For that matter, if they wanted to fly planes into buildings, they could fly planes into Gitmo.

As the tide of criticism against Obama rises from the conservative dingnuts, it will provide him with an opportunity.
As the criticism begins to gel with the public, Obama will be able to sit down and address the nation, and the world, and actually describe what the Pentagon and WH did at Guantanamo. And I'm not thinking about the torture.

Wholesale shipping of innocent victims into a prison hell in terra ingognita.
A boy who was 11 when he was a courier for Al Qaeda. 14 when shipped to Guantanamo - and is still there!
And he's not the worst case.

As mentioned below, these prisoners, 9/10 of whom should never have been in Guantanamo, have received a treatment that is beneath the dignitiy of even a dictatorship. And Obama will be able to spell that out clearly, precisely in response to the "phoning it in" obvious criticism of the Neanderthals who think this is how a great nation behaves.

Hey, it's the liberal New York Times. They'd never hype a Arab/Muslim threat. Why would they?

It always amazes me how little faith these "patriots" have in the abilities of our country.

And I still haven't seen much discussion on what will happen to Gitmo, the prison and the base itself, once we're done with this round of things.

If Republicans had half a wit they'd start hyping that instead. Are we going to go back to stashing Cuban or Haitian emigres there? Give the whole thing to Raul as a fig leaf? There are good possibilities for hype here that aren't wholly irrational.

But they have unpronounceable names, they are swarthy, they wear funny things on their head, they pray to a weird god, they are known to use the most dangerous weapons known to man, a box opener! Don't you understand! No prison anywhere in the US can hold them! They have magic powers!

Based on what I know about prison populations in the western US, the most likely outcome of placing muslim terrorists in a general population of american prisoners is that they would be summarily murdered.

and here the Americans let dangerous criminals like Cheney and Rumsfeld roam the streets, unfettered. Oh, they are our terrorists.

"Obama will be able to sit down and address the nation, and the world, and actually describe what the Pentagon and WH did at Guantanamo".-SteinL

While we wait for that to happen, I'd settle for the mainstream media to call the GOP on their manufactured hysteria. The detainees are NOT 'terrorists'and we have (or had, pre 9/11) constitutional processes to deal with them.

none of the Democrats who on Thursday hailed the closing of the detention camp were stepping forward to offer prisons in their districts or states to receive the prisoners."

A) I can't imagine a congresswoman or Senator having any authority to make such an offer and doing so would be portrayed as "showboating" (the GOP loves to try to create "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenarios. They play a very transparent game of chess.) BTW, Murtha DID offer and it was a pretty cheesy move.

B) Why would we dare let a "soft on defense" Democrat take these big bad ol' turrists into THEIR peace-and-love namby pamby prisons when the strong, burly, beer-swigging Republicans must be itchin' to dole out the punishment they think is so richly deserved by every one of these people? Maybe they aren't as gung-ho on this Crusade as they let on?

Calling Jose Padilla a terrorist is a sick joke. By the time he came to "trial" he was so insane from the results of his confinement he was defending George Bush against his own lawyers.

klyde--hear, hear. I'd strike John Walker Lindh off that list too. These are "very dangerous people"? Last I heard, Reagan provided a lot more material support to the Taliban than JWL ever did.

Let's also not forget that dangerous criminals are released onto the streets all the time when it turns out there is insufficient evidence to demonstrate that they are indeed dangerous criminals. Being held at Gitmo is not evidence in and of itself of a person being dangerous.

The fear that our justice system is incapable of separating the innocent from the guilty is not completely irrational, but usually it works the other way after hearing of all the death-penalty convictions being overturned by DNA testing.

Anyone who invents a fast-acting urine stain remover could make a fortune from just the weak-kneed conservatives at Nat. Review and the Weekly Standard. Couple of well-placed ads in those rags would reap a windfall.

Meanwhile, none of the Democrats who on Thursday hailed the closing of the detention camp were stepping forward to offer prisons in their districts or states to receive the prisoners."

