End America’s Gitmo shame
An impartial study undermines the argument against moving detainees to U.S. prisons.
One of the most disappointing unfulfilled promises of President Obama’s first term is that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility remains open. When he ran four years ago, he pledged to close it. He has not, but he continues to try.
Stubborn congressional resistance has been the problem, not the White House. Opposition does not break along party lines, but it does bend along them. Last week, despite a White House veto threat, 10 Democratic senators sided with 54 Republicans to bar the transfer of detainees to the United States for another year.
December 4, 2012 - 6:17 AM
Roanoke City Jail would be a wonderful place to confine these
terriost prisoners of war.
This is such a cluster of colossal mistakes and continuing shame. We should be working with the various countries of origin to take these prisoners give them a trial and decide their fates. We need to tie the no-fly list to a fingerprint database and we need to get this sordid example of our failure behind us. We have so badly mangled this whole process that a truly fair, or impartial outcome is useless to even attempt. If we cannot try them after all these years, we must let them go home to their own fates. If that turns out to be fighting against us till their last breath, so be it. This is not “fixable” and bringing them here to a different prison is just useless window dressing.
I was listening to one of the authors of the report on the radio the other day and apparently even if WE work out a transfer to the courts/prisons in another country, the detainee can refuse and stay put. This is just an exercise in futility and a monument to mess ups on a royal scale. Get rid of those we can, whether they like it or not and bring the rest here to live in the prisons we already pay for and maintain at the federal level. Enough.
Sandi, Can we house them in your neighborhood? They are simply prisoners of war and not really bad people.
If there was a prison in my neighborhood, sure you could, Alan. When was the last time ANY community decided who was allowed into any federal prison?
It’s not WHERE they are held that’s the issue. Sandi touched on that in post #2. It’s that they are being denied due process and right to a trial. Put them on trial; if they are guilty, punish them; if not, release them.
Of course, how do we decide the charge? DOD has said they are enemy combatants…in an undeclared (i.e., unConstitutional) war. Therefore they are not strictly POWs. Many are there, we suspect, because they were ratted out for reward money, and guilty of nothing more than an insult, or of simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They are still being held because evidence is sketchy and no one knows that better than DoD.
And let’s not get into the rampant rank hypocrisy of bombing the crap out of a peoples – including civilians – and then accusing THEM of terrorism (a practice started under Bush and continued cheerfully by subsequent administrations). Or of condemning one group of terrorists, and them sponsoring their brethren (who have sworn to target their American sponsors next) in a coup against a sovereign government in Syria…all while engaging in false-hero worship of a US President who oversaw the unnecessary deaths of 600,000 Americans.
Hypocrisy is an ugly thing. We need to quit meddling in other nations’ affairs.
#5 – “We need to quit meddling in other nations’ affairs.”
Where do you draw the line, Hoo? Complete total “hands-off”, or meddle when we deem necessary?
#3 Why not, alan. Isn’t that what federal prisons were made for — housing prisoners? Or should we empty federal prisons of the 400 terrorists they hold no and send them elsewhere?
Gitmo should be a a horrendous embarrassment to anybody who calls him or herself and American.
Michael, it is a pretty clear line: if no American interests are at stake, and they are not, in, Syria, then we don’t meddle. And when they are, meddling should take the form of constitutionally declared and waged war, with clear definitions of victory, and clearly established endpoints. It does not include world cop, nation-building or war guarantees to back-stabbing “allies”.
OK, Hoo, do we “meddle” when genocide is involved if it doesn’t affect American lives?
Just pointing out the HUGE gray area of your philosophy.
9 – there are plenty of places where genocide is happening, and has happened in the past. Why are we so selective? That’s the hypocritical grey area of the world cop philosophy you espouse.
It should also be acknowledged that we are flat broke and getting broker, and we can’t AFFORD – either in terms of resources or moral authority – to be the world’s policeman.
I’m not disagreeing with you Hoo…I think we need to bring our troops home right now and cut off all foreign aid immediately.
It’ll never happen, but it sure would be nice to spend our money on US.