Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Here's a Detailed Plan For Closing Guantanamo, So Congress Can Fund Closure
Senator Feinstein and White House spokesman Robert Gibbs agree that the $80 million dollars in funding needed to close Guantanamo should be delayed until a detailed plan for transferring the prisoners is presented.
By way of background, as Dick Cheney said Sunday:I don’t know a single congressional district in this country that is going to say, gee, great, they’re sending us 20 Al Qaida terrorists.Along the same lines, Senator Richard Shelby asked Attorney General Holder:
Do you know of any community in the US that would welcome terrorists, would be terrorists, former terrorists incarcerated in Guantanamo?In other words, many people argue that because no one will accept the prisoners, a detailed plan for closing Gitmo isn't possible at this time.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, I've got your detailed plan right here . . .
As Al Jazeera’s Rob Reynolds reports, the town of Hardin, Montana is requesting that 100 Gitmo detainees be sent to its empty prison:
Earlier this month, Hardin’s town council voted unanimously to offer the US government a deal: Send Hardin the detainees that most foreign countries and other cities the US are afraid to take.
“Why not us?” [Greg Smith, Hardin's economic development director] asks. “They’ve got to go somewhere.” He dismisses security concerns over housing inmates former Bush administration officials famously described as “the worst of the worst”. “We have some very hardened criminals in our own country that have committed some heinous crimes, and they are in communities all across this country,” Smith argues. [...]
He estimates at least 100 new jobs would come from filling the prison, a real boost to this small, beleaguered community. Smith describes the town’s quest to become a new penal colony as “a piece of the American dream.” “Like anything in America, we’re looking for opportunities,” he says.
3 comments:
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Right on, George.
ReplyDeleteExcellent.
ReplyDeleteNow let's get a move on.
The whole what-do-we-do-with-the-prisoners thing is stupid. Our courts can handle them, our prisons can handle them, our country can handle them. This notion that these captives (some, as you point out, are probably innocent) are so terrifying that they can't come into the US is just silly. We have a lot of hardened criminals in this country and no one seems to think our prisons can't hold those people. Are these accused terrorists really so cunning that they are able to escape our prisons and run amuck in our streets?
Here's a simple plan. Bring them to a court of law. If they are guilty, put them in prison. If they are not, set them free and send them to where they were first kidnapped. They'll be tortured, some will say. Well, what's the difference between being tortured in their own countries or in Guantanamo? If the poor little scaredy American citizens don't want them on the mainland, Guantanamo can be turned into a proper maximum security prison without the torture apparatus.
ReplyDeleteI personally think that it suits the government to have these so-called terrorists in Guantanamo and to keep the controversy alive. It keeps the American people fearful and thus docile and accepting of the continuing restrictions on their freedoms. This fear also helps keep the war industry going which perhaps is the main purpose.