Dick Durbin would accept Gitmo detainees in Illinois if in 'supermax' prison

[BlueJessamine]

Source: Politico

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), the assistant majority leader, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he would accept Guantanamo detainees in his home state as long as they were held in super-maximum prisons, where inmates are held 23 hours a day in small cells with slits for windows.

Moderator David Gregory asked: “Would you be OK with al Qaeda prisoners – those currently at Guantanamo Bay – in a prison in Illinois?”

Durbin responded: “Well, I’d be OK with it in a supermax facility, because we’ve never had an escape from one.”


snip

—On former Vice President Cheney’s speech: “I know what Vice President Cheney said. If you want an insight into his analysis of intelligence and national security, you should always remember four words: ‘weapons of mass destruction.’ That was a bogus fear tactic used by Vice President Cheney years ago, which led us into a war that has cost us 4, 284 American lives, we should recall on this Memorial Day weekend.”







Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22900.html

[blue_onyx]

1. They're just prisoners

I don't know why some people are so scared about sending these prisoners to a US prison. Sen. Levin said he would be ok with opening a prison in Upper Michigan. I would have no worries about these prisoners being in my state.

[Karenina]

5. The Republicans are blowing a racist dog whistle on this one.

It's SO SAD watching all the drool...

[AngryAmish]

10. How can a whistle be racist?

It is an inanimate object.

[Karenina]

12. Forgive me. "...a racist's dog whistle." Details, details, details...

As if nuance were an Ami strength... :rofl:

[AngryAmish]

20. Whatever you say, English.

[mbperrin]

2. Why would we continue to hold people with no charges of any kind, no chance

for a trial, and no legal basis for holding them at all?

Calling them detainees makes it sound like they've had to miss lunch at school.

Release them now and send them home.

Or file charges and try them in a regular court of law.

It's not complicated: it's simple. What's complicated is explaining away the American gulag system....

[chatnoir]

9. Thank you

I don't know how this isn't constantly brought up.

We have illegally been holding these ppl for years without charging them. How is there not international pressure on this administration to release them?

And how can this administration possibly attempt to justify not releasing these people OR filing charges immediately? They can't.

[Whiptail]

3. cheneys constant fearmongering

these men are not supermen...just a buncha p.o.w.s and cheneys constant barrage of bullshit makes me want to put HIM in supermax.

[BlueJessamine]

4. Montana mayor says his town will take 100 Gitmo prisoners

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/15695/

excerpt:

Earlier this month, under the radar of most of the nation’s media, Hardin’s town council voted unanimously to request that the U.S. government send the detainees there.

The detainees “have to go somewhere,” Adams said, and “although I don’t have the power to make the final decision, we have the room and the facilities here to house them.”

Asked whether people in his town had concerns about taking in people whom Cheney and Bush have repeatedly described as “dangerous” and “the worst of the worst,” the mayor replied:

“First of all, there are lots of tough criminals in America who have committed horrible crimes and we have them housed in towns all across this country. With all those feds that will come in here along with the Guantanamo detainees, we’ll have a lot more law enforcement around here than we have now. We need everything we can get, what with the high cost of law enforcement these days.”

He noted that Hardin, “like other towns, is hard hit by the economic crisis. People don’t want to hear scare stories about how dangerous the terrorists are. They’ve heard all that and they know all that. What we need is some help to get us through these hard times and we believe that there will be at least 100 new jobs created if they come here. This would be a boost to any small town suffering in this economy.”

Other right-wing Republicans have, of course, joined the Cheney bandwagon against the closing of Guantanamo. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said in an appearance on MSNBC this morning that “no community in the U.S. would welcome terrorists, would-be terrorists, former terrorists or any kind of terrorists from Guantanamo, not even into its courthouses for a trial.”

Soon after Shelby made that claim, Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) issued a statement repeating his assertion that the detainees could be tried in his Alexandria, Va., district.

[Joe Chi Minh]

6. Wouldn't just a "maximum security" prison do?

[hangman86]

7. BUT GUYS GUYS! Rememeber that episode of "24"

where the terrorist being held in a maximum security prison was able to break out with the help of the Secretary of State, and then a nuclear bomb went off, and then a virus was released, and then Jack tortured a guy and everything was okay for a while, yeah that was cool, torture makes me hard, but wait then Jack got stabbed in the back and got tied up while a terrorist was launching a missile and if it wasn't for the terrorist saying something bad about Brooke Sheilds causing Jack to break through the ropes and head butt the guy, we might all be DEAD! Because 24 is so realistic you know. Do we really want to risk this happening? What if the terrorists we bring over here like Brooke Shields! :sarcasm:

Whew! I call that piece, "Ramblings of a Frightened Neo-Con."

