Dems refuse to shut Gitmo
sabadabada
5,966 Posts
I share your moral outrage over this.WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama's allies in the Senate will not provide funds to close the Guantanamo Bay prison next January, a top Democratic official said Tuesday. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D989DFH83&show_article=1
Comments
What kind of funds do you need to shut the place?
Surely you switch the lights off, shut the door and
Republicans, have reasonable suggested that they could go to federal prisons of military prisons in the USA.
They then suggest that using their super terrorist strength, they would break out of prison and destroy whole towns.
The idea of super terrorists breaking out of prisons and destroying whole towns have congressional Democrats shook.
So they took the money out of the budget.
Many of the detainees can not be sent back to their home countries because either their own government refuses to take them, or US rules prohibit transferring detainees to countries that are known to torture.
It's a problem that everyone is ducking right now.
Meanwhile, Hardin Montana is requesting that detainees be sent their.
On Sunday, Virginia Democrat Senator Jim Webb said he would not support a reloation of the Uighurs prisoners in Northern Virginia. " They accepted training from Al Qaeda and as a result they have taken part in terrorism," the senator said on ABC's "This Week" Sunday. "I don't believe they should come to the United States." [/b]
In a Washington Post editorial last week, Representative Jim Moran (D-Va.) said that the announcement to close Guantanamo was "the easy part,??? adding, "we Virginians would rather not have terrorism suspects held and tried in our back yard. Should some of the detainees at Guantanamo be sent to the Alexandria courthouse, there is no question that people in the immediate vicinity -- more than 10,000 residents and workers during business hours -- would be affected." [/b]
In an interview with the AP, Representative Frank Wolf (D-Va.) said that while he supports the Uighur community in northern Virginia, "a terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist." [/b]
My point exactly.
Unfortunately, no it is not that simple.
You have to mothball or demo your buildings depending on your plan.
You have personnel to reassign (hello Afghanistan) and prisoners to move/take care of.
Don't forget all that equipment you need to transfer. You are not going to just leave all the extra vehicles and parts lying around. You got administrative paperwork to archive and remove from site.
And then there is the inevitable going away party that should be quite the blow out... Anyone want to DJ that gig?
The very idea that the mere presence of these detainees in a maximum security federal prison (which is already full of violent maniacs) will put Americans in the same state in some kind of danger is borderline retarded.
If anything, that would probably go badly for the terrorists. Pretty sure there are some gangs in there that wouldn't take kindly to their presence, and may very well give them a stern talking-to. Or stabbing.
Only if the Republicans force them to.
I'm sure they've got solid connections with all of the Aryan/White power types...
Zactly
I was thinking that too. Unless they clique up 100 deep or Osama swings in on a vine with a knife in his mouth and a bazooka on his arm, I'd assume there's a great chance these dudes get stabbed the F*ck up in prison.
It's my understanding that the Uighurs have been found to be innocent.
I was under the impression that they had already been released, and were resettled in Northern VA.
There is a Uighurs community in NVA.
It was my impression that if a Uighurs could get out of China and to a US embassy they would be given political asylum.
No, the Bush idea of military tribunals got so caught up in legal arguments that they never happened. It would've been a lot easier if many of these guys were just designated POWs when first captured. Of course that means the big wigs couldn't have been tortured.
As Larry pointed out before, the real issue here is that they haven't decided where to put these guys once they've closed Gitmo. If they do get put in an American prison they will be in isolation and will not see anyone but each other if that.
The problem is that China, whom we are about to hit up for the mother of all loans, is demanding them back. The only way we could deny that is if we brand China officially as a country that tortures.
Could make that loan thing a little awkward.
Why do u hate the geneva conventions? the conventions lay out criteria by which an individual detainee is determined to be a POW, and the failure of taliban and al-qaeda operatives to meet those criteria are quite obvious.
On top of which, they're not closing the base at Guantanamo Bay, just the 9/11 related prison. The rest of the base will still be there.
Technically, Gitmo is U.S. soil. Also, the Red Cross have an office there, so
there are prying eyes.
If the President and a Democrat controlled Congress really wanted to shut Gitmo down, it would. Your argument that the only thing stopping it, is "the Bureaucracy," is as transparrent as the political hackery in your previous Iraq War thread. Remember that?
Skel, chill. I want the blight that is Gitmo closed as much as you do. I was being slightly facetious (notice the going away party part of my post). But I still recognize that its going to cost money to close Gitmo down.
Yeah, its a bureaucratic nightmare, not to mention a toxic political mess. There has been a parade of politicians sayin', "Not In My Backyard!" And that is for the ones we would house in the federal prison system.
They would go nuts about the 100 detainees that are set to be released. A good chunk of them will not be returned to their own countries (mostly Yemeni) because of US fears about those countries' ability to monitor the ex-detainees.
From the Army Times:[/b]
[Senate Republican leader Mitch] McConnell [KY-R] said asking for $80 million in the bill to close the Guantanamo Bay prison ??? $50 million for moving the detainees and $30 million for administrative and support costs ??? will work against quick passage of the legislation, especially because the administration has not announced what it plans to do with the more than 200 detainees."
80 frackin million. That is $320,000/per detainee if "more than 200" is 250 prisoners. I can't find the current actual numbers.
This is just a power play by American politicians right now because these guys are going to be transferred to the US (both the prison system and the outside world). No politician (Republican or Democrat) wants to go into an election with "he allowed terrorists to be set loose in our state" hanging over their head.