Lawrence Jackson/Associated Press

The small-government, fiscally prudent Republicans in the House have voted to preserve a significant expansion of government power — and to keep spending nearly $1.6 million per prisoner per year at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp. They did all that in just a few hours.

Recently, Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, along with Rep. Chris Gibson, Republican of New York, sponsored an amendment to repeal a dangerous provision in the 2013 military budget. That provision authorized military detention for anyone captured in the United States on suspicion of terrorism, and did not explicitly exclude American citizens.

Senator Mark Udall, Democrat of Colorado, said President Obama has pledged not to use the detention power for Americans, but “this is only binding on his administration, but that won’t tie the hands of future administrations.”

House Republicans killed the amendment last night.



Mr. Smith, who’s been very busy, also proposed an amendment to the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act, which would have required the closure of Guantánamo by the end of 2014.

It would have enhanced the authority of a presidential appointee charged with finding places to send the almost 90 prisoners who have been cleared for release — many of them because they didn’t actually do anything in the first place.

The bill also would have ordered the transfer of the rest of the prisoners to the United States from their current cells on land leased from the Communist Party of Cuba, either for trial in federal courts or for detention under the laws of war until the “end of hostilities.” (That, of course, is going to be hard to define, but a logical point would be the end of the current war in Afghanistan.)

The first, eligible-for-trial group includes men like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the so-called mastermind of the 9/11 attacks who is slated to go before one of the military tribunals that President Obama has improved from President Bush’s kangaroo courts, but which remain deeply flawed. The second, “end of hostilities” group includes prisoners who are believed to be threats but cannot be tried because there is no evidence against them, or because they were tortured (Mr. Bush’s legacy) and the evidence is not admissible in court.

Mr. Smith pointed out in a press release that the federal courts have convicted “more than 400 defendants charged with crimes related to international terrorism” since Sept. 11, 2001. They have done so without a single security issue or release of sensitive information. These defendants do not receive any greater measure of constitutional rights in the federal courts, including the rights of habeas corpus and the right of appeal, than in military tribunals.

No convicted terrorist has even tried to escape from a federal prison since 9/11. We spend about $34,000 per inmate each year at one of those prisons, Mr. Smith said, compared to $1.6 million per inmate at Guantanamo, where the Pentagon also wants to spend $260 million on new construction.

Republicans were deaf to these solid arguments, and voted down the amendment this morning.

The House did manage to pass one amendment from a Democrat, Jim McGovern, today. It requires an “accelerated” withdrawal from Afghanistan, which sounds good, but the date is the end of 2014, which happens to be when President Obama said he would do it anyway. Now that must have taken courage.