Kansas Politicians Standing In The Way Of Closing Gitmo
Kansas Politicians Standing In The Way Of Closing Gitmo
Our guest blogger is Ken Gude, Associate Director of the International Rights and Responsibility Program at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius (D) added her voice yesterday to a predictable chorus of Kansas politicians campaigning to prohibit any detainees from Guantanamo ending up at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Ft. Leavenworth when President-elect Obama closes the prison. Concerns about future acts terrorism are understandable, if misguided, in the debate surrounding the closure of Guantanamo. Yet, it is not enough to say Guantanamo is a problem and it must be closed and then refuse to be part of the solution.
Home-state politicians screaming “not-in-my-back-yard” (NIMBY) will certainly become a major feature of the debate surrounding Guantanamo in the weeks and months to come. Sen. Sam Brownback (R) is driving this effort which has led to legislation being introduced at the local, state, and national level to keep Guantanamo detainees out of Kansas. It is disappointing that Gov. Sebelius has jumped on the Brownback NIMBY bandwagon, not least because the motivation to protect American lives should encourage our leaders to explore every available option to close Guantanamo quickly and responsibly.
The U.S. military officer who led the interrogation team that rapidly and humanely persuaded one of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s associates to give up his location leading to his death in a 2006 airstrike recently wrote in the Washington Post that he “learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo… It’s no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse.”
This echoes former Bush Pentagon official Alberto J. Mora’s testimony to Congress last year that “there are serving U.S. flag-rank officers who maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq – as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat – are, respectively the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.” Hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans have died as a result of Guantanamo, surely among them some of the 43 Kansans killed in Iraq. It is our responsibility as Americans to be ready to do our part to help close Guantanamo.
Kansas’ contribution could be that a small number of lower-level Guantanamo detainees that might be convicted in military courts-martial end up in the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks (USDB) at Ft. Leavenworth. The USDB, the only maximum security prison in the entire military system, is a state-of-the art 515-cell facility built in 2002 that has a special housing unit designed precisely for maximum security detainees.
No one is suggesting that all of the approximately 235 remaining Guantanamo detainees be moved to Leavenworth, and no one is suggesting that it would be an easy job no matter how small the number. Leavenworth may not end up being chosen, but it should be on the table because for far too long we have allowed our fear of the small chance that some Americans may be harmed in the future to cloud our judgment about what to do to prevent more Americans being killed right now.
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Wouldn’t want their terrorist cooties filthin’ up the state.
Somehow I doubt these same politicians will have any reservation about building the next maximum security prison for rapist and murderers. All in the name of keeping the citizens of the ‘Great State of Kansas’ safe from those evildoers.
January 10th, 2009 at 9:14 ami am all for buying them a group home on daria lane in dallas once they make it a gated community courtesy of our tax dollars.
January 10th, 2009 at 9:25 amWhat’s the matter with Levenworth? Don’t trust the prison to do it’s job? If not, why not?
January 10th, 2009 at 9:25 amWhat’s the matter with Kansas? Why do they hate Murka?
January 10th, 2009 at 9:25 amWith all due respect to Governor Sibelius, it’s not her prison. It belongs to the federal government, and if they want to detain some people there, that’s their choice.
Frankly, I am completely baffled at all this nonsense about just how secure the facilities in question are that might house former GTMO detainees. I mean, it’s not like they’re trying to lock up Magneto and his Mutant Army. If you follow proper procedure, any reasonably secure prison can hold these people. The fear that it must be some kind of super-max, extra-sepcial prison is nonsense.
The real concern that the right-wing has is that these guys might end up some place where they are able to get a day in court to challenge their detentions. That’s what the right-wing war apologists are afraid of.
January 10th, 2009 at 10:00 amOT:
January 10th, 2009 at 10:04 amWhen does Wayne A. Schneider sleep?
NIMBY can be used as a real motivating force here. First of all, the feds should propose to locate the country’s nuclear waste dump in a state. Then, when they get resistance, the feds should say: “We’ll put the nuclear waste dump in another state if you’ll take some Gitmo prisoners.”
[Then, they should mail all to the nuclear waste to Princess Palin's house in Wasilla]
January 10th, 2009 at 10:13 amWhen do you sleep, db? :)
Yes, I was up late, but I had to force myself to get up and go out to the store before we get that 6-10 inches of snow. I will likely crash during the day.
