One has to wonder what happened to the courage that brought this country into being.
In the failure of leadership that followed the attack of 9/11 and the hysteria that institutionalized torture and Gitmo I often think back to John Adams and the hysteria that followed the Boston Massacre. A snowball led to an argument leading to a crowd leading to shots fired.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_MassacreAnti British propagandists inflamed the incident so that the colonies were incensed and a show trial was held.
John Adams stepped forth and defended the soldiers at considerable risk to the political career he was already planning:
In the trial of the soldiers, which opened November 27, 1770, Adams argued that if the soldiers were endangered by the mob they had the legal right to fight back, and so were innocent. If they were provoked but not endangered, he argued, they were at most guilty of manslaughter. The jury agreed with Adams and acquitted six of the soldiers. Two of the soldiers were found guilty of murder because there was overwhelming evidence that they fired directly into the crowd. However, John Adams used a loophole in British common law: by proving to the judge that they could read by having them read aloud from the Bible, he had their crimes reduced to manslaughter (see Benefit of clergy). The two privates were thus found guilty of manslaughter and punished by branding on their thumbs. The jury's decisions suggest that they believed the soldiers had felt threatened by the crowd. Patrick Carr, the fifth victim, corroborated this with a deathbed testimony delivered to his doctor.
Now we face the clean up of Gitmo. Fundamentally we have three groups of prisoners: One set that is known to be innocent, another set that is known to be guilty and continues to admit its guilt and a third group whose guilt, or the degree of guilt is either uncertain or may be difficult to establish because of contamination of evidence as a result of illegal interrogation, some of which was clearly torture.
And now in a spectacular instance of cowardice the United States Congress has elevated NIMBY to a new set of hypocrisy and cowardice by not funding the shut down of Gitmo as a shadow play of getting tough and not letting any Gitmo prisoner to the soil of the United States.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=1&vote=00196U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 111th Congress - 1st Session
as compiled through Senate LIS by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate
Vote Summary
Question: On the Amendment (Inouye Amdt. No. 1133 )
Vote Number: 196 Vote Date: May 20, 2009, 11:48 AM
Required For Majority: 1/2 Vote Result: Amendment Agreed to
Amendment Number: S.Amdt. 1133 to H.R. 2346 (Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2009)
To prohibit funding to transfer, release, or incarcerate detainees detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to or within the United States. Vote Counts: YEAs 90
NAYs 6
Not Voting 3
This will be seen in other countries, as it should be, as cowardice.
It is the same cowardice that the United States Congress showed when the Senator McCarthy ruined lives so capriciously.
As to the three groups of prisoners:
I. Release Innocent Prisoners who cannot be repatriated to their homes into the US Now
Specifically (but not exclusively) this includes 17 Uyghur captives
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_captives_in_Guantanamo who were determined not to be enemy combatants in 2005.
There is no longer any question about their innocence and the courts have ordered their immediate release
Today, Tuesday 7 October 2008, Washington, DC District Judge Ricardo Urbina ordered the release of the seventeen remaining Uyghur detainees at the American prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to be released to US soil. The detained men, cleared of all charges, were meant to have been released in 2004. Concern for security, both that of the United States and that of the prisoners, has prevented their release from Guantanamo or their acceptance by other states, which fear retribution from China.
The actions of Congress is an attempt to undo the legal judgment of the court. Just like McCarthy they are destroying innocent lives for propaganda purposes and those that know better - presumably all of them - are throwing these lives away for political expedience.
They cannot be returned to China and other countries are unlikely to take them. Read more detail on why at the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_captives_in_GuantanamoII. Incarcerate the Hard Core in Federal Prisons
The hard core prisoners who continue to embrace their roles and actions will be found guilty of numerous crimes and they should be incarcerated into federal prisons, where they will suffer a sterile existence as high profile prisoners and be robbed of the martyrdom they aspire to. The US Federal system has no problem with high profile prisoners and the Republican hysteria machine that is getting people upset about having 'terrorists on American soil' are shameful idiots.
They will be prisoners and offer no danger to anyone. We should not give them capital punishment, which is what they want but give them a long quiet lifelong imprisonment to make them contemplate their failure and crimes.
III. The Others
Deal with on a case by case basis. Some will be traded, some freed. Some may be tried and serve additional time in Federal Prisons and then returned to their homes, or other countries that will take them.
The Current Absurdity
If the title "Un American Cowardice" is offensive then let me explain to you that is exactly how it will be perceived outside of the United States. If the US is unwilling to accept a single Gitmo detainee, even those known to be innocent, then other countries are not going to accept them either, and Gitmo will remain open.
What most Americans do not realize is that our allies continue to suffer massive civilian losses because of the war with Al Que-da.
People know that civilians continue to die in Iraq and Afghanistan, but there are losses elsewhere.
In Pakistan the numbers killed in 2007 exceeded those of the 9/11 attack and continue to increase:
The report says attacks in Pakistan more than doubled last year as militancy and extremism spread. More than one thousand three hundred people were killed -- an increase of almost three hundred percent.
In Thailand there has been a prolonged campaign against civilians by an Al Que-da ally
in 2005 it is reported
The Thai authorities continue to face difficulties in their efforts to bring the activities of the jihadi terrorist elements under control in Southern Thailand. The current wave of jihadi terrorist violence in the three Muslim majority southern provinces, which started in January last year (2004), has already cost over 800 lives of Government servants, innocent civilians and suspected Muslim militants.
The largest number of attacks were against low level civil servants like teachers. It continues to this day.
A Cowardly Congress
When compared to John Adams heroic defense of British soldiers todays vote on the Senate amendment to HR 2346 is a shameful act of cowardice.
The Uyghur detainees, who have been found innocent and no longer are classified as combatants, and have been ordered by the court to be released should be resettled in the US (ironically the Legislators are punishing these strident anti-Communists).
Those who have substantive charges against them, including the easy to prove 'Conspiracy Charges' and who want to plead guilty should be charged, tried and presumably sentenced to life sentences in Federal Prisons.
Those that remain should be handled on a case by case basis.
The hysteria that the Republicans are creating should be exposed and confronted by Democratic legislators.
It is Un American.
It is Cowardice. 
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