August 16, 2009

CLOSING TERRORIST PRISON NOT SO EASY

President Barack Obama on Thursday fulfilled a campaign promise to close the prison for 225 captured terrorists at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He issued three executive orders that he asserts will return the United States to the “moral high-ground” in the war on terrorism.

In a White House ceremony, Obama asserted the United States “does not have to continue with a false choice between our safety and our ideals.”

“We can restore the standards of due process and the core constitutional values that have made this country great -- even in the midst of war -- in dealing with terrorism.”

Despite these assurances, implementation of the orders is creating more angst than it assuages.

Prisoners there -- termed “detainees” by the government – are to be scattered to U.S. mainland maximum-security prisons.

A second order bans torture by requiring that the Army Field Manual be used as the guide for terrorism interrogations.

The third order establishes an inter-agency task force to review detention policies.

OUR  ENEMY

Florida Congressman Bill Young (Pinellas County) and a member of the appropriations committee told CNN (Cable News Network) that he has “quite a bit of anxiety about the possibility of transferring detainees to U.S. facilities.

“They’re dangerous.  Once they become present in the United States, what is their legal status?  What is their constitutional status?  I don’t want them to have the same constitutional rights that you and I have.  They’re our enemy!”

MAINLAND  SITES

At this writing, two, mainland sites for Guantanamo prisoners are under consideration – Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; and the Maximum Correctional Facility at Standish, Michigan.

Fort Leavenworth opposes acceptance of relocated terrorists. There the garrison is already is crowded with recruits and gives advanced training for Army soldiers.

The most likely next prison for Gitmo terrorists is that at Standish, Michigan.  It is scheduled for closing early next year because of state budget cuts.  Prisoners at that time would be jammed into other, crowded prisons.

The Standish facility now employs 340 guards and service personnel.  Some of these might be transferred to other state prisons.  Most would be permanently out of work in a county whose unemployment rate is 17.3 percent. Local officials at Standish say the community would become a “Ghost Town.”

RELOCATION

Some residents are said to fear that any area where terrorists are imprisoned could become targets of other terrorists trying to free them.

The Standish prison has five gun-towers, and is encircled by a 16-foot double chain-link fence topped with razor-ribbon strands and monitored by “state of the art” electronic detection devices.

Should the prison accept terrorists, additional barriers would be installed at federal expense.

Michigan Senator Carl Levin, Democrat chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was not part of the search committee.  However, he says he would support accepting terrorist detainees in Michigan if state and local officials agreed.

NIMBY

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says he  expects to have 535 pieces of legislation before this is over – Not in my district.  Not in my state.

As Sunday Morning Report has described it  -- NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard.)

At issue is how the restraint and transfer of known terrorists are affected by the First World War “Geneva Convention.”  Supposedly It sets forth the “rights” of – and humane treatment of – military personnel.

The difficulty of this approach (noted for its disregard) is that terrorists do not declare war, wear uniforms, carry identifying flags, or take prisoners (except occasionally for ransom or personal, sadistic, torture.)

Killing  for the sake of killing.

COMMON SENSE

Terrorists are deranged misfits who revel in killing unarmed civilians, torture and mutilating death of their prisoners -- in the name of a religion that supposedly tolerates it.

However, when in American custody, they are entitled to speedy, careful, justice under our Constitution. Also, to “Justice delayed is justice denied” -- inherited in 1885 from British Prime Minister William Gladstone.

The terrorists still at Guantanamo are the worst of the worst.  They already have been accorded prison privileges not enjoyed by native-born American prisoners on the mainland.

President Obama, and liberal lawmakers, have thrilled do-gooders -- but have stuck their fingers in the eyes of Common Sense.

By Lindsey Wilger Williams, retired newspaper publisher and syndicated columnist