Gitmo

I recall that candidate Obama insisted that closing Gitmo was essential to restoring America to being held in high esteem in Europe/

Hmmm, maybe not.  

I am delighted to hear that I am not the only person in this country who thinks that the €430,000 per year which will be spent on protecting the Guantanamo Bay suspects in Ireland is an absolute disgrace, as per Neil McGonigle (Letters, July 31).

Once again, it is an indication of a Government worried about its international reputation instead of unemployment levels and the fact that it is going broke

Note to President Obama and the Left. Sure Europe likes to complain about U.S. foreign policy. But what in Wicca's name made you think they wanted to do anything about the problem here themselves?

Hey, it's not like the Irish don't have their own problems to deal with these days

Question to the foreign policy brain trust. Name me one country where we were able to relocate Gitmo detainees where the local government wasn;t excoriated by its own populace for signing on?

Maybe we should blame Bush for the fact that the rest of the world sorta covertly likes a unilateral America that mops up the world's messes by itself, while allowing everyone else to complain about the janitor. Bottom line to the "reality based community". No one else wants to pick up a mop. 

by  Lance Thompson  

I’ve been having trouble coming up with a column lately, and certainly not because there are fewer official decisions to object to.  Rather, I find it difficult to express my objections to current administration policy with the existing vocabulary, without veering into invective.  Therefore, I decided to make up a few of my own terms to deal with the issues before us.

For example, how does one describe an administration that seems completely divorced from the reality of the nuclear threats from Iran, North Korea, Communist China and whoever ends up running Pakistan?  But one must also address the relentless apology tours of the President as he asks forgiveness for our military’s fight against oppression, our nation’s imprisoning of terrorists, and our moral leadership on the world stage?

What is the term for a president who is both asleep at the wheel and endlessly seeking forgiveness?  NAPOLOGIST.

What is the term for a Supreme Court nominee who openly ridicules the system of checks and balances that underpin our Constitution, vows to legislate from the bench, and believes that her own Hispanic heritage and gender make her more qualified than any white male?   But the term must also infer the widespread outrage and reaction this nominee causes in the opposition.  Cultural and sexual chauvinism and incited panic would both be encompassed in the term HERSPANIC.

We need a word that conveys a president who has spent four months multiplying our massive debt with unprecedented spending, but also needs three jets to take the First Lady on a dream date to New York, including one plane just for the press.  A president who is unconcerned with the fiscal realities of the nation, yet fully capable of lavishing his attention on his own social calendar can only be called OUTDATING.

How does one describe a President who, during his campaign, vowed to close Guantanamo Bay and bring the prisoners to the United States for trial and incarceration?  But the term would also have to include the refusal of any governor to host the prisoners, and the president’s own immediate reversal of his own policy.  If one were to advise this president to carefully study a situation before making unenlightened decisions that would not lead embarrassing situations, it might be called GIT MO INFO.

What do you call a White House press secretary who never answers a direct question, speaks in sentence fragments that would mystify the most devoted text messenger, and whose incoherent syntax defies analysis?

This master communicator explains policies with a series of unintelligible monosyllables, ducks challenges with a dismissive glazed-over expression, and considers giggling an effective verbal riposte. This executive staff position should simply be known as MISPOKESMAN.

I’m sure more terms will arise as events dictate, but we should apply these first few as needed.  I’ll be on holiday for the first half of June, so maybe the next couple of weeks’ events will inspire an entirely new vocabulary.

Although I have opposed the use to which the facilities at Guantanamo are being put for years, the plans which the Obama administration is developing to deal with the remaining terrorists held there present problems which they seem not to have considered and which may be unresolvable.

The Bush administration already released about two thirds of those being held at GITMO. They released all the easy prisoners. They sent home the ones whose countries would welcome them and they tried the ones where the evidence was easy to argue in court. Even so, a significant number of those they freed immediately returned to fighting for al Qaeda or the Taliban or resumed engaging in acts of terrorism. What they've left for Obama to deal with are prisoners who are confirmed to be serious terrorist threats, but against whom the evidence is weak or hard to present, even in a military tribunal, and whose home countries will not take them back because they know what diehard bastards they are, and they have absolute confidence that they will be involved in future violence if given an opportunity.

