Gitmo and NIMBY
One piece of soggy toilet paper the right is now throwing up against the wall is the idea that it’s unsafe to imprison suspected terrorists in prisons located on the North American continent rather than in a facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This is pretty absurd on its face—if there’s one thing our government does a lot of it’s build prisons and hold people there—but it’s worth observing the element of bad faith here as well. The Gitmo location was, recall, never initially motivated by considerations related to the physical security of the space.
Rather, the appeal of the location was its ambiguous legal status. Guantanamo Bay is in Cuba, not the United States of America. But since the Cuban Revolution of 1958, we’ve had no Status of Forces Agreement with Cuba authorizing the presence of an American military base. Consequently, argued the Bush administration, neither Cuban nor American law applied there. This was somewhat daft if you ask me, albeit clever, but whatever you think of the merits of the argument that is why the prisoners were sent there. The Bush team never felt it was unsafe to send prisoners to Fort Leavenworth or to the supermax prison in Colorado, they just didn’t want to be in a position where they had to follow the law.
34 Responses to “Gitmo and NIMBY”
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January 23rd, 2009 at 4:23 pm
“they just didn’t want to be in a position where they had to follow the law.”
hell, for that, they could have just housed them at the White House.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:26 pm
The only chance Republicans have of regaining power in the next decade is by calling Obama Soft on Terror and hoping we get hit.
All of this whining is meant to set that up.
I’m not accusing them of plotting terror attacks, mind you; just of preparing to take advantage of them for political benefits.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:30 pm
DTM, and then we can say, what about the “61″ people that “returned to the battlefield”? Those 61 people were released by the Bush Administration.
Now, I realize the “liberal” media probably won’t bring this up. So it’ll be more or less another example of resetting the clock by these guys (Bush kept the country safe, except for 9/11 and anthrax, of course). But still, it can and must be said. It’s not wrong to call these jokers out on their BS.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Those 61 people were released by the Bush Administration.
Yes—but the Bush Administration, you see, was forced to release them by some numinous mysto-liberal process that also “forced” Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make loans to unqualified poor people.
FYI, you can’t win against this crap with logic.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:36 pm
You know, I almost think it’s possible that the people throwing the soggy toilet paper don’t actually believe there’s any real danger here, but are cynically exploiting the fears of none-too-bright Americans.
Can you imagine the right actually being audacious enough to do something like that?
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:37 pm
No, the unsafe part occurs three steps down the road. If we imprison them in the US, we have to follow the law, and that means no indefinite detention. So we’d have to release the terrorists from prison.
Of course, those that make this argument never venture three steps further down the road: that we’ve only been detaining them indefinitely because we don’t have evidence to bring them to trial, so it might be a little premature to call them “terrorists.”
Pat Buchanan seemed to advance this argument in good faith the other day, that Obama would let dangerous men go free. Not one person seated near him had the thought to ask Pat how he knew they were dangerous.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:37 pm
One more example of the Rumsfeld doctrine of going with the false meme you have, rather than the worn out one you had, or something.
Take them to the Colorado Federal Supermax in Florence. Shoeless Richard Reid, Ted Kaczynski, and the rest of the gang on “bombers row” could use the company.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Where’s Richard Reid?
* He is serving his sentences in the ADX Florence, a Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.
Where was he tried?
* …he was found guilty on terrorism charges at a federal court in Boston, Massachusetts.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:39 pm
This is something Matt ought to hit every time: flagship Republican objections are not good-faith ideology-driven or pragmatism-driven objections, rather they’re either bad-faith, improvised objections for the sake of objection, or (even worse) they’re objections based upon principles that Republicans intentionally keep under wraps because they’re repellent to most Americans.