Um, Democratic Senators and congressmen don't have any authority to offer prisons in their districts or states. Federal prisons are run by the executive branch.

But nice job by "even the liberal!" NYT to falsely portray Democrat legislators as feckless on something they actually have no control over.....

For that matter, why wouldn't jihadists have crashed planes into the Gitmo facility to release or martyr their brethren? There really is no such thing as clear and reasoned thinking in the face of concerns about terrorism, is there.

"Republican lawmakers, who oppose Mr. Obama's plan, found a talking point with political appeal. They said closing Guantanamo could allow dangerous terrorists to get off on legal technicalities and be released into quiet neighborhoods across the United States."

Obviously they know nothing about the usual locations of half-way houses. One look out the window and jihadists will be begging to get back into Pelican Bay.

Since when have wingnuts been concerned about the lives and safety of people in prisons? You'd think they'd welcome the occasional annihilation of convicted felons.

richard speck and john wayne gacy were held at a prison not all that far from me. jeffery dahmer and timothy mcveigh were just a little bit further away.

iirc. they all died in prision, too.

I'm retired (young) after doing 24 years in federal health care, and I have been inside the wire and rendered direct patient care to some really, truly, monstrously awful people. There are far worse people than the Guantanamo detainees detained at Leavenworth already.

rde1 wrote:
Based on what I know about prison populations in the western US, the most likely outcome of placing muslim terrorists in a general population of american prisoners is that they would be summarily murdered.

This was my first thought, too. For the most part, American convicts are just as patriotic as your nextdoor neighbor. The ex-cons that I've known would have no problem arranging a little "accident" for a terrorist prisoner.

Here's a question: do Republicans buy their Depends in a maxi-pack?

Heh, Boehner said send 'em to Alcatrez!

Eric Rudolph is held on US soil. He almost certainly got support from people in the US while he was a fugitive. Similarly with James Earl Ray (now deceased). There has never been any concern expressed about holding either of them in US prisons.

John Walker Lindh, convicted, 2002, U.S. Federal Court -- providing material support to the Taliban (currently: U.S. prison, Florence, Colorado).

Sorry to drop in out of the blue and burden the regulars with so many predictions. Super-Max, in Florence, is also a torture facility, and like Guantanamo, it will cause us all nothing but shame. It too will be closed, and what has been done there will bring national disgrace. Think Andersenville.

Awhile back 60-Minutes interviewed former guards and prisoners for a special on Super Max, but then threw out all the interviews and did a feel-good fluff piece. (I know people in Canon City, near Florence, who were interviewed.)

I've been told both Noriega and John Gotti, neither one a wimp, were broken and cried like babies at Super Max. We don't need resorts for criminals, but we need prisons that meet international standards and are open to international inspection. Gratuitous cruelty is not the American way, however much the Bush junta, sick and sadistic, tried to make it that way.

John Lindh is a danger to no one and could be kept in a minimum security facility. He deserves, at the least, a fair trial. (He was to be tried in a kangaroo court and pleaded guilty only to escape the death penalty.)

Because Lindh was tortured by the American government before trial, the right thing to do would be to pardon him immediately and put his torturers in Super Max. What has been to Lindh will also someday be a source of deep national shame.

that list is just a subset consisting of Middle Eastern/Muslim/Arab terrorists. But how about folks like the unibomber and Terry Nichols?

Jeez, Terry Nichols is in the same prison as Richard Reid! Aren't they afraid one might convert the other to something else? Yea, the solitary confinement might be an impediment there.

We've also imprisoned IRA members here.

Yes, I agree Muslim prisoners could be in danger in a regular prison, but there are minimum-security prisons that present little danger for someone like Lindh.

In any event, if the government can't guarantee a prisoner's safety except at Super Max, then house arrest with electronic monitoring is available. For the cost of keeping a prisoner in Super Max lots of other, cheaper options are available.

Hmmm - Congress? Leadership?

