Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

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Regarding Gitmo: A Modest Proposal

It appears already that the Obama Administration is going to have its hands full figuring out how to close down Guantanamo. Since no Congressperson wants a detainee sent to their district, and many countries of origin of these fine world citizens won’t take them back, why don’t we just cut a hole in the fence and set them loose in Fidel’s island paradise? It would be a nice first step in lifting our obsolete embargo.

Discussions - 7 Comments

Appreciate the sentiment but I don't enjoy the likely prospect of them getting into the "shipbuilding" enterprise.

Why don't we send them back to the exact place and circumstance in which we found them. When they resist being captured again, we can take care of them. If it is impossible to hold people we capture, what alternative is there? If not with this group, then with future enemies, that will probably start to happen.

In light of recent events, I suggest we supply them with a one-way ticket to Chechnya.

Murtha said he would love to have them in Pa. Alcatraz would be a good second choice esp. for Mizzz Pelosi.

It must really steam the Right that their man G.W. Bush actually released about 55% of the "worst of the worst" (Rumsfeld's words, not mine) - at least 420 out of the 775 ever held there - from Gitmo without any charges at all. What's with that, wasn't he man enough to do what was necessary to convict or just kill them? Don't tell me that he and Cheney were afraid of human rights groups - a laughable notion, for sure. It's quite a trilemma, though: the Bush administration ran Gitmo incompetently and released those guilty of terrorism (see below for more on that), or they knew they were guilty of terrorism but released them anyway (!!), or the released detainees actually weren't guilty of anything close to terrorism reasonably defined.

From those "worst of the worst" we've held and convicted Osama's chauffeur (and hair stylist?), a guy who made a video of people celebrating the attack on the USS Cole, and some white Australian guy (David Hicks) who appears to be their version of John Walker Lindh. (sort of a twisted mirror-image of the Jessica Lynch or Pat Tillman debacles) 3 out of 775. And they surely could've been held, tried, and convicted anywhere in the U.S. if the evidence was strong enough, so Gitmo was hardly needed for those 3 successes, however great one sees them to be.

I'm really starting to think that Gitmo was more of a PR stunt to satisfy Bush's basest base, the folks who were eager to see our Jack Bauers pee on some Korans, torture some towelheads (even if we ended up using the methods of the Chinese Communists from the Korean War), or just kill them as part of some generalized revenge fantasy.

And, of course, the claim that those released detainees went on to be recidivist terrorists is a fairly pure strain of bull.

Those willing to read and learn about the prisoners will find that many of them were captured under circumstances very far from battlefield scenarios, nor were they found assembling mythical suitcase bombs in a dark basement with floorplans for your local nursery school. More often than not, someone who already was eager to settle a personal or intra-Iraq political score found a new incentive to turn over their enemy, in the form of U.S. bounty money.

Why not torch the place with them in side. Its not possible that some of the people could be farmers grabbed by mistake or no apparent reason. Lets just start shooting anyone who stands in our way. Why we are at it, why limit this genius to forigners. Why not shoot anyone with drugs or who cheets on their taxes. A lot of dirty harry's on here i guess.

This entire problem reeks of modern thinking (madness). Over 50 years ago one of my friends grandfathers was captured while fighting for the Italians. This man was sent to a POW camp here and eventually settled in the United States and had a decent productive life. Italy was a fascist state. What has changed? Are the individual footsoilders suddenly more dedicated, are we more paranoid, or is the whole thing a carefully constructed fairy tale. Mabye the idea that a terrorist would return to terror if given the choice between this or living in America should cause us to take a step back. Once it was beleived that we would bring the world around by being the shining example.

Oh boo-hoo-hoo I feel so bad for them poor Arabs who got their feelings hurt after only killing 3000 of our people! Hey I have an idea. Next time they attack us let's just send them a nice bundt cake.

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