Why should we close Guantanamo, a $200 million

state-of-the-art country club prison?

The answer is that it offends some left-wingers scattered around the world and it gives our country a bad image.

I seriously doubt whether it really offends most of the world's population, which probably doesn't even know where Guantanamo is located -- and frankly, who cares what this minority thinks?

If we move the terrorists to U.S. soil, does this change of location improve our country's image? I doubt it.

And would the terrorists, who are no longer called terrorists by our government, contaminate the other inmates in the newly assigned prison, as occurred in the recent arrest of four terrorists who planned to bomb a synagogue and also shoot down some military planes flying out of Stewart Field in New York State?

Would the terrorists be able to play soccer 12 months a year in a Colorado or Montana maximum security prison? And would they be served the usual prison menu rather than a menu designed for the pleasure of the Muslim inmates?

Should we pay $80 million to close Gitmo when we find a new U.S. location for their incarceration?

My advice is to keep open Guantanamo (aka Gitmo), save $80 million in closing costs (a sum recently overwhelmingly rejected by Congress) and take the stigma off its current name by renaming it TARP II, better know as Tax Approved Rehabilitation Project.

Monroe Diefendorf

Pinehurst