Nobody gets past the laser sharks!

Does it really matter? The reason we want them to close gitmo has nothing to do with security one way or the other. It is a distraction. A red herring.

Wasting this much time on arguing with them is like arguing with trolls. It takes away from the original issues which are:

1. Gitmo is a violation of our American values and debases us.
2. Many of the people in Gitmo are not terrorists, and never were.
3. Gitmo has produced more terrorists then it has taken off of the streets.

The United States has about 55 of the world's population, and about 25% of its incarcerated prisoners. If there's one thing we do really, really well in this country, it's lock people up.

Sheesh.

The terrorists at Gitmo don't deserve a maximum-security facility.

Speaking of John Cole he had a nice little shout out to you today:

http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=21483
'I also learned that I need to read Calitics more often and that David Dayen is competing with Steve Benen for the title of “Blogger appearing simultaneously in the most number of blogs at the same time.�'

I believe Jon Stewart referred to Gitmo as a "glorified Home Depot gazebo kit". Maybe the "liberal" media could do its job, and start calling these idiots on their bullshit.

Oh, never mind!

The original point of Gitmo was to put terrorist suspects in a location beyond the reach of U.S. law, so they couldn't take advantage of constitutional protections. -- Adam Server

And that's the most likely reason, also, why so many people, especially among the Repubs, want to keep Gitmo intact. Out of sight, out of mind and unlikely to complain about torn trachea from forced feeding, nightmares from waterboarding, etc, etc

Couldn't someone just leave the back gate open and let them all walk into Cuba?

Would Reid et al like that solution better?

Another problem with Gitmo: any escaped prisoners would have easy access to Cuba, which has been accused of all sorts of bad things.

This needs to be hammered on television over and over. People forget this and because our news media (print and TV) don't say anything politicians of both parties are allowed to get away with the grandstanding.

The point that emotionally should be addressed is that when courts order someone released from a prison, they typically are put out the front door and wander off. This is not likely to happen when courts order Gitmo residents released - I assume they will simply be transferred to a deportation pen and held there until they can be deported. Or am I missing something ?

The debate about Gitmo is healthy. We need to look at how we use prisons as a society.

We can build multi-million dollar Super Maxes at the drop of a hat.

But schools? Ones that are zer0-energy, Green Buildings. Nah, too costly.

The entire Bush Presidency was all about subverting the rule of law. Gitmo is a tax-dollar black hole, with absolutely no return on the investment except fear and loathing.

Question: Why do we call prisons, correctional facilities? They don't seem to be correcting anything!

The Fourth Branch was in charge of Gitmo.

Nobody, controlling authority over Nowhere.

Apparently, the Right considers habeas corpus as some kind of magical bad-guys-get-out-of-jail-free card rather than a centuries-old way of protecting the innocent from government oppression. It really doesn't matter what you say; they live in a different world.

If the gitmo guys are eventually locked up in Prison Nation some of our domestic terror organizations, like the Aryan Brotherhood, will do to them what Cheney and his goons have only fantasized about. Seriously, as someone who has done time in Prison Nation (3yrs. in Gulag Oklahomastan for pot possession--first felony arrest Ever) I can assure the frightened bunnies out there that these "Hadjis" will be dead meat if they ever get transferred behind the razor wire of some of the good ol' U S of fuckin' A's public housing projects.
Get a grip, people!

I was just about to post what felonious monk said. These "terrorists" are goat herders who are willing to strap explosives to their bodies. They aren't sophisticated criminals or even sociopaths. They're peasants and the worst part of their incarceration will be keeping them safe from the other inmates.

Did you hear what buchanan said at the end of O'Donnell's diatribe. See, it proves that Cheney's speech worked. Yeah, if the point was to piss off reality based America.

I heard the Middle East has picked up on the slogan: "Remember Guantanamo!"

Once again we are compelled to remind people -- this time some of our own folks, felonious monk (awesome handle) and J Bean -- that supermax inmates are in solitary 23 hours a day and even during the 24th only have contact with prison employees.

I think what Inhofe is saying is that it would be dangerous *to Republicans* to bring those people here since the American people might see more clearly that some of them are NOT terrorists and aren't dangerous. We might see that those who are innocent were mistreated in our name. We might see what horrific people were in the Bush administration.

In other words we might begin to realize more clearly that people like Inhofe shouldn't be re-elected.

And this afternoon Mitch McConnell was on Cavuto's Carnival of Crap saying that Gitmo was some kind of ultra sophisticated state of the art facility the likes of which exist nowhere else in the entire world / galaxy / universe!!!!

"They even have courtrooms!" he said.

Uh... yeah - are they outdoors too?

What an idiot.

Don't forget that we put the Haitian refugees there in the 1990s becasue we didn't want them in the US either.
It's got nothing to do with security.

So is Obama recommendation to bring them to supermax and lock them away on US soil with no due process? What is the differnce here or Gitmo?

I'm fairly certain that a prison system that can handle Charles Manson won't have much of a problem with Khalid Sheik Mohammed.