If Defense Secretary Robert Gates is any guide, it appears closing the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay will indeed be one of Barack Obama's first priorities when he becomes president next month.

Thursday, Mr. Gates ordered his aides to quickly begin updating plans for closing the controversial prison located on the southeastern tip of Cuba.

"He has asked his team for a proposal on how to shut it down, what will be required specifically to close it and move the detainees from that facility, and at the same time protect the American people from dangerous terrorists," said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary

Count The Star as among those favoring the immediate closure of this so-called "war on terror" prison. Guantanamo has been so tainted in U.S. and world opinion and so damaging to the United States' reputation that it is simply not worth keeping open any longer.

The problem is what to do with the 250 or so prisoners who remain there. Among those held there are Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged operational mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and other alleged senior leaders of al-Qaida and other extremist groups.

Those who are cleared for release should be repatriated. The rest will have to be brought to mainland prisons, as politically unpopular as that will be. Those we can try in federal courts should be. Others could face courts-martial in the military justice system as called for in the Geneva Conventions.

One hopes that those trials will show that we just didn't go around the world snatching people for no reason. How the rest of the world feels about the process to date was neatly summed up to The Associated Press by Waleed Alshahari of the Yemeni embassy in Washington:

"If the U.S. government has any evidence against them, they would try them and put them in jail. But it has been obvious that they have nothing against them. That is why they have not faced trial." After seven years, you do have to wonder.

There is a legitimate concern about disclosing in open court the identify of CIA operatives, foreign agents working on our behalf, the cooperation of foreign governments and intelligence sources and methods.

In trying to do this, the Bush administration went overboard and stripped the prisoners of so many rights, they were basically facing kangaroo courts. Surely, the Justice Department — cleaned out of the sort of political hacks who produced the torture memos — and the House and Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees can devise protections that will balance the competing interests.

The most difficult part of closing Guantanamo will be bringing prisoners to the mainland. Proponents of keeping Guantanamo open treat the move as if we're doing the detainees some kind of favor.

After they get a look at a mainland super-max prison, they may begin agitating to go back to Guantanamo.