Getting European countries to accept 
resettlement of Guantanamo prisoners was always going to be a hard sell, but the Washington Post reports that it’s recently gotten even harder:
Rising opposition in the U.S. Congress to allowing Guantanamo prisoners on American soil has not gone over well in Europe. Officials from countries that previously indicated they were willing to accept inmates now say it may be politically impossible for them to do so if the United States does not reciprocate.
“If the U.S. refuses to take these people, why should we?” said Thomas Silberhorn, a member of the German Parliament from Bavaria, where the White House wants to relocate nine Chinese Uighur prisoners. “If all 50 states in America say, ‘Sorry, we can’t take them,’ this is not very convincing.”
….More trouble emerged when Washington stipulated that the Uighurs would be barred from traveling to the United States.
“If the U.S. says they should come here, but they cannot travel to the U.S., we would have to ask why not?” said a German Interior Ministry official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations. “Does that mean they are dangerous?”
Good question! When the time came to actually accept Guantanamo detainees, European countries were always bound to run into more trouble with domestic politics than they anticipated. But with the American talk radio contingent making it virtually impossible for the U.S. to accept even a small number of the safest detainees ourselves, it’s now inevitable that Europeans are going to back off. You’d have to be politically suicidal to resettle prisoners that the United States has all but tattooed “terrorist.”
So now what happens to them? Stay tuned.
