barrett called for all 10 Democratic and Republican contenders to sign on to a letter demanding that the president not send detainees to this state.

Barrett wrote: “We, the undersigned Republican and Democrat candidates for Governor of the State of South Carolina, strenuously object to the potential transfer of known terrorists from Guantanamo Bay Cuba to any federal or state facility inside the State of South Carolina.

“Furthermore, we believe bringing known terrorists to South Carolina for a military trial endangers our state’s citizens and makes them potential targets for some future terrorist attack.”

He received at least one Democratic response on Wednesday, with candidate Mullins McLeod chastising the congressman: “With all due respect, I’d request that you take your letter and shove it. In times of war, our duty as Americans is to pull together and do our part to secure victory.

“No one wants suspected terrorists on our soil while they await their richly deserved punishment. But when the President asks us to do our part in the international war on terrorism, the only appropriate response from this or any state’s Governor is ‘Yes Sir, Mr. President.’”

Don’t look for others to let Barrett take the lead with his letter. Even before he wrote, Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, himself a GOP gubernatorial candidate, was calling on Attorney General Henry McMaster to take legal action to block any detainee transfer. McMaster also is a GOP candidate.

McMaster responded Tuesday by saying any transfer here of detainees would be a mistake. “As South Carolina’s attorney general and as an American citizen, I will do everything I can to help prevent this potential disaster.”

But the attorney general and another GOP candidate, Rep. Nikki Haley, rightly argue that the state’s congressional delegation, including Barrett, has a responsibility in the matter.

Haley said Wednesday in a letter to Barrett: “Calling on candidates for Governor to join you in a letter to President Obama, rather than asking your colleagues in Congress — who are actually in a position to prevent this potentially dangerous situation — to do the same, strikes me as little more than political grandstanding.”

And McMaster said Tuesday: “Congress should have taken action on this issue long ago. National security is a federal issue. The United States Congress is the branch of government with the jurisdiction and the legal authority to stop the president from making unwise decisions that threaten the security of our nation.

“I urge our state’s congressional delegation to take decisive action. They should seek an immediate Act of Congress to stop President Obama from transferring Guantanamo Bay terrorists to South Carolina or to any other state on the American mainland. Even if they can’t get such an act passed by the Democratic Congress, they should at least make the effort as a way of drawing public attention to this potential disaster.”

With Obama pledged to close the Guantanamo Bay facility, and the president enjoying widespread Democratic support for the action, Congress indeed is unlikely to take such action. And South Carolina may be the destination for the detainees.

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