Does Gitmo Hurt More than It Helps?

This morning, NPR did a story on media coverage of the British sailor crisis in the Arab world. Ramez Maluf, a journalism professor at American University in Beirut, pointed to this commentary by an Arab blogger on the subject:

Iranians should consider those 15 pirates as enemy combatants, and treat them in the same way as they treat our “detainees” in Gitmo. They should be put in orange jumpsuits, and their eyes, hands, and feet should be binded [sic]. After that, they should be kept rotting in cages there for five years without any legal process. That would be just like the U.S. style of democracy. It would be very fair.

Thank God, it appears that the Brits are about to be released. Apparently, what the British are supposed to do is state that they “regret” the incident, and will endeavor to make sure it doesn’t happen again, without admitting that the British entered Iranian territorial waters. I imagine that both of those statements are true, though I suspect that “making sure it doesn’t happen again” may mean different things to the English than it does to the Iranians. There are different ways to ensure that such an incident doesn’t happen again.