If we take them out of GITMO either permanently or to face trial, we have to put them somewhere. Evidence suggests that our prisons are already a breeding ground for potential terrorists. The recent terror plots in Miami and New York both originated with Muslim converts who had been radicalized in prison. Allowing these terrorists from GITMO who really are "the worst of the worst" into the prison system where they will be treated by some as celebrities and role models could prove to be disastrous. Even in the relative isolation of a supermax facility their influence would be felt; passed on through the several hundred other terrorists already in the federal and state prison system and the underground communications networks of the prison gangs.

The only alternative would be to put them in a completely separate maximum security facility, either built or adapted to house them, inside the US. Although many governors are trying to keep GITMO prisoners out of their states, governors in states with the most severe economic problems might be persuaded to offer facilities in their states in exchange for federal dollars. Michigan's Governor John Engler has already offered one of the two small maximum security prisons in Michigan's upper peninsula for the purpose. Others are also interested, like the town of Hardin, Montana whose city council voted unanimously to welcome GITMO prisoners to their brand new maximum security prison which remains unoccupied after three years of disputes with state authorities.

So despite the "not in my back yard" attitude which prevails in most states when they envision terrorists as guests in their prisons, there are places which are desperate enough for federal dollars and jobs to take the terrorists, so housing them in the US is certainly feasible. However, aside from the technical difference of being on American soil, a supermax prison devoted solely to GITMO prisoners would not be much different from housing them where they are now. They would still be isolated from other prisoners, likely in a very remote part of the country, and held under uniquely high levels of security. No one has ever escaped from a supermax prison in the US, but keeping the prisoners secure is really the least of the problems.

But even if we put them in prison somewhere else, respect for the rule of law and the Constitution demands that we give them fair trials. Yet there's a reason why the Bush administration was only able to try a handful of them. The evidence against the rest is strong enough to convince most people that they really are dangerous terrorists but it is not sufficient to form an effective case good enough to stand up in US courts which have already rejected the kind of evidence the government is trying to use in many of these cases. There's enough evidence to know they are the "worst of the worst" but it's often not the kind of evidence which is up to the standards of a normal American court. Twenty reliable sources may have told us someone is a terrorist and we may absolutely believe them, but without witnesses to acts of terrorism or physical evidence, a trial may well end in an acquittal which should result in the release of the prisoner. Then what do we do? We can't keep him in the US because he's not a citizen and he really is a dangerous terrorist even if not convicted, so he's not about to get a visa. We can't send him home or to another country because they know who and what he is and won't take him. We can't just release him in the wilds of Waziristan when no one is looking, because he'll just start killing civilians and US soldiers as a recent Pentagon report demonstrates. What do we do that honors our legal system and our Constitution and also protects our people and the world?

President Obama admits he doesn't have a solution, saying "there are no neat and easy answers here." He has a plan but it is expected to be unable to provide a real solution for as many as 100 of the GITMO prisoners who cannot be repatriated or freed in the US. The president seems to be leaning towards holding them indefinitely in the US without trial instead of at Guantanamo, and that's really no solution at all. It's still a violation of their right to a trial and some sort of justice. And if they are going to continue to be held without trial, the prisoners might actually prefer the balmy climate of Cuba to a concrete cell in the frozen wastelands of Montana or northern Michigan.

There aren't a lot of other options. We can't set them free in the US, we can't send them home and we can't legally hold them forever without trial. What does that leave?

It's tempting to apologize to the acquitted terrorist, drop him near the fighting in Waziristan or Somalia with an unloaded AK-47 and then turn a blind eye as a soldier -- perhaps a Pakistani soldier for propriety's sake -- with more common sense than our government, shoots him as an enemy combatant. That wouldn't be nice, and the backlash would be horrendous if it leaked, and it's guaranteed to leak.

Or we could take that idea to a higher and even more draconian level that will appeal to fans of the New World Order. Tag them with the dreaded GPS locator chips which are now being put in dogs by the humane society and which some people are suggesting we put in our kids. Then release them in a terrorist controlled area and track them until they meet up with some terrorists and call in an airstrike or a drone with a Hellfire Missile and take them and their friends out. Even less nice, but we might have plausible deniability if we claimed we targeted the other terrorists, not the recently released guy with the chip.

I can think of only one other slightly less sleazy and considerably more humane solution, which will certainly appeal to the administration's legion of lawyers. Let them go through trial, and as soon as they are set free immediately arrest them on a trumped up charge -- illegal immigration comes to mind -- and imprison them again. Conveniently, our immigration laws are so screwed up we could probably hold them just about forever if we can't find a country to deport them to. This really isn't any different than just leaving them in jail, but they do get a trial and we get a legal fiction to hide behind.