I’m surprised Bush didn’t just ship all the detainees to some privately-run Super-Max Facility inside the US and then just let the guards there do whatever they wanted. You knwo that because they were doing something related to the “war on terror”, that they would get immunity from prosecution in the highly unlikely event that a prisoner should accidentally get shot seventeen times. No prisoner means no prisoner testifying to how he was abused at GTMO.
January 10th, 2009 at 10:14 amWell, there is a point for not keeping them in Leavenworth.
A prison is for people convicted of a crime.
Try them, and send the guilty ones to Leavenworth. Let the innocent go.
And Jesus H. Christ, are they afraid for their prison?
Or do they think that the eevil territs will attack someplace in Kansas because that’s where they’re held? Oh please don’t hurt us, it was the federales?
January 10th, 2009 at 10:20 amHas 8 years of oh-no-be-scaaared propaganda turned them into super vampire ninjas with death rays coming out of their eyes?
I cannot imagine a state in these hard econmic times, that would turn down the bookoo bucks that could be reaped (extorted) from the Feds over this issue. It would be worth BILLIONS for a state to take these Federally mandated “terrraists” into their charge. I would also mandate the Feds cover and and all claims against said state from incorrectly incarcerate individuals in said prisons. And I disagree with a post above, criminals are routinely HELD in captivity BEFORE their trials, even for protracted terms.
January 10th, 2009 at 10:26 amThis NIMBY attitude is stupid. As George Carlin observed, if a prisoner escapes a prison, what is he gonna do, hang around and check out real estate prices? NO, he’s gonna wanna get as far the fu(k away from there as he can!
January 10th, 2009 at 10:27 amAmerican politicians, particularly the most recent congressmembers, certainly don’t want live evidence of their complicity and capitulation to the bush war-crimes administration hanging around their district.
That said, I think the funds collected for bush’s library should go directly to recompense the innocently imprisoned, along with a major portion of any speaking fees bush accrues.
If there were justice in America, this would be a reality; as it is, these ‘reprehentatives’ are tripping over themselves to be first in line to run away from their disgraceful and sadistic records, leaving someone else to clean up the mess they approved on their watch.
Go to Hell, bush-suck congressional cowards.
January 10th, 2009 at 10:37 amIs it possible the right wingers are afraid President Obama will label them as enemy combatants/domestic-terrorists once he takes office and they know if there’s a “GITMO” on US soil, they’re screwed? Could be.
January 10th, 2009 at 10:37 amIt’s time for Superjail
Don’t they already have those concentration camp things? Or FEMA trailers? They shouldn’t use them but they can build prisons.
January 10th, 2009 at 10:42 amStill OT:
January 10th, 2009 at 10:43 amDamn it Wayne A. Schneider… I didn’t know I was supposed to get 4 to 8. I thought this one was suppose to be your problemthis time and track south of me. I suppose this means Why did I ever move inland? Oh yeah, I remember now. Love is a stupid thing…
what happened to the words “I need to go rustle up some supplies” that should have appeared after “I suppose this means”?
January 10th, 2009 at 10:45 amI cannot imagine a state in these hard econmic times, that would turn down the bookoo bucks that could be reaped (extorted) from the Feds over this issue…
Indeed. Perhaps it could be put into Obama’s stimulus bill as a public works project.
January 10th, 2009 at 10:50 amHalliburton has been busy constructing several private prisons… it’s the least they could do to help out after having made so much profit from Uncle Dick’s War.
January 10th, 2009 at 11:11 am*daria lane in dallas*
Well…………….it will already be gated….could just go ahead and build a new prison there. I’m sure the inhabitants won’t mind. After all, there will sure be lots of security.
January 10th, 2009 at 11:16 amI think they are afraid the terrorists still loose in the world will rent Rambo movies and come to save their buddies. I was impossible to do at GITMO because it was right on the water, an enclave the powerful Cubans would protect to the last man.
They are just waiting for their compatriots to be housed in a high security prison in the middle of the continent with millions of suspicious Americans around them.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
January 10th, 2009 at 11:21 amKansan’s can’t admit they don’t have an Intelligent Design.
January 10th, 2009 at 11:27 amThe detainees are going to be played for as much political capital as possible.
