Transferring Detainees from Gitmo South, Cuba, to Gitmo North, USA

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2006-01-18

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 pledge to shut the Guantanamo detention center will be announced Tuesday, said the official, who reported that Obama has ordered the acquisition of the eight-year-old Thomson Correctional Center, about 150 miles northwest of Chicago.

Obama made the move despite the objections of Republicans in Congress and in Illinois, where critics say the transfer of prisoners — some for indefinite detention, some for trial — could make the state a target for terrorists. Rep. Mark Kirk has called the move “an unnecessary risk.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that a bipartisan majority in Congress “already rejected bringing terrorists to U.S. soil for long-term detention.”

“The administration has failed to explain how transferring terrorists to Gitmo North will make Americans safer than keeping these terrorists off of our shores in the secure facility in Cuba,” McConnell said in a written statement.

In telegraphing the announcement, the official said closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay “is essential to protecting our national security and helping our troops by removing a deadly recruiting tool from the hands of al-Qaeda.”

No matter what we do, it will be a “recruitment tool” in the hands of al Qaeda because it is propagandized by our enemies, along with those on the left, as something other than what it is.

We are “nation-building” in Iraq and Afghanistan, trying to make life better for ordinary Muslim innocents. Yet propagandized by the enemy.

Both President Bush and President Obama have stressed that we are not at war with the whole of Islam. Propagandized by takfiri terrorists as not so.

Guantanamo’s early days admittedly saw some problems and abuses; but for the last few years, it is the most scrutinized holding facility in the world, as far as human rights violations are concerned. The detainees there are treated far better than those servicemen and women who guard them.

Before prisoners can be moved, Congress must vote to allow detainees to be housed on U.S. soil for reasons other than trial.

Holding detainees without charge or trial….isn’t that what Bush was criticized for? And now, bringing them onto U.S. soil to…..accomplish what exactly?!

We poured tons of taxpayer money into making Gitmo into a secure, safe, and comfortable holding facility for enemy combatants….now we’re going to shut it down, spending wasting even more taxpayer money to safeguard Gitmo North?

Un….frakkin’….believable!

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Hope they all freeze to death.

Is it just me or is there something wildly appropriate about these scumbags being shipped to Chicago?

Of course I’m not happy with this for other reasons than Obama’s folly of GITMO being a recruitment tool. Extremists did not need GITMO when they attacked us in 93, the Cole, the embassies, etc.

I don’t know this fool of a mayor of 400, that thinks this is a good idea and will bring supposedly 2,000 to 3,000 jobs. What I do know is that the report that tells of the risk to the community is classified and the powers that be haven’t yet decided if they are going to inform this community or Congress of the risks this area will face. I’m also quite sure this will be quite the cash cow for Obama’s and Durbin’s pay to play cronies and they’ve probably already got their estimates in.

I saw the other day that Congressman Manzullo was being unfairly attacked for NIMBY, because it is in his backyard, wouldn’t one expect that he would know how the majority in his community feel about it, same with Kirk, he represents the district with Thompson in it. We don’t want it here, the last ILL poll I saw was 51% do not want it in Illinois. Now that it is actually being reported, expect that figure to rise. If Kennedy’s can stop a wind farm because they don’t want to mess up their scenery, why do we have to have terrorists dwelling in our community without being fully informed as to the danger they represent…..before they are moved here!

@Richard:

Thompson is on the Mississippi, way across the state, 150 miles from Chicago.

Hey. I guess if Obama couldn’t get the Olympics in Illinois, he figures this is the next best thing…

Excellent move. How about if We empty the Cage in Kabul and give them about 300 + more?
The Emirate of Thompson can go under Sharia Law, elect a Caliph, the ACLU can hold conventions there as well.

None of this is in accordance with the Geneva Conventions or International Law. They do not belong in the US but since the Current Administration is just flying by the seat of their pants anyway it must not really matter like KSM and the boys in NYC. Just make it up as You go along seems to be the concept.

Solution? Take fewer Prisoners or give them to Pakistan.

Dick Durban say’s this will create 3000 jobs in Illinois.

