President Barack Obama's renewed request to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, confirms what the detainees have already shown with their hunger strike: Permanent detention at the U.S. naval station isn't viable as a matter of practicality or conscience.
It's easy to blame Congress for standing in the way of a rational solution. But if the Obama administration would take some of the legal ingenuity that it has applied in justifying indefinite detention and apply it instead to closing the island prison, maybe something could actually be done, despite the organized madness that is our constitutional separation of powers.
Start with the most fundamental reason that Obama should be able to act unilaterally. The president is commander in chief, and the Guantanamo detainees were all held pursuant to the executive power to wage war. The Obama administration says the detainees are being held as, in effect, prisoners of war pursuant to the Geneva Conventions, until the end of hostilities with al-Qaida — whenever that may be.