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:12 pm
“Shoeless Richard Reid, Ted Kaczynski,”
I wonder what Kaczynski thinks of Reid? He must think Reid is an idiot. Ted’s a sadistic asshole, but he did know how to build a bomb. Reid surely can’t say that. It’s too bad that law enforcement methods can’t catch and detain terrorists like those guys. Oh wait…
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:40 pm
They skip another step (or two or three): Even if these people are found innocent or released from custody in the US (because we have no evidence or we tortured them), they are not U.S. citizens – they aren’t going to get buss fare and a parole officer; they’ll be deported to god-knows-where. And there, they will be closely watched (I can’t imagine otherwise). And if they really are a threat, well, nobody gets too worked up about predator drone strikes. Just because Obama has pledged to end torture and unlawful detentions does not mean that he won’t use actual intelligence to kill terrorists in the field. Real politik.
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:43 pm
If they’re in the Supermax at Florence, it’s likely they’ve never seen each other.
At the Supermax, you are locked down 23 hours a day. You get one hour of exercise, and maybe ten minutes or so to shower (if the guards feel like it). It’s basically like being in “The Hole” everywhere else. So unless you happen to have a shower time at the same time as someone else, or they allow some of these guys to socialize in the rec cage, they don’t see anybody except guards and maybe orderlies.
When I was in “The Hole” at Leavenworth, the cell next to me was occupied by some black dude. Previous to his occupying it, it was occupied by one of the original WTC bombers, who continued to write notes to this black guy. I can’t remember if he actually ever showed me a note, but I do remember him telling me the notes were pretty funny, being mostly rants about the US, the Jews, the Palestinian situation, etc.
As for “releasing bad guys”, the odds are good that ninety percent of these guys are either innocent or were never “ops” guys at all, just supporters or low level types. Also, they won’t be “released”, as in dumped on the street, they will be deported back to wherever they came from and the government there will likely slam them right back in the joint.
And most of those 61 people released who “returned to the battlefield” – well, it ain’t so. The actual number is something like 18, and the rest are people who wrote critical articles of the Bush administration and their treatment at Guantanamo, which is a bit of a stretch in calling that “returning to the battlefield.”
Besides which, I can assure you that after having gone through Guantanamo, it’s amazing that EVERYBODY didn’t return to the battlefield. You tend to get pissed when you’re treated the way one is in a prison.
So as usual, this is all right wing horseshit.
January 23rd, 2009 at 6:28 pm
The detainees at Gitmo — even the genuinely bad ones like KSM — don’t have supernatural powers. Take away their cell phones, safe houses and international wire transfers, and they’re probably significantly less dangerous than the typical drug gang member.
January 23rd, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Cripes, I’m already sick of this pearl-clutching about their super powers. Like they’d survive a week in the general population of any major US prison; like they’d be put in the general population anywhere to begin with.
Split them up so they can’t organize their hunger strikes, etc. Mind them like any other high-risk prisoner. Conduct the trials and disposition them accordingly. Why is that so stinking hard?!?
January 23rd, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Yes—but the Bush Administration, you see, was forced to release them by some numinous mysto-liberal process
Actually, it’s only been in the last few weeks that these guys have had any sort of real legal recourse, so virtually anyone released up to now has been released on consent of the Bush administration. If they are “returning to the battlefield” (highly dubious), then that is on Bush and bad intel – after all, they are holding on to dozens who are entirely innocent of anything other than wrong place wrong time – so think how innocent the guys who actually got out are…
~
If we imprison them in the US, we have to follow the law, and that means no indefinite detention.
Dude, Bernie Ebbers got like 50 years, and he was a rich white guy – and all he did was steal some money. Anybody convicted of anything ain’t seeing the light of day again.
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:01 pm
This is a precarious political situation, but Obama can totally diffuse it with the list (Greenwald has it today) of terrorist currently incarcerated on US soil, not out raping and pillaging, or the target of suicide bombers. Or point out those weak-kneed European countries that are actaully requesting them.
Or, better yet, send them all to Kansas, or similar GOP stongholds. In fact, we should build a terrorist prison in Wasila…
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:22 pm
Don’t forget Manuel Noriega, imprisoned in Florida for decades. But that’s Your Father’s Republican Super-Villian, I suppose.