After thinking long and hard and not being able to come up with better solutions than these, I do know one thing for sure. I'm glad I'm not President Obama, because even if he has the wisdom of Solomon, I don't think he can find a solution any better than the ones I outlined. He's in a no-win situation and will pay a high price for whatever inevitably unsatisfactory resolution he finally selects.

During the campaign, Obama spoke often of electing him to bring “Hope” and “Change”. His administration would and use calm, measured reason to solve the world’s most complex problems. In his view, many of the Bush administration’s decisions were based on “false choices” . . . but his administration would be using facts, instead of ideology, to make more rational decisions.

 One of his first moves as President was to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, and suspend the Military Commissions process for trials of detainees. The United States would no longer pursue the “false choice between our safety and our ideals.” This was an easy choice, signed on the second day of his presidency.  But, what does one do with the detainees, the alleged victims of Gitmo? During the campaign, Obama said that Military Commissions were “an enormous failure’ and he “would reject the Military Commissions Act”. Today we are learning that the Obama administration thinks that perhaps Military Commissions would be the best route for trials of about 100 Al Qaeda detainees. Further, the administration may seek “indefinite detention” of certain detainees. Sounds kind of . . .Cheneyesque, doesn’t it?  Add to it the reversal of his positions on FISA, and the release of photos of harsh interrogations to the world, and suddenly a lot of the choices made by the Bush administration don’t look so “false”. He is making many of the very same choices that he so criticized a year ago. What Obama is learning, and will continue to learn, is that while the lofty ideas of “Hope” and “Change” may sell well on the campaign trail, the realities of holding the most powerful office in the world come with a lot of “Reality”. And “Reality” will continue to play a role as his presidency evolves-on Cap and Trade, on Universal Health Care, on the War in Afghanistan. Conservative voices must continue to be heard to balance Obama’s far left tendencies. He has shown that he will yield to common sense eventually, at least on some issues. 

by Lance Thompson

The new occupant of the cornerless office wants to close the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay. At last, here is an issue I agree with him on.

Guantanamo Bay is a terrible place to imprison terrorists who want to kill Americans. It’s a tropical paradise with great food, comfortable accommodations and culturally sensitive religious services. It’s cleaner and more pleasant than the countries of origin of any of the inmates, and is far too good for them.

If we’re really looking for an appropriate place to house terrorists, I nominate Amchitka. This Aleutian island in the ice-dotted Bering Sea is United States territory, but less temperate than the Caribbean paradise that is Guantanamo. There are 100-mph winds called williwaws that blow from every direction and were strong enough to bend steel runway mats into pretzel-like modern art during World War II. When the wind dies down, the rocky, treeless volcanic island is shrouded in freezing fog or pelted by rain or hail. There are American military bases nearby, but escapees are not a concern. Even if an enterprising fence-hopper could swim ten miles through the frigid waters of the Bering Sea to the nearest land, it would simply reach aptly-named Rat Island where unchecked rodents have devoured the sea birds that once nested there. Amchitka has already served the United States as a military base and a location for underground nuclear tests, so it would be the perfect home away from home for unrepentant jihadists.

If the island of the midnight sun sounds too chilly for our sensitive prisoners of the terror war, sun-baked California and Nevada deserts also offer perfect locations for detention. Both states have large desolate regions designated as military test ranges, where our armed services practice firing their precision munitions. A sturdy dormitory in the center of one of these bombing ranges would offer a warmer climate, if somewhat noisier than Amchitka. Our military pilots and air controllers would be able to sharpen their skills by obliterating targets all around the facility, thus making escape a “you-bet-your-life” proposition. Of course, if the inmates’ housing facility were inadvertently leveled by a miscalculation, then obviously that soldier, sailor or Marine would require further training.

The tourist attraction of the abandoned federal prison on Alcatraz Island has also been mentioned as a possible Gitmo stand-in. It already has prison buildings and infrastructure, though it is cold and drafty, and I personally wouldn’t want to drink any water provided by the century-and-a-half-old plumbing. The facility is famously escape-proof, although I believe Clint Eastwood pulled it off once in the late 70's. A devout Islamic terrorist would never dare escape from the island to the city of San Francisco, lest that city’s well-known tolerance of sexual deviants precipitate an encounter that would disqualify him from his eternal reward.

