If you have a keen memory, you may recall that U.S. president and Hellfire missile proponent Barack Obama once promised to close down our prison at Guantanamo Bay, where hope and civil rights go to die. That never happened, of course. But now, Obama has a golden opportunity to shut that motherfucker down.

You'd think it would be easy to close an unaccountable military prison over which we exercise total control, but the issue was, ah, something about how we tortured everybody there rendering the stuff they said inadmissible in a court of law, and also the fact that Terrorists have magical Terrorist Jailbreaking abilities, when it comes to regular American prisons. (I'm pretty sure that was it?)

Now the place is a big mess, and most of the prisoners are trying to starve themselves to death, and it just looks bad for the President of Hope and Change. The Los Angeles Times (citing "the emergence of a more collaborative leadership under President Abdu Rabu Mansour Had") reports that the government of Yemen has had a recent change of heart:

Most of the 166 men still imprisoned at the U.S. naval base in southern Cuba are Yemenis — at least 88, by the Yemeni government’s count, plus a few Saudis of Yemeni descent. Of the 86 prisoners approved by a presidential task force four years ago for transfer out of Gitmo, 59 are Yemenis — and their new government wants them back.

Great. Fantastic. Send them back. And then send the rest of the prisoners back to their respective countries. And then burn Guantanamo to the ground. And then, a few years down the road, send hefty payments to various former Guantanamo prisoners who obtain rulings against us for holding them in outrageous conditions. And then, a few years after that, start praying that all their kids don't devote their lives to destroying us.

[LAT. Photo: AP]