Over at Balloon Juice, Tim F. points out that one of Barack Obama’s biggest problems as President will be determining what to do with the prisoners at Guantanamo and other similar facilities.

This puts Barack Obama in a bind, doesn’t it. When George Bush hands him the keys to camp Delta at Guantanamo he might as well be passing a stolen car. Ending the torture will help but it will not be enough. The detention system itself is a war crime for which Obama can legitimately be accused. Given (3) through (5) Obama cannot legally process most of our detainees, even prisoners whose guilt is clear. There criminal justice system does not have a clause that lets contralegal treatment slide because the suspect obviously did it.

This is particularly difficult, as Tim notes, because there are undoubtedly people in all of those facilities who are bona fide terrorists, but now there’s no real easy, legal way to ensure that they are no longer threats.