Free Republic

Thirty-two times since 2001 and four times this year alone, senior Al Qaida leadership in recruiting videos have used the prison at Guantanamo Bay as a clarion call to bring extremists from around the world to join their effort. Is Gibbs aware of what else al Qaeda criticizes? Abu Musab al-Zarqawi: We have declared a bitter war against democracy and all those who seek to enact it. Should we get rid of this "recruiting tool" too? What about the World Trade Center, which al Qaeda so hated? Are Gibbs and Obama relieved that this longstanding irritant to the enemy is...

Americans remain opposed to closing the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba and moving some of the terrorist suspects being held there to U.S. prisons: 30% favor such actions, while 64% do not. These attitudes could present a significant roadblock for President Obama at a time when he seeks congressional approval to move terrorist suspects from Guantanamo to a converted state prison in northwestern Illinois. President Obama signed an executive order after his inauguration that called for the closing of Guantanamo, and he recently reiterated his commitment to doing this in his West Point speech on Afghanistan. The plans announced this...

Appreciate Rep.Mark Kirk's(Illinois)comments re:Pres Obama not CLOSING Gitmo, merely moving it outside of Chicago!Very,very odd strategy,DC.

Sen Dick Durban (D-IL), a defender of the plan to bring terrorists into the heart of America, proved that he is more interested in pork than in the safety of his constituents: “We believe this is in service to our country,” said Durbin who noted that Obama was directing the prisoners to his home state. “This is a great opportunity. Our state unemployment numbers are 11%…People are desperate for good jobs.” In the smackdown heard ’round the world, Liz Cheney responded: “Americans did not elect President Obama to usher terrorists onto the homeland and call it a jobs program.” Indeed...

Snarky PhotoChop scenes: George Soros threatens Obama; Illinoismo is announced; Obama curses Glenn Beck

WASHINGTON — Sen. Lindsey Graham on Tuesday praised President Barack Obama for heeding his advice to bypass the naval brig in Charleston, S.C., and transfer terror suspects instead to an Illinois prison from the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said he spoke with Obama recently and reiterated his strong opposition to moving the Guantanamo detainees to the medium-security brig at the Naval Weapons Station in Charleston. "I spoke to the president about Charleston a couple weeks ago," Graham told McClatchy. "He listened intently as I said I thought Charleston is not an appropriate...

Note: The following text is a quote: Some Guantanamo Detainees to Move to Illinois Prison By Gerry J. Gilmore American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, Dec. 15, 2009 – President Barack Obama’s administration plans to transfer a limited number of detainees held at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to a prison in rural western Illinois, senior administration officials said here today. The federal government plans to acquire Thomson Correctional Center, a 10-year-old maximum security prison in Thomson, Ill., a farming community about 150 miles west of Chicago, officials said in a background briefing. The administration would need to work...

Critics warned Tuesday that a White House plan to move as many as 100 terrorism suspects from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to a prison in Illinois could create a new security risk in the American heartland, but the Obama administration dismissed the concerns as "scare tactics and hyperbole." The announcement that the federal government would purchase the underused prison complex in Thomson, Ill., opened a new chapter in the debate over the future of scores of detainees who have been confined in legal limbo. Administration officials said the purchase of the prison, which was built in 2001 for $145...

If Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is clever he will turn his trial into an Obama birth certificate circus. The New York Post has an excellent piece by attorney Michael Schwartz, pointing out the difficulty of predicting a jury's verdict in the pending Khalid Shaikh Mohammed trial in New York City. His article is entitled "Why the gov't could lose this case." But there is a complex, two-part possibility that Attorney Schwartz did not consider. KSM has said he wants to put the US government on trial and will probably bring up the Bush administration and mention waterboarding as torture in the...

The announcement that federal detainees in Guantanamo Bay will be moved to a facility in Thomson, Ill. rather than another facility such as the Standish Maximum Correctional Facility has generated a lot of discussion

A painted marker in a recreation yard points the direction to Mecca at Camp Delta where detainees are held at the United States Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, January 18, 2006. REUTERS/Joe Skipper This is nothing more than a bait-and-switch in order to keep a campaign promise...Guantanamo isn't shutting down; just transferring locations: Dozens of terrorism suspects being held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will be moved to a little-used Illinois state prison that will be acquired and upgraded by the federal government, an Obama administration official said. The critical step toward fulfilling President Obama's...

Now for those in northern Illinois, welcome to the area becoming stigmatized for a very, very long time.

The Obama administration has decided prisoners at the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison will be transferred to a jail in rural Illinois. The US Government will buy the Thomson Correctional Centre from the Illinois government and the Department of Defence will lease part of the prison to house detainees from the prison in Cuba.

With the expected announcement of the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the Thomson Correctional Center in Illinois, a Republican-driven hysteria is virtually guaranteed. That’s as empty as it is uninteresting. What’s interesting is whether the Republicans’ 2008 presidential nominee and national security elder statesman, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), joins in the action. McCain, recall, has long advocated shuttering the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Back on the 2008 campaign trail, he said bluntly, “I believe we should close Guantanamo,” as the United States’ “great power does not mean that we can do whatever we want, whenever we want.” Spoken like a...

The Obama administration’s plan to move terrorist detainees from the security of Guantanamo Bay to a little-used state prison in Illinois is being hailed by supportive Democrats as a boon for local economic development. Even if the development were truly a boon — and it’s more a boondoggle — that would not come close to justifying it. National security is not a shovel-ready jobs program. It is the first duty of government, and it would be senselessly imperiled by transferring trained jihadists into the United States. Like much unpopular or embarrassing news, the transfer plan leaked late on a Friday....

Top Five Reasons Gitmo Should Not Move to Illinois: 5) The U.S. has already spent a fortune retrofitting the facility at Guantanamo to make it Muslim Friendly!4)We don't yet know the price paid for that wasting prison in Illinois, but I'm sure we got a racehorse deal (wink, wink)! 3)Now, we get to spend another fortune to retrofit the Illinois facility to be Muslim Friendly. 2) We had the Navy running Gitmo and working the facility. Now, we get to hire hundreds (thousands?) of new prison personnel in Illinois - all union, federal employees with their high pay, benefits, retirement,...

The Obama administration will officially announce on Tuesday that some Guantanamo prison terrorists will be shipped to the Thomson, Illinois correctional center, according to ABC News. Despite polls showing 51% of Illinois residents oppose the move, the state's Democrats are elated.

Justice: A leaked memo exposes the hypocrisy of those who opposed indefinite detention of terrorists without trial at Guantanamo. For the right price, they're willing to hold detainees without trial indefinitely in America's heartland. The plan to ship as many as 100 unidentified terrorist detainees from Guantanamo Bay to a little used prison in Thomson, Ill., a sleepy town of 450 people near the Mississippi River about 150 miles west of Chicago, is well under way, according to a Justice Department memo unearthed by Andrew Breitbart and biggovernment.com. The memo allegedly from Eric Holder's Department of Justice to Defense Secretary...

The United States has asked NATO member Bulgaria to house detainees from its prison camp at Guantanamo in Cuba, Bulgaria's Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said on Saturday.

The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday that it rejected an appeal by four former Guantanamo Bay prisoners arguing that they should be able to proceed with their lawsuit against top Pentagon officials for torture and religious abuse. The justices refused to review a U.S. appeals court ruling that dismissed the lawsuit by the four British citizens over their treatment at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba on the grounds the officials enjoyed immunity. The four men -- Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Jamal al-Harith -- were captured in late 2001 in Afghanistan and were...