Posted on 07/26/2008 5:55:24 AM PDT by kellynla
The detention center at Guantánamo hangs on the US like a ball and chain. Both presidential candidates and President Bush want it closed. But that won't be easy without broad consensus on how to deal with current and future detainees.
On the tip of Cuba at a US naval base, the facility was set up in 2002 for the interrogation and detention of terrorist suspects after the 9/11 attacks. It now holds about 265 prisoners, including 14 of "high value." It may have helped prevent any other 9/11-style attacks, but Guantánamo has cost America considerable moral standing in the war on terror and sowed seeds of doubt about its justice system.
Allegations of torture and the long-term holding of suspects without charge or trial may have inspired terrorist recruits and have hindered strategic and logistical cooperation with America's allies. Gitmo must go.
But shuttering the island prison raises some tough questions. What countries will take detainees who are released? Where will the others be detained? How will they be tried? And what will happen when US forces pick up more suspects?
A recent Supreme Court decision granting the Guantánamo detainees the right to challenge their detention in US civilian courts is expected to end the practice of long-term detention. Presumably, this will lead to the release of at least 120 of the suspects whom the Bush administration says it can neither prosecute nor transfer to another country. Thus, the next president will face the sometimes risky balance between personal liberty and public safety, and the challenge of managing that risk.
If Guantánamo is closed, the US will need much more help from allies and other countries so far reluctant to take the detainees. Returning them to their home countries can be tricky,
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
| McCain to Close Club Gitmo "The first day I am President" |
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| Posted by advance_copy On 02/21/2007 7:33:23 PM CST · 85 replies · 1,092+ views YouTube.com ^ | 2/21/07 | Video Over the weekend, John McCain said in Iowa, "One of the things I would do, the first day I am President of the United States, is close Guantanamo Bay. I would close it and I would move those prisoners to Fort Leavenworth. It's become a symbol, which is very bad for America." |
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send em home to be executed.
Just another reason Republicans have more than a little trouble with John McCain as their standard-bearer. John may be speaking from a visceral point of view, but what goes on at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station is MUCH different than what was going on in the “Hanoi Hilton”. There have been no reports of prisoners bound and beaten, or of the application of heated irons to portions of the body, or as a more recent example, prisoners being fed into a wood chipper feet first.
What abuses HAVE been reported at Gitmo are more on the order of “disrespecting” the prisoner, and only recorded AFTER the complaint is made, the complaintant being a person who habitually lies in the presence of his captors anyway. Most of the complaints are either unfounded, or so flimsy they seem more like a playground spat than a serious accusation.
(but Guantánamo has cost America considerable moral standing in the war on terror and sowed seeds of doubt about its justice system. )
NONSENSE. Given the choice of hanging the terrorist n TV or sending them to Gitmo I think we made the rght moral choice.
This is a Terrorist War. It has nothing to do with our Justice system. It has to do with our survival and continuation as a Nation and a people....
Every time we allow the media and certain political hacks to turn these terrorist into criminals and not the terrorist soldiers that they are we lose a little more of that war.....
president bush could have done a better job
of defending himself and his administration
from the bizarre, hateful attacks of the media soros-left.
now, when i visit female friends of mine and their tv is on,
they literally foam at the mouth when they see guantanamo, president bush, cheney, rice, ...
the pavlovian tv has them well trained.
Gitmo was just a particular tool. The only story is RATs going after Bush, and Bush not defending himself. SSDD. By the way, if we were made to looked bad in the eyes of the world, it was only because the RATs were willing drag the entire country through the mud in order to get Bush, get Bush, get Bush.
You’re giving McCain too much credit when you suggest that he may be voicing a “visceral” reaction.
He knows perfectly well that Gitmo isn’t the Hanoi Hilton. He’s simply calculated that promising to close it will help him get votes from independents, many of whom DO have a visceral reaction to it (or at least a media-driven reaction).
There are two types of prisoner at Gitmo. The young, unimportant, vaguely connected small fry; and the senior al-Qaeda types who have been drained of any useful intelligence.
This odd blend is because from the onset, Gitmo was a Potemkin village. A fake. A movie set to attract leftist politicians, lawyers and other troublemakers, like moths to a flame.
The real prisoners are kept elsewhere, in other countries, out of reach of these troublemakers in secret prisons.
Gitmo was set up so that fools would either “win” by getting the bunch of unimportant losers released, big deal, or they would “lose” by having the senior al-Qaeda convicted and sent to US federal prisons.
In either case, it wouldn’t matter.
I disagree. As a matter of fact, I am against incarcerating the 300K foreigners we have in our prisons throughout America now. I don't see why American taxpayers should have to pay conservatively SEVEN AND A HALF BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR to incarcerate other countries’ criminals. It's not like we are long on prison cell space and short on American criminals. After securing BOTH borders, we should deport ALL illegal aliens and imprisoned foreign criminals. By doing so, we not only save American taxpayers BILLIONS, we open up prison cells for AMERICAN criminals who are roaming about the country. And we can start by incarcerating, after castration, the American sexual predators .
but Guantánamo has cost America considerable moral standing in the war...
+++++++++++++
So if we move to Wichita all will be okay with these morally superior people?????? Give me a break. As long as the U.S. has any prisoners anywhere there will be screaming of torture and intimidation by the anarchists and blame the U.S. first crowd. For that reason we should NOT close Guantanamo and let them scream until their heads explode.
Two Words are the solution:
Firing Squad.
For the most part I agree. Foreign criminals who are small fry should be sent home. Unfortunately, by international treaty, we agree to incarcerate their bad citizens who break our laws, if they agree to incarcerate ours who break their laws.
But the big fish we have in Gitmo are special. If convicted, most of them will probably go to the maximum security penitentiary at Florence, Colorado. That is not a nice place to be. Here is the 60 Minutes report on it, but it doesn’t really do it justice.
The Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADX_Florence
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