January 10th, 2009 at 11:43 amSebelious will roadblock and make lots of bad noise until the feds throw expanded prison upgrades and increase money for local employment at the prison into the picture.
Apparently the neoconvicts have taken enough hallucinogens to bend reality… so why not let them tackle the project?
January 10th, 2009 at 11:43 amBetter yet, why not put the NEOCONVICTS in Superjail!
January 10th, 2009 at 11:43 amNIMBY can be used as a real motivating force here. First of all, the feds should propose to locate the country’s nuclear waste dump in a state. Then, when they get resistance, the feds should say: “We’ll put the nuclear waste dump in another state if you’ll take some Gitmo prisoners.”
January 10th, 2009 at 11:50 amIf they’re that dangerous, put ‘em in Pelican Bay. That’ll really give ‘em something to hate America for.
January 10th, 2009 at 11:54 amWayne A. Schneider Says:
The real concern that the right-wing has is that these guys might end up some place where they are able to get a day in court to challenge their detentions. That’s what the right-wing war apologists are afraid of.
Bingo, Wayne, that is exactly what Guantanimo is all about. Terrorists Escaping from a Maximum Security Prison…Ridiculous.
Slightly OT…but Rachel Maddow had a story about the some 1800 Iraqi Prisoners currently being held in Iraqi Prisons..WITHOUT CHARGES.
It seems that Iraqi Law Prohibits the Detention of Prisoners without presenting Charges against them…and
Since the SOFA Agreement grants Sovereignty to Iraqi Law after the first of the Year..
The Bush Administration is looking at the RELEASE of its 1800 Iraqi Prisoners….unless they can come up with actual Charges.
January 10th, 2009 at 12:00 pmToday is the 63rd anniversary of the United Nations. A great way to kick off their seventh decade would be to reshuffle their priorities, especially in their cowardice against Israeli and American aggression.
January 10th, 2009 at 12:16 pmThe nerve of chimpy’s US asking other countries to take “prisoners” from Guantanamo and the US, with chimpy’s warmongering ass, doesn’t want any of their own prisoners.
Priceless
January 10th, 2009 at 12:41 pmAs US history has shown with no problem from American Leaders we locked up Chinese/Japanse just because we were at War, we had no problem keeping slaves and that thinking is still execpted by the KKK now on to Iraq/Al Queada detainees. We’ve learned from several US soldiers that some in prison are innocent but since we tortured them and held them for 7 years we can’t face up our mistake. 7 men have been tortured so much their declared insane now. At some point these men will been seen for the horror that was done to them by the United States. I know Law Makers and Christian Republicans don’t want to admit we have for 8 years done these crimes. Cheney admitted it in an interview but knows some of those detainees are well respected innocent men/children and if their names were released and their condition seen all hell would break out. Most of the detainees Family don’t know their held in Gitmo and some think their dead. We made the mistake of kidnapping people on false information and we can’t let that come out. So Bush/Cheney and their Christian Republicans think it’s better to just hide the secret and let these men/children die in US jail. The terrorist got what they needed to move forward with success. The Great United States of America and Israel now are know around the World as TERRORIST as the action have shown in 8 years. Obama/Biden can’t change the pass but they can try to change the future but history will never change and it will be used by future generations. If these men are sent to other countries they will have a trial and all the US secret crimes will come out in the Foreign Press.
January 10th, 2009 at 1:09 pmI thought Kansas was a bastion of religious Fundamentalism. Any Muslim extremists should fit right in.
January 10th, 2009 at 1:13 pmHi LushInterior:
January 10th, 2009 at 1:13 pmWhy do you think that and what do you know of real versus not real intelligence?
LushInterior Says:
as soon as the Obama and teem see a REAL intelligence
More predictions from the people who predicted that Iraq had wmd’s, tax cuts for the rich and deregulation would user in a new era of prosperity and many other things proven to be just flat wrong.
Yeah, we need your input lush.
January 10th, 2009 at 1:21 pmHi Fred:
January 10th, 2009 at 1:36 pmI think it might be best if we not point out to Lush that president elects are allowed to access “real” info and in the interest of all, I think it best to not point out how well Mr Bush did with access to “real” intelligence like the AQ determined to strike type stuff… Why poke the catatonic…
point taken dbadass. But you have to admit, coming from people like lush, it’s kinda like a divorced phychologist with two children in drug rehab giving family counseling.
