What to do with the detainees at Guantanamo when it closes is a difficult issue, I admit. But one part of the debate is just completely insane. I agree with Glenn Greenwald:
The 'debate' over all the bad and scary things that will happen if Obama closes Guantanamo and we then incarcerate those detainees in American prisons is so painfully stupid even by the standards of our political discourse that it's hard to put into words . . .Contrary to what the GOP might want folks to believe, nobody is arguing for taking all the Gitmo folks, dropping them in the middle of (oh, say) Lincoln, Nebraska with a gun and $20, and saying "have a nice day." The issues involve how to charge, try, and, if necessary, continue to detain these folks. Keeping them locked up, safely away from the general public, won't be a problem. As Digby puts it:
Prisons are what we do. We have more people locked up that any other nation on earth. It's one of our biggest industries. We may be bad at everything else, but locking people up we are really,really good at. The idea that we can't keep a few broken, foreign, torture victims in jail is patently absurd. If you don't believe that the government is capable of protecting a prison from attack by foreign terrorists, anyone who lives near a nuclear power plant should be completely petrified. Talk about a target.The federal supermax prison out in Colorado currently holds convicted terrorists like Terry Nichols, Eric Rudolph, The Unabomber,Zacarias Moussaoui, Richard Reid, and the guys who perpetrated the first attack on the World Trade Center. Holding bad people in bondage is one thing we do very very well.
Of course, when the debate gets this insane, leave it to Jon Stewart to nail it:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M - Th 11p / 10c | |||
| Guantanamo Baywatch - The Final Season | ||||
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