100 prisoners divided into 3000 jobs works out to 30 employees per prisoner.

Wow!

:

“If Kennedy’s can stop a wind farm because they don’t want to mess up their scenery, why do we have to have terrorists dwelling in our community without being fully informed as to the danger they represent…..”

BECAUSE WE SAID SO, THAT’S WHY. NOW SHUT UP AND PAY UP.

Have a nice day 🙂

More importantly, I think (I’m not an international lawyer either)–Illinois is on US territory, Gitmo is on foreign soil.

It’s illegal to transfer the detainees to our shores unless it’s for trial. Obama intends to get Congress to tweak the law soon because they are saying they will have Thompson refurbished within 6 months.

It’s obvious that they intend to move this right along, we will have terrorists in Illinois next summer if Congress cooperates and the Obama/Durban/ILLDem contractors keep on schedule. That’s why we know the work has already been handed out and this has been in the works longer than anyone knows.

It takes time to put cost estimates together just to put in a bid, each contractor has to make arrangements and contract with sub-contractors, make arrangements for materials, estimate the cost of wages, materials and equipment, then I think the bids sit a month while they, the feds decide who wins the bid. Illinois hasn’t even sold the site to the U.S. government yet. No way Thompson is ready in 6 months without some funny business going on. Where’s Fitzmas when you need him?

Another thought, I wonder if they will try to run this through the contractor that has the military contract because the detainees are part of the war, don’t know if that works in the states. If so, then I also wonder if Haliburton got that contract this time, wouldn’t the left just love that?

‘Gitmo by the lake’

Rick Moran

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/12/gitmo_by_the_lake.html

This is a pretty fair evaluation on the subject.

Another terror of this move is that sympathizers will be drawn to the community in order to visit with the detainees. That is the kind of element that is desired to move in, out and reside in the area? As in other prisons, will packages and mail be allowed? Will attorneys move freely in and out of the prison? Any chance they will be smuggling contraband?
While I’m asking so many questions, please tell me the origin of “Flopping Aces”. Thanks…

“Closing Gitmo” does not mean only closing the prison/jail. It is clear that Bo intends to return the entire US Gitmo airbase to the Castro brothers, ending the 99-year lease treaty.
This will be the true leftist dream!!

That he has said “close Gitmo”, not “close the prison at Gitmo” has been obviousfrom day one.

But speaking of “inhumane”—-People who lived in hot, dry climes, have been living in the tropics, moved to Illinois — winter or summer — talk about inhumane!

I tried to comment at American Thinker, but I guess I’m not Arab enough–it wont let me comment.

Since the appropriations process is closed this year, it will be wonderful to have democraps on record next year approving hundreds of millions of dollars to ship GITMO enemy combatants to the heartland of America in a dangerous and totally unnecessary move.
As for the terrorists, while it may be wonderful in principle that they will no longer be basking in vacation weather climes of Cuba and will instead have the wondrous weather of northwest Illinois; the fact is the moment each of these terrorists arrives on terra firma USA, their lawyers will file Habeus Corpus petitions to release each one of them. Their lawyers can’t do that now because these terrorists aren’t on USA soil but technically in Cuba over which the federal courts have extremely limited jurisdiction. However once these terrorists (or alleged terrorists for you puking liberals) arrive on US soil, all the constitutional protections will attach to them as our constitutional scholar in chief damn well knows, and as his putrid Attorney General should also know, since he spent the past nine years trying to spring all those Gitmo terrorists.
There are three dozen judges who will hear all of these cases in Illinois, and it is by no means assured that despite a law barring terrorists from being set on USA soil, the fact that Obama will have done so, will give fortification to the liberal judges to say, that since Obama has already brought them here, there is no bar to further releasing these ‘wrongfully detained’ people to USA proper, given we can not ship them back to their home countries where they would be ‘persecuted’ or ‘tortured’, blah blah blah.
So thanks Obama. You know you wanted only to be a one termer so that you could inflict as much damage on the country in as short a time as possible. You will have made it nearly impossible for another African American to become President in our lifetime because of your ideological anti american policies.