January 10th, 2009 at 1:41 pmok, sentator…would your kasnas hillybilly constituents feel better if we stored some of that much less dangerous radioactive waste in your backward instead?
January 10th, 2009 at 1:47 pmOr Sarah Palin talking about small town family values.
January 10th, 2009 at 2:13 pmIs this what passes for critical thinking in your trailer park InferiorLush? Sitting there in your double wide calling everyone in Chicago flawed. You ought to actually go to a big city once in your life, loser.
January 10th, 2009 at 2:15 pmIs that how you explain your ignorance…..regressive gene?
January 10th, 2009 at 2:23 pmI was so sure it was fetal alcohol syndrome.
January 10th, 2009 at 2:27 pmFriendly advice for Jackie:
paragraph breaks!
Example:
As US history has shown with no problem from American Leaders we locked up Chinese/Japanse just because we were at War, we had no problem keeping slaves and that thinking is still execpted by the KKK now on to Iraq/Al Queada detainees.
We’ve learned from several US soldiers that some in prison are innocent but since we tortured them and held them for 7 years we can’t face up our mistake. 7 men have been tortured so much their declared insane now. At some point these men will been seen for the horror that was done to them by the United States.
I know Law Makers and Christian Republicans don’t want to admit we have for 8 years done these crimes. Cheney admitted it in an interview but knows some of those detainees are well respected innocent men/children and if their names were released and their condition seen all hell would break out. Most of the detainees Family don’t know their held in Gitmo and some think their dead.
There’s not a 1,000 character limit here (as on HuffPo)in case that’s the reason you post as you do.
January 10th, 2009 at 2:59 pmI’ve often posted page-long comments with no complaint as to their length because the content has been reasonable (as yours have been).
Greater legibility will improve the impact of your comments on the discussion thread–whilst CAPITALS equate to ’shouting’, a solid block of text appears as ‘blurting’ during a pause in conversation.
From the TP post: “no one is suggesting that it would be an easy job no matter how small the number.”
I see this type of apologia from all sides every time the Gitmo shutdown is discussed, and I insist it is absolute bollocks!
Most of the captives were taken from an active war zone and shipped like dangerous freight 6,000 miles with ease.
The adjunct operation of rendition was also accomplished with ease. The closing of Gitmo only involves the shipping of the captives some 90-300 miles, most of it in US airspace.
If Ken Gude is instead referring that the political component of ‘the job’ is not easy, well I’d argue that half the problem is the constant acquiescence to the notion of what is ‘difficult’. Accepting that it is ‘difficult’ makes it difficult!
January 10th, 2009 at 3:16 pmClosing Gitmo is a no-brainer and it is simple, just as it was simple to establish in the first place.
If you are from the Midwest you see Kansas as this huge flat place. Some people have said they should make it into a penal colony. I guess the government heard them. I feel sorry for anyone having to take these prisoners. Like it or not, there might be a danger involved.
January 10th, 2009 at 3:24 pmLet’s put these Kansas RepubliCon A$$wipes in Gitmo.
January 10th, 2009 at 3:28 pmWell, Kansas is flat like Gaza….perfectly placed for Nazi Americans to set up a concentration camp. Ideally, we need to ship the liberal Jews from the Northeast, specifically Alan Dershowitz, into a place like this. This will rid America of all its ills.
January 10th, 2009 at 3:29 pmJeebers, it isn’t that complicated to clean Gitmo out and it doesn’t take anything more than the powers already vested in the military chain of command.
The first thing you do is fly a bunch of JAG lawyers down to Gitmo to “secure the evidence”–the evidence against the torturers and whatever the torturers think they have against the prisoners. That stops prisoner abuse instantly and we get cheered by the international community.
Then, without any melodrama, staging, or congressional debate, start shipping out people for “legal interviews” at whatever military brigs are readily available in the states, let the prisoners talk to their lawyers there, and forget to book any of them passage back to Cuba.
You’ll have all the people out of Gitmo in two weeks while the NIMBYs and fake patriots are still trying to figure out where to protest, pontificate, and posture.
January 10th, 2009 at 3:36 pmHmmm. The States are happy to take the revenues federal prisons generate, the communities are happy to get the business the prisons generate, but they only want the feds to incarcerate folks like Martha Stewart? The truth is that many of the Gitmo prisoners at least started out to be a far better class of people than the home-grown Hannibal Lechters the U.S. prisons are currently housing.
