49% Oppose Closing Guantanamo Prison Camp (38% Favor)

Forty-nine percent (49%) of voters nationwide now disagree with President Barack Obama’s decision to close the prison camp for suspected terrorists at the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey, conducted after the President’s speech on Guantanamo last week, shows that 38% agree with his decision.

Just 25% share the President’s view that the Guantanamo camp weakened national security. Fifty-one percent (51%) disagree with that perspective.

And, by a 57% to 28% margin, voters oppose moving any of the suspected terrorists to prisons in the United States. Republicans and voters not affiliated with either major party strongly oppose transfers to U.S. prisons. Democrats are evenly divided.

Just 15% now say the President is Very Likely to close the prison camp during his first year in office while 6% say that is Not at All Likely to happen. Two-thirds of the nation’s voters are not so sure—35% say the President is Somewhat Likely to close the prison camp while 30% say he is Not Very Likely to do so.

Those figures reflect a sharp drop in expectations about closing the facility. Last November, 49% said that then President-elect Obama was Very Likely to close it during his first year in office. Another 21% said he was somewhat likely to do so and only 12% thought that outcome was unlikely to occur.

The support for keeping Guantanamo’s prison camp open declined from 59% last summer to 49% last November to 42% in January. In fact, shortly after the President announced his intention to close the camp, a narrow plurality agreed with him.

Thoughts on Gitmo:

(In prison)
When we bring these folks over to the US, they will have a captured audience willing to listen to their radical ideas. Prisons are the breeding grounds for many gangs and abroad for Islamic radical groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. By bringing this vermin into the country we risk contaminating the prison population we have.

The flip side is that they are also high profile and high risk of being killed themselves while in prison. Like a pedophile, they will be a target for other prisoners, but high profile foreign nationals, their death unlike the common pedophile will cause a media or even foreign outcry. In the end, special security measures will have to be taken both to prevent contamination of the normal prison population by these radicals, but also to prevent them from being murdered while in prison.

(On trail)
How do you have a trail when half the evidence is in some way classified because of the sources or collection methods? What chain of custody existed for evidence when a soldier picks up a Taliban on the battlefield? What legal standards will apply in a civilian court, because I assure you one thing, most of these guys weren’t mirandized!

Will this be open to the public and/or media? Will we actually give terrorists the microphone so they can scream obscenities, advertising their cause while on trail? Seem farfetched? Read up on Zacarias Moussaoui. And while all this is happening, Marshals transporting them, our courts tied up with their case, our federal prisons incarcerating them......... one should ask, “who’s paying for all this?”

The closing of Gitmo is the result of a good sound bite on an election campaign. For Obama this was low hanging fruit, something that he can by Presidential order force. It is politically a low risk and high profile move that shows immediate results. Will it really bankrupt us? No. Will these terrorists even if let go likely do harm to people in the US? No. Even when things get messy in the courts etc. will Obama get the egg in the face? No. For Obama this was a low risk high payoff move that is a win-win scenario. However, like a lot of things that “sound good” at face value, it really makes no sense when closely analyzed. The entire debate over Gitmo is based on a mood and feeling, and has little fact or substance. Gitmo can be as good or bad as any other place. God or mother earth for the secularist does not share some negative opinion for this piece of real-estate. Those saying Gitmo should close, usually base their argument on heresy, ideas repeated in the media that have no merit except that they have become commonly accepted because of the repetition. No different than old wives tales, our society today tends to accept many ideas because everyone else accepts them, group think. However, the most basic premise of all these arguments is completely and entirely flawed. These terrorists are not Americans, they were not captured in the US, and they didn’t commit their crimes in the US, where does the US Constitution fit into this equation? Does US law apply to every criminal in India? That would be the case if we applied the reasoning our President publically gives for his decision on Gitmo. Of course he knows better, but as mentioned, this is a political move and publicity stunt that scored him quick easy political capital. The other angle we keep hearing is that we need to apply the Geneva Convention. The Geneva Convention they make reference to applies to legal combatants, i.e. soldiers that wear uniforms, fight under the flag of a nation, and have a chain of command……. Those making this argument seldom realize that a US airman picked up in Germany during the war out of uniform trying to sneak out would be hung, and those doing the hanging didn’t do anything wrong. It does not matter if we’re talking about WWI, WWII, Korea, etc. Someone on the battlefield in no uniform, fighting under no flag of a nation, has ALWAYS and is even today someone that does not meet the definition of what the Geneva Convention pertains to when discussing combatants. So what rights do these people at Gitmo have? The minimal international legal protections we have signed onto under international agreements that all people have. They are not protected by a US Constitution nor a Geneva Convention, applying those standards unnecessarily restricts us, costs us money, and exposes us to additional risk for nothing other than political maneuvering. The people at Gitmo do have a right to a trail, but that does NOT need to be in the US and a military tribunal is completely appropriate. They are NOT POW, and they do not get the rights and privileges of such. POWs are no criminals, and those dreaming up some Geneva rights argument don’t realize this would afford them more rights than any criminal in a US prison (packages, communications, etc). Those arguing that terrorists should have POW status don’t know what they are saying: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm (read what it means to be a POW)

Our nation is going down a path with Gitmo based on good sounding sound bites, a mass consensus founded on neither reason nor law although it pretends to do such. In the end, this was a purely popularist move that makes absolutely no sense.

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