DOD scouts Pendleton as site for Gitmo prisoners

stars and Stripes ^ | January 28, 2009 | n/a

[Jet Jaguar]

Pentagon officials looking at possible relocation sites for Guantanamo detainees toured California’s Camp Pendleton brig on Dec. 11, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported Tuesday.

Republican congressman Duncan Hunter told the paper that Marine commanders told him about the Dec. 11 inspection. The freshman congressman, who served combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan before leaving the Marine Corps in December 2007, has introduced a bill to bar the transfer of terrorism suspects from Guantanamo to San Diego County.

"To find out about the visit [to Camp Pendleton] from the Marine Corps and not the Department of Defense tells me they are being secretive," Hunter, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, was quoted as saying.

Hunter opposes moving detainees to San Diego County on the grounds that it would make the region a bigger target for terrorists crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, the paper noted.

The U.S. government is looking at potential relocation spots because Obama has signed an executive order to close the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within a year. He also set up a review board, led by the Pentagon and Justice Department, to scrutinize each detainee’s case, the Union-Tribune wrote.

Sites under consideration reportedly include Camp Pendleton and Miramar, as well as Fort Leavenworth in Kansas; the U.S. Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, S.C.; the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City; and the U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colo.

[txnativegop]

I say move them all from Gitmo and let the Marines use them for bayonet practice.

[allmost]

Issuing executive orders with no plan on how to carry them out.

[tcrlaf]

I have a MUCH better solution for these gitmo losers...

Put them i GENPOP at some place like Marion, Michigan City, or Chico, and let thm learn what REAL TORTURE is all about.

Not the loud music kind, but the real prisoner-on-prisoner type. In about 2 nights, they would be, literally, screaming thier heads off.

[txnativegop]

Okay, I’m convinced, send them there for a couple of months and then use them for bayonet practice.

[St. Louis Conservative]

I’m sure the California delegation will have something to say about this. I used to live in Escondido and I can’t believe the folks down there would be at all happy about this.

[CyberAnt]

I am so upset over this.

2 of the original 9/11 terrorists came from San Diego - which means to me that some of their supporters are still living here.

If they put any terrorists near San Deigo .. we are going to become the next target. Why ..?? Because the terrorists’ friends will send off a few bombs here and there to get our military to release the terrorists. In the meantime, a lot of innocent people will die .. just to appease the kook left .. and the real killers will still be alive.

In the meantime, San Diego becomes a war zone .. geeeeee .. that’s what I always wanted ..!! I don’t need a tag do I?

[Jet Jaguar]

Yep, remember the jihadis in prison in Yemen a couple of years ago?
Their buddies blew up the prison and aided in their escape.

[CurlyDave]

The Nellis Range is a 4,700 square-mile restricted zone in southern Nevada, and one of the largest and busiest military ranges in the country. Much of the land in the range is used for combat training by the Air Force, which conducts large-scale war games over the range, and within the 12,000 square-mile restricted air space above and around it. Associated with this combat training are fixed and mobile threat-simulators, simulated enemy air fields, mock industrial facilities, radar stations, and telemetry facilities. Target objects, such as tanks and aircraft, are set up for inert and live bombing practice, and portions of the range are wired for electronic warfare training. Also within the range are several large-scale complexes with distinct functions and histories, including the base at Groom Lake (AKA Area 51), a "secret" Air Force base which is known as the development, test, and evaluation site for numerous advanced aircraft and weapons systems. At the north end of the range is the Tonopah Test Range, managed by Sandia National Labs, and used as a base for weapons testing and development, including, recently, earth-penetrating bombs. On the west side of Nellis is Indian Springs Auxiliary Field, an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) test base for the Department of Defense.

Somewhere out in Nellis is a very good location for these prisoners. I don't know where, but the military sure does. They only need to carve out one of the 4700 square miles for our guests, and look at all that existing restricted air space.

Best of all, it is so remote that any rescue operation would stand out. And the locals have no love lost for the muslims. If one of the camel-jammers escapes they would love to hunt him down.

[Jet Jaguar]

If all else fails, that could work.
Also, the Fort Wainwright Range in Alaska might be a thought. Inaccessible except by helo, and death by frostbite a common occurrence.

[Redcloak]

I’m OK with this so long as the camp is collocated with the rifle range. (”Stop stickin’ your fingers through the fence, Mahmoud! You’re messing up lane 5’s sight picture!”)

[ThomasThomas]

What kind of person would put anybody near a live artillery range.

[SoldierDad]

Um, Chico? Where is this located?

[CyberAnt]

And .. Marines or no Marines .. that is exactly what I expect the terrorists’ friends to do here.

This is such a huge military complex - it makes it a very ripe target.

How are they going to monitor visitors to these “terrorists” ..?? They aren’t .. and that’s all it will take .. one wrong visitor and all hell will break loose .. and isn’t the nuke plant fairly close to Pendleton ..?? I’m not sure because I rarely drive up that way.

But .. this whole thing about moving the terrorists to America IS THE MOST STUPID, IGNORANT, ILL-INFORMED, DANGEROUS, FOOLISH, ETC. ETC. ETC., BRAIN-DEAD IDEA.

[pallis]

Send the detainees to Chicago. They’ll fit right in.

[ThomasThomas]

San Onofre is on the coast in the middle of where camp pendleton is located. A state camp ground is on the beach around the power plant.

[BookmanTheJanitor]

Yeah...put them right near a nuclear power plant...that sounds smart.

[Thunder90]

How about San Quentin State Prison. California could use the extra revenue, and the prison gangs would “Take care of business” with these folk.

[Inclines to the Right]

Really though, isn’t that where they came from all along?

I would add that wherever these obama supporters go, we should hire Sheriff Arpaio to oversee them. Pink underwear is a good start.

[CyberAnt]

Oh great .. it’s even closer than I remembered.

Now .. it’s really a stupid idea.