Sure, the folks planning a move next door are a bit odd. What with the orange hues of their wardrobe, their unkempt appearance, their obsession with protecting a little book and the constant requests to borrow a plunger, they can be a bit offputting. And they always appear to have just stepped out of the shower. But the poor broods just received an eviction notice and are now being subjected to classic Southern California NIMBY attacks.

Let ‘em move in.

President Obama’s Jan. 21 order to close the detention facilities at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Naval base has sent military officials scrambling to find a new home for the prison’s 245 detained terrorists. On top the list: Camp Pendleton — the massive Marine base in Southern California that I can literally see from my house.

The military’s been tight-lipped about what locations it’s considering for the detainees’ new digs, but it came out Monday that, in fact, a group from the Department of Defense toured Camp Pendleton in anticipation of Obama’s decision.

Immediately following the president’s announcement the cries went out that Camp Delta detainees don’t belong in Southern California. All of the local Republican congressmen denounced any plans to move the scum of the earth here and yelled in unison, “NOT IN MY BACK YARD!”

“These are, in some cases, the most hardened killers in the world,” Darrel Issa, R-Vista, said. “They’ve already killed within the camp. It’s important for the community to understand that neither Camp Pendleton nor Miramar is equipped to take hardened criminals.”

Issa, along with Reps. Brian Bilbray, R-Solana Beach, and Duncan D. Hunter, R-El Cajon, fired off a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates imploring him to take Pendleton off the list.

Hunter even took a cue from his father and introduced a bill that would bar the government from moving detainees to any military facility in all of San Diego County (his dad, whom he just replaced in the House, previously wrote into law a ban on building airports on area military installations).

But really, what’s the alternative?

“I continue to insist that we return those who are not are not going to be tried to the country of their origin if we’re going to close Guantanamo,” Issa said. “And if we’re going to bring hardened criminals to trial, we bring them to an appropriate federal prison and schedule their trials.”

Sending the detainees home has already become problematic. Two showed up in al-Qaida videos, one of which is now running al-Qaida’s Yemen branch. And leaving it up to their home countries to repratriate them is sketchy at best, as the New York Times reports:

Almost half the camp’s remaining detainees are Yemenis, and efforts to repatriate them depend in part on the creation of a Yemeni rehabilitation program — partly financed by the United States — similar to the Saudi one. Saudi Arabia has claimed that no graduate of its program has returned to terrorism.

Rehab? For “the most hardened killers in the world?” Please. It’s much better to have them under lock and key in anyone’s back yard than going through the 12 steps with their compatriates (does the first one involve a board, a bucket and some water?).

Still others are quick to poo-poo Camp Pendleton as a locale for detainees. Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air denounced the idea as “stupid:”

And Nevadans thought the Yucca Mountain nuclear storage project was a bad deal. San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station isn’t just near Camp Pendleton. It’s surrounded by Camp Pendleton. The nuclear power plant would make an excellent target for terrorists looking to create a disaster in response to the detention of their comrades on the military base.

That’s not the only stupid notion in this plan. An interstate freeway runs all the way through Pendleton as well, Interstate 5, which goes from Mexico to Canada. If any of the terrorists manage to escape Gitmo, they have nothing but water for a destination. If they escape a detention facility in Pendleton, they would have access to the Eisenhower federal highway system.

Interesting points, but a bit superflous. Yes, there’s a nuclear power plant right there, and yes there’s a freeeway running through the camp, but both are right on the beach. One would think the presence of San Onofre would already make the camp “an excellent target for terrorists.”

What’s more, Camp Pendleton is huge — it’s massive, mogus — encompassing 125,000 acres in all. And thank God, otherwise the sprawl from Los Angeles and Orange County would just morph into the sprawl from San Diego. There’s huge swaths of back country on the base, stretching almost to the other major Southern California freeway — Interstate 15.

It would be entertaining to watch a detainee attempt to escape from the back hills of Pendleton while surrounded by the First Marine Expeditionary Force.

Plus, Defense Secretary Gates says Pendleton would safe. In fact, from ABC News, “Camp Pendleton was determined to be the least expensive option and officials say its vast 125,000 acre size would allow for a new prison to be built in an isolated and secure area.”

And then there’s local talk radio host Rick Roberts, who called the plan a “slap in the face” to those stationed there.

I know many of the Marines stationed at Pendleton. I have every confidence in their ability to keep the detainees under wraps — in fact, I’d be hard-pressed to find men and women more capable and more up to the task. I’d rather the terrorists be under their careful watch than in the custody of federal prison guards or the tuteledge of rehab counselors back home.

Frankly, if their landlord is hell-bent on bulldozing their current home, I can’t think of a better place to take them.

Besides, California is losing residents and with the housing market in the tank, there’s plenty of lumber and empty Igloo coolers around for interrogations.