Gude’s final sentence is the operative principle. If we want to regain respect from our current enemies, we must house the remaining Gitmo prisoners in very decent digs and make sure they enjoy at least the same rights American prisoners do.
And could we please stop calling them “detainees,” as if we had just asked them to stop in for tea? “I beg your pardon, I don’t mean to detain you, but I only just put the kettle on….” People who’ve been (tortured &) invited to be guests of the state for 7 years are “prisoners.”
The Constant Weader at http://www.RealityChex.com
January 10th, 2009 at 3:54 pmLushInterior Says:
In your dreams is Gitmo closing…………..as soon as the Obama and teem see a REAL intelligence/CIA report AND a briefing on info still available not yet extracted knees will get week and down they go.
January 10th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Hi, LushInterior,
You know, I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that Obama and his top people have been getting daily intelligence briefings since Nov 5th.
Perhaps you could please explain what you mean by this:
AND a briefing on info still available not yet extracted
What kind of info is still available but “not yet extracted”, and how do you brief someone about this?
January 10th, 2009 at 4:09 pmLushInterior Says:
In your dreams is Gitmo closing…………..as soon as the Obama and teem see a REAL intelligence/CIA report AND a briefing on info still available not yet extracted knees will get week and down they go
And how does an Internet troll have access to this information that has somehow been kept secret from everyone important in Washington? Heavens, even Cheney and Rove must not have known about, it, or it would have been leaked to influence the presidential election and keep them in power and out of jail.
Someone needs to detain LushInterior and extract the source of this leaked intelligence information from him.
January 10th, 2009 at 4:41 pmI am pretty sure that Pres. Obama will close GITMO.
Anyone who has had friends serve at Guantanamo will know right away why the Bush administration picked Gitmo in the first place, and not just for juristic reasons.
Our base there is separated by a mini DMZ from the cubans – and on their side is also a very low fence, where they do target shooting most of the day. So, walking along the american side, you always have to duck, or you may just get shot in the head. Not a real great incentive for a prisoner of war there to want to try to break out, with trigger happy cubans on one side and a big ocean on the other.
That being said, what has happened at Gitmo is clearly illegal and morally reprehensible. But those prisoners will have to go somewhere, so the “not in my backyard” attitude on the part of individual states probably won’t go very far. For some of those prisoners are indeed extremely dangerous. Others are accidents or mistakes on the part of the allies.
January 10th, 2009 at 5:50 pmSam must be married to pat roberts.
January 10th, 2009 at 6:24 pmHe buggered off.
January 10th, 2009 at 7:04 pmIt never ceases to amaze me that the same people who are so fearful voted for George W. Bush twice because they felt he would keep them “safe.” That despite all the evidence to the contrary,
Look. It’s not like these guys are all going to break out of Leavenworth, load up on Kansas strip steaks and launch a devastating terrorist attack. Ever. It’s freakin’ Leavenworth!
Methinks this isn’t just a case of NIMBY but NMIMBY: No Muslims In My Back Yard.
-AF
January 10th, 2009 at 8:03 pmAndrew Sullivan Is A Fraud
NIMBY is one of the biggest political problems plaguing the U.S. that doesn’t get mentioned enough by the national media. This is absolute B.S. that these Kansas politicians are going all cowardly lion all of a sudden.
I’m sure all those vulnerable corn fields and livestock are ripe on terrorist’s minds for punishment for Gitmo and Iraq.
And if I have to hear NIMBY about sight lines being ruined in the middle of nowhere, where needed high capacity power lines are needed in southern California, I’m taking up a petition on getting a Proposition passed to lawfully slap people on the books.
January 11th, 2009 at 1:26 amDumb Question: If Leavenworth were to close up, wouldn’t Kansas oppose it due to loosing all the money it pumps into the area ?
Sometimes, you’ve gotta take the bad with the good. Taking the Gitmo folks is just the price you’ve gotta pay for all that money.
January 11th, 2009 at 4:29 pmDumb Question: If Leavenworth were to close up, wouldn’t Kansas oppose it due to loosing all the money it pumps into the area ? araç sorgulama
March 18th, 2009 at 5:11 am