January 24th, 2009 at 12:11 am
MattY makes a crucial point. And, really, if terrorists on the outside could help perform some jailbreak from a Supermax Prison or from Ft. Leavenworth, they could also commit a horrifying and staggering act of terrorism, and my bet is, given that capacity, they’d skip busting anybody out. In fact, staging a prison break at the kind of maximum-security prison we’ll use to replace Gitmo is probably one of the least efficient and most difficult things terrorists could try to do.
And if people are concerned that lone Gitmo terrorists could stage an escape unaided, well, why haven’t more people stuck in Supermax escaped, acting alone or in small groups? Because that’s simply too difficult now, and even if the people imprisoned are brown imports from Afghanistan, it doesn’t make a breakout more likely.
Logic doesn’t support this notion; fear and anger do. Understandable, but unfounded. We’re supposed to conquer that sort of thing, not legislate from it. We should ask ourselves how far out we’ve gone when we’re claiming a right to hold people indefinitely on no charges AND we don’t even have the resolve to hold them on our soil. Really … there are people who want us to imprison people indefinitely without charges, on the say-so of our military, and hold them at international sites where arguably no real law applies?
Not good.
January 24th, 2009 at 12:49 am
I think there should be two locations built for the “real” GITMO terrorists… one next door to where GW Bush will live and the other one next door to the home of Dick Cheney!
January 24th, 2009 at 1:22 am
“Anybody convicted of anything ain’t seeing the light of day again.”
That’s not really true. But many of them won’t see the light of day for long. The only terrorist I ever met was a crazy Montana redneck. I met him in county jail, and his jail nickname was “The Barber.” Why’d we call him that? Well, he was in jail for scalping someone. And I mean literally. While the guy was alive, and the poor guy lived through it. It amazing what crystal meth will make people do. The Barber had only been out of jail for two weeks before that incident. Prior to that, he had done ten years at Leavenworth for stealing dynamite from a mining company and selling it to the American Indian Movement. He was convicted without the dynamite ever being found. And AIM sure as hell ain’t talking. But even he can get let out. But he doesn’t function very well in society. In his adult life, he hasn’t ever lasted more than a month before going back to jail. Yet he still gets let out. I don’t think any Muslim terrorist would get treated so well. But you never know.
January 24th, 2009 at 1:37 am
Dude, Bernie Ebbers got like 50 years, and he was a rich white guy – and all he did was steal some money. Anybody convicted of anything ain’t seeing the light of day again.
The operative word being “convicted.”
January 24th, 2009 at 4:23 am
Actually, even if a Muslim terrorist did get let out on US soil – which is a zero chance possibility – unless they knew how to get in contact with a local cell, they’d be very unlikely to be in a position to do much of anything more than any local criminal could do – while at the same time sticking out like a sore thumb in any social environment. Most of these guys probably don’t even speak English worth a damn.
And if they contacted or were contacted by a local cell – well, thanks for leading the FBI right to it. You know there’s no way they’re gonna let these guys wander around on their own without being under surveillance.
The only “escape” plan I ever heard of in the Federal joint was at Florence FCI. Apparently some idiots managed somehow to get hold a guard uniform and stashed it in the chaplain’s office. Their plan was to put it on and walk right out.
Yeah, right. That would have worked…NOT.
The whole issue is bulldooky.
January 24th, 2009 at 9:01 am
Matt is being too soft on Hannity & Limbaugh. They’re not making even a half-sane argument like “the terrorists have superpowers that would allow them to escape from US prisons.” Instead, they forget to mention the prisons and and just say “Obama wants to bring the terrorists to the US.”
January 24th, 2009 at 11:39 am
I go with daft, not clever. Saying that Guantanamo Bay is outside American jurisdiction is like saying that John McCain is ineligible be President because he was born in the Canal Zone.
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