Posted on 05/16/2009 10:16:49 AM PDT by freespirited
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said that he is working with the Obama administration on crafting an indefinite detention policy for enemy combatants being held in Guantanamo Bay, saying that he thinks they should be held in military prisons in the United States.
Military prisons are the proper place for captured terrorists to be held, said Graham. He made his comments on Capitol Hill last week after a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Bush administration legal memos that authorized enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, against some captured terrorists.
Concerning what to do with the detainees, Graham said it is “a dilemma” for the Obama administration “and I’m working with them and they’re looking at different options. How do you hold someone [indefinitely]? We’re working through that.”
Graham has said that he views the enemy combatants as a military threat. When asked by CNSNews.com whether that means they should be held in the United States in military prisons, Graham said: “I’m okay with that, quite frankly. I’m not volunteering South Carolina. But the point is I think the military prison is the right place because it can be defended by the military and they’re very good at this.”
He continued: “You’re talking about people who’ve been part of a terrorist organization who present a military [and] national security threat, and I think that that would be the proper way to do this.”
Graham said that ultimately the Obama administration had to find a way to balance a very real national security threat with the American tradition of justice, saying that even “unrepentant terrorists” deserved their day in court.
“At the end of the day it would be a huge mistake for us to adopt a legal process that would require some of these people to be let go when we know, based on competent evidence, that they’re unrepentant terrorists,” said Graham.
“It would also be a big mistake for this country to hold somebody for 20 years and never let them have their day in court,” he said. “You gotta’ do both. You’ve got to have a system that holds people that are dangerous, but everybody needs to have their day in court so it’s not an arbitrary exercise of executive power.”
Graham, a former military lawyer, cited the case of the Uighurs, Chinese Muslims captured in Afghanistan and being held at Guantanamo, as an example of how hard it is to deal with captured terrorists, even terrorists who, like the Uighurs, do not want to attack the United States.
“The Uighurs present a real dilemma, don’t they,” Graham said, “because they’re no longer enemy combatants but they also don’t have legal status here.”
Originally, the Obama administration had sought to release the Uighurs into northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., but then decided against that idea. Graham explained that the Uighurs remained Islamic extremists that could not be released into American society.
“The problem with northern Virginia is that these are still pretty radical people. They’re focus is against China, not us, but they went through a terrorist training camp and they have a very extreme view of religion,” said Graham.
“Allegedly, one of these people saw a woman without sleeves on TV and broke the TV -- I don’t want them walking around northern Virginia,” said the senator.
Graham said he would continue to work with the Obama administration on finding a solution to the problem of terror detainees.
“It’s hard. All I can tell you is that the president is taking this enormously seriously and trying to balance repairing our image against future threats,” said Graham. “I’m trying to find that middle ground. As we go forward, we really do have some hard decisions to make. When you add it all up, there’s a better way.”
Now Graham is on the "repairing our image" bandwagon. I think he (and everyone else who spouts this mantra) should specify what risks accompany the steps he is willing to take to effect this "repair."
May I propose Yucca Mountain....
Graham is an idiot.
Crap, I thought my senators were bad.
Seemingly more and more so every day. His family should encourage him to get medical evaluation.
Try living in Massachusetts.
I think they should set up a ‘tent city’ on the White House lawn for these terrorists. At least we will know where they are located.
Graham is a slick politico who easily won the GOP primary last year because no serious candidate was put up to oppose him.
In fact, I suspect the reason that SC GOP Chairman Buddy Witherspoon was the man opposing Graham was because it was planned that way to allow Graham to win the primary.
The insders manipulate to keep the real conservatives from throwing out these RINO’s.
Here in PA they kept throwing up little names to oppose Specter in the face of Toomey’s challenge.
I saw it for what it was, ploys by the party establishment to split votes and or create a candidate who would lose to Specter in the primary.
The folks in SC got that treatment last year in the primary.
A weak candidate was deliberately put forward to allow Graham to win.
You got me there. Problem is their votes affect me just as much as you.
The only thing I have over you is that I don’t look at 55% of my neighbors and think, “how could you be so stupid?”
Actually South Carolina has a military facility that has been used in the war on terror. We held Padilla in a Naval facility in Charleston the whole time before he was tried. And two Middle Eastern students were arrested with explosives and held there as well.
Yes they will be among dear friends, that should even make that Cow Michelle happy.
Well really folks—just who is the larger threat to our security? Chinese with terrorist training being held in Gitmo or—
the mentally ill like Sen Grahamnesty having their pudgy hands on the wheels of our Government? I am tired of these Obamanistas terrorizing the populace with guilt tinged fanaticism. We need help, America calls.
Gitmop should remain open but in the event it closes. Any Gitmo prisoners transferred to the US should end up in a blue state where both senators supported closing Gitmo and in a congressional district where the rep screamed about closing Gitmo.
Murtha will take them....
But he says he’s not volunteering South Carolina.
I think we should dump these terrorists in places where they won’t be discriminated against due to their brown skin/minority religion/hatred of the US.
Places like San Francisco, New York, Boston, Chapel Hill, Berkley, etc.
Trust me, you don’t want to put them in my red neck, backwoods, ignorant, uncouth neighborhood.
Gov. Sanford should by-pass Graham and offer to rent Obama some space. You can hang on to the stimulus, we’’ll earn our cut.
I was thinking Mount Kilauea.
The turd has been in the news way too much lately. Jerk.
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