[PSPS]

14. Heh heh. Brooke Shields is kewl.

[Doremus]

8. Good for Sen. Durbin. Repukes have programmed the populace to have knee jerk reaction like Pavlov's

dogs. Terrorist = FEAR!!!1!

And they are still using it every chance they get.

[Hansel]

16. There's a whole lot of people out there who need some

major counseling. For some reason they have chosen to wallow in 911 and just can not get past it.

The best speech President Obama could give would be to remind people we are Americans. That we have fought for our way of life and won great battles without paralyzing fear. It's time for everyone to get up on their feet and throw away the knee pads. We will not be defeated and mocked by these fools by giving them the satisfaction of cowering before them. We will bring them here not only because we are a moral and compassionate people who believe in the rule of law, but because we are not going to let them defeat us by responding just as they wish to their efforts to make us afraid.

That speech, although he would likely do it much more eloquently, would put a stake through the heart of any effort to use fear mongering. But alas it has not yet happened.

[ohio2007]

11. How many "spare beds" does the state have available?

I thought they were all full up

[murielm99]

13. There is an entire prison in Thompson, IL that is empty.

It was never opened. The place is new. It is a maximum security prison.

The people there revamped the town's water system, too.

They are starved for jobs and tired of empty promises.

[aquart]

18. Room for how many?

Have you mentioned this to Obama, your representatives in Congress, and your media. No use saying they already know. Clearly, they know nothing.

[madrchsod]

28. do`t give them any ideas--i think the capacity is 600

it would be a good place to hold some of these guys

[Tab]

15. This is just silly

First, I'm not aware they've been charged with anything.

Second, super-max prisons are for those are deemed an extreme menace to society if released, such as to individuals, not those who collaborate (if that even happened) to create dangerous scenarios. They're super-max because the inmates themselves are dangerous to handle. That's not the case here.

Frankly, a medium-security prison might be fine, although I don't think you could get away with anything less than a high-security prison in this political climate, but the Republicans are just fear-mongering. I mean, what sort of (probably now) 18-year-old belongs in a super-max? He'd have to be one hell of a dangerous criminal to justify that.

I'm not saying that if they did something they shouldn't be incarcerated, but first lets hold a trial and then, if justified, put them in a high-security prison. I'm sure there's a handful in the group that probably needs high-security, but I get the impression that most shouldn't be there at all or, if they should be, it won't be on a par with, say, Hannibal Lecter or Jeffrey Dahmer.

[aquart]

17. Will he also be hiding under his bed?

What an ass. So scared of people who haven't come to trial. He should be scared. One day the same standard of "justice" may be applied to him.

[meow2u3]

19. If those Gitmo detainees claim to be at war with the United States...

...I say treat them like POW's--keep'em in Supermax, deprogram them, and release them once they're regarded as no longer dangerous to themselves or the country.

[The Stranger]

24. Nearly all of those repatriated have been immediately released.

The Junta knows that the problem is that it held these people for years when it had nothing on almost all of them.

But the Khmer Rouge would be proud.

[JI7]

21. are terrorist suspects worse than child molestors, rapists, murderers etc ?

[gkhouston]

22. Well, where he'd think they were going to be? Flipping burgers at Steak 'n' Shake? n/t

[Egnever]

23. Land of the brave my ass

this country is scared of its shadow.

[Bragi]

26. Agreed!

I doubt there has ever been a people anytime in history as easy to scare as the current generation of Americans.

- B

[question everything]

25. Why should they be held in such conditions

if they are not charged for anything?

It is better to build a brand new facility, in the middle of nowhere which would house only them, no other prisoners.

How can we possible treat individuals who were not charged for anything, in such a manner? What will we gain by moving them from Gitmo?

[pipoman]

27. Federal "Super Max"

a.k.a. "Administrative Maximum Security" prisons are populated by extremely high profile criminals like Unibomber, Nichols, and others, but they are mostly populated by "disruptive group" (Aryan Brotherhood, Crips, Mexican Mafia, Dirty White Boys, etc.) leaders to limit their communication with each other and the rank and file in their groups. There may be merit in keeping some of these "detainees" in this type of facility to keep communication with each other and those outside to a minimum.