I also understand that Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona volunteered to take the Gitmo homeless terrorists. But putting prisoners in tents, issuing them pink underwear, denying them cable television and internet connections, and forcing them to eat pbj sandwiches and apples for lunch like common criminals would probably be considered torture under the new rules, so I assume that possibility has been shelved.

Nonetheless, 250 terrorist prisoners, properly employed, could be a real boost to our economy. There are many worthwhile projects that have incredibly not been included in the stimulus bill that are awaiting manpower. For example, the Grand Canyon is inconveniently located in Arizona, favoring residents of the West. Gitmo grads could be put to work installing a new, man-made Grand Canyon at a more convenient site–perhaps in the featureless plains of the Midwest. With government-provided shovels and supervision, I’m sure the prisoners could make a good start long before their indefinite sentences expired.

Likewise, we are almost certain to experience another brutal hurricane season on the Gulf Coast. The Gitmo guys could be put to work building a levee from Texas to Florida, again with proper supervision. As an alternate, they could use their inherent familiarity with the desert to perform a related function–filling sand bags. Both of these projects would provide fresh air, exercise and also serve to make the prisoners too weary to escape.

So I join the President in looking forward to the closing of Guantanamo Bay. It is time we stopped coddling the enemies of this country, call off their government-subsidized vacations, and put them in facilities that properly reward their efforts. At least until their rooms are ready in the infernal regions.

http://www.lowdowncentral.com/feature-article/2009/2/2/close-gitmo-open-amchitka.html

Podcast Show Notes

I respond with my pledge to Barack Obama

Obama annoyed by the press. (Hat Tip: Townhall.)

Barack Obama tries to exclude media photographers from press conferences.

Closing Gitmo: unpopular with the American people.

Obama to close overseas interrogation spots. (Hat Tip: Wizbang Blog.)

Barack Obama's big wasteful spending and an undirected fiscal mess (Hat Tip: Cobb.) that fails to address basic infrastructure needs.

The the need to discriminate against White Males.

Unemployment only going to get worse. (Hat Tip: Club for Growth.)

The ACLU actually takes on a publicly funded Islamic Charter School.  (Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin.)

Nevada College Republicans call out a University President.

Second amendment update.

Click here to listen, click here to download.

by Lex Rex  http://theinvisiblehand.typepad.com 

Barack Obama is making good on one of his campaign promises: Close GITMO, or Camp Justice. President Barack Hussein Obama signed an Executive Order that will close GITMO within a year. The Obama administration is looking at three military prisons — in Kansas (LEAVENWORTH), California and South Carolina — along with the civilian Supermax prison in Colorado as potential sites for the Guantanamo detainees. HOWEVER, Kansas does not want the detainees, President Obama's decision to close the Gitmo prison leaves an important question unanswered: where do they go now? Some have suggested they be transferred to Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., but both Sens. Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback oppose this proposal. READ FULL STORY and also in June this was also reported by THE SWAMP

In fact HOUSE REPUBLICANS have introduced a bill, to NO DETAINEES on USA SOIL, Read Full Story

SO WHAT TO DO WITH THE POOR OLD GITMO DETAINEES, well lets start the ADOPT A GITMO DETAINEE PROGRAM, this way any liberal or any person who feels the urge to express their love and compassion can adopt a DETAINEE. In fact a promotion video has already been produced:

"ADOPT A GITMO DETAINEE" WITH LOVE BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA

I am sure all the detainee's will find an excellent home, but if you want to be considered as a Dad or Mom for one of the GITMO detainees, please write a letter explaining why you can provide a good and loving home for the Detainee and mail it to: 

President Barack Hussein ObamaADOPT A GITMO DETAINEE PROGRAM1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUEWASHINGTON D.C. 20500  YOU MIGHT BE LUCKY ENOUGH TO HAVE Khalid Sheik Mohammed or Abu Zubaydah living under your roof.-LEX REX  http://theinvisiblehand.typepad.com

I agree with Scalia - this is a major setback.  On the positive side, the Bush administration has managed to keep some very dangerous men locked up for over 6 years.

One other positive aspect is that litigating these cases will tie up the courts and liberal lawyers for some time - I'd rather have them messin' around with that than re-writing the Constitution.