Fox News military analyst Ralph Peters ripped President Obama's proposal to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay on Wednesday, saying that terrorist enemies would see it as a "huge victory" in influencing the U.S. decision to do so.
Obama has unsuccessfully called for Gitmo's closing since his first campaign in 2008, and he repeated his call this week by suggesting the detention center "does not advance our national security."
"He's portraying closing Guantanamo as some sort of moral victory that will make the world and even the terrorists respect our values," Peters said. "On the contrary. Close Guantanamo and the terrorists will present it, rightfully, as a huge victory over the United States, that they forced us to close Guantanamo. There are endless problems with this, from the magical accounting you heard from President Obama yesterday. He's not very good with financial figures, as we saw with Obamacare."
Obama doesn't know where he would send these prisoners if Guantanamo closed, Peters said.
"He is desperate to cling to this one part of his legacy, that 2008 campaign promise ... He appears to have learned almost nothing in seven years," Peters said.
Peters went on to argue the Left's depiction of Guantanamo as "Treblinka with palm trees" was a false one, saying the detainees there get better medical care than tens of millions of Americans. He joked, however, that he wouldn't mind seeing terrorists have to mix with the general population of American prisons.
"I don't want them on American soil. I don't want those terrorists here," Peters said. "Then they get all these magical rights kicked in. But given how great conditions are for these guys down there, take them away from the palm trees. I'd love to see them at a Supermax prison in Colorado or out in general population where they can make new friends, because they have it good."
Peters is rarely one to mince words in his Fox appearances. He went a bit far in an appearance in December, receiving a two-week suspension after referring to Obama as a "total pussy."