As if these were supermen who could tear out the steel bars of flimsy American prisons, smash down the concrete walls and are invulnerable to razor wire and bullets. Further, the idea that they could huff and puff, and blow this nation down belongs to the Three Little Pigs, not to our American system of justice. This is Bush's infantile demagoguery where his concept of the real world got stuck at Disney's Golden Book fairy tales as well as Marvel and DC comics.

It isn't that that are not already very dangerous people in jail. It's that for some reason these guys in Gitmo make Republicans Senators and Congresspeople piss their pants. Why are Republican Congress critters so yellow?

But hilzoy the Joker escaped.

If I were devising ways to be sprung from prison, having someone fly a plane into the building I was imprisoned in would be fairly low down on my list.

You write: "...that there are already a whole lot of very dangerous people in our prisons, that some of them are terrorists, and that no one has flown planes into prisons to rescue them yet."

Do you, perhaps, have Fort Leavenworth in mind? If so, you are mistaken.

I learned from Senator Brownback the other day that no dangerous people should ever be sent there because it is primarily an educational institution. I learn something almost every day.

You'd think that these congressional republicans would be too embarrassed to make these kinds of statements which obviously are just fear mongering comments. They try to make it seem like these so called bad guys have superhuman powers or massive armies that we should be scared senseless to make such petty ignorant comments.

Jailed, chained and guarded in maximum security prisons...planes won't work again as there is no Cheney to make our defenses stand down. No reason to be worried and these republicans know this. They are just out to slander Obama any way they can but only make themselves look more ridiculous which each attempt.

A few quick thoughts:

1) If foreign terrorists were released from a US prison I kind of doubt they would be allowed to stay in the US. After all, would they be given citizenship or visa authorization for their prison stay?

2) If Bush was indeed so successful at keeping our country safe, wouldn't it be smarter to keep the "terrorists" from Gitmo in our own backyard, rather than keeping them in Cuba, a country that we have embargoed for aiming missiles at us? "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer" and all that jazz.

3) Are we really afraid of airplanes being flown into prisons? Really? I thought all of our airline security measures kept us safe. That and the phone taps.

4) Oy.

How ridiculous that they're wetting their pants due to such easily debunked thoughts. It's like watching a kid trying to get out of going to school by saying they might get hit by a bus.

The kicker is that 9/11 happened because Bush ignored a very prescient warning. Terrorists have it much easier when the person at the top does not take them seriously. Al Gore was very interested in terrorism; it's tough to imagine him sneering about ass-covering upon receipt of such a warning.

Of course, if President Gore had stopped 9/11, these same GOP bed-wetters would have sniggered about how he'd also claimed to have invented the Internet, and how he shouldn't be irresponsibly fear-mongering. A total lack of self-awareness, them.

Gitmo is a show of how monstrous we can be. It accomplished nothing but was of such damage that we are now considered terrorists. We could limit that reputation to where it belongs... on the Bush administration if and when we prosecute his administration for war crimes.

A couple of observations:

1. You'de think these prisoners were some kind of uber 007 / Hannibal Lecter types the way we cringe in fear at the possibility they would be housed in prisons in the U.S.

2. How long do you think these guys would last if left unattended in the prison yard with our home-grown psycopathic killers?

3. Is the American citizen really that big of a coward that they would sacrifice our system of laws so we don't have to try and possibly have to release these people?

I think the following passage from Obama's inaugural speech is telling:

"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers ... our found fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all the other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more."

That's telling the American people to stop acting like sniveling cowards and more like the people who made America great.

My son is afraid to go outside after dark. He thinks there are wild animals just beyond the fence - lions and tigers and bears. Of course, he is only eight years old.

My coworker is a grown child who is afraid maximum security prisons aren't strong enough to hold these people. In fact, bringing them to American soil plays directly into Osama's hands. Because although terrorists are cowards who prey on the innocent, they are also fearless supervillains able to fight their way out of a maximum security prison with only a goose feather and a plastic spork.

oh for pete's sake, how are people at Fake News supposed to remember all those names and pesky facts? Let's not forget Terry Nichols, who participated in one of the first and worst acts of domestic terrorism.

ya can't fix stupid.