OOPS THAT'S JUST TO MOVE THE INMATES AND GET THE NEW HOTEL READY.
Obama budget includes money to house Gitmo detainees in U.S.
Posted: February 1st, 2010 07:41 PM ET
Washington (CNN) - President Barack Obama is asking for more than $230 million in the 2011 budget to buy and prepare an idle Illinois prison to house terrorism suspects now detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The Justice Department budget for 2011 unveiled Monday calls for about $172 million for the federal government to acquire and renovate the state-owned prison in Thomson, Illinois, and another $66 million to eventually staff and equip it.
The budget requires congressional approval, and several lawmakers in both the House and Senate have vowed to block the funds, potentially preventing the transfer of many of the 192 remaining Guantanamo detainees to U.S. soil.
"Even though Americans are facing tremendous economic challenges, the administration has chosen to spend $237 million dollars in taxpayer money to provide free travel, room and board in Thomson, Illinois for some of the most dangerous Guantanamo detainees," said a statement Monday by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "It is time for the President to focus on the security and economic needs of the American people, rather than on the needs of those dangerous extremists who seek to do us harm."
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/?fbid=uOpmzf5b62i
The wing-nuts want it both ways...either these prisoners are prisoners-of-war and deserve military tribunals, and with that, protections under the Geneva Conventions from torture and prosecution of anyone in international court of anyone ordering 'enhanced interrogation techniques' or they are not prisoners-of-war and they deserve their day in Federal court...
Let's just get it done. These people should have been tried months ago and Gitmo closed already.
The more we delay, the more money will be spent, in Gitmo or anywhere else.
Well, thats a campaign promise Obama can scratch off his list soon.
Repugs try their terrorists in US courts, but scream like obstructing -raisers when the Dems want to do it. The Repugs are so chicken they don't even want these untried, unconvicted (and probably unconvictable) SuperMen in the USA, because they can destroy, shackled hand and foot, max security prisons.
$230M for a handful of guys, but only $100M for millions in Haiti.
The ing USA is ing dysfunctional and insane, quite apart from being ungovernable and leaderless.
So the taxpayers need to spend $230 million on a facility that will serve the exact same function as Gitmo for the sole purpose of allowing one politician to say that he followed through on a campaign promise to close Gitmo.
More money spent for no good reason. Nice going Barry.
What are the costs of housing the prisoners at GITMO that are avoided?
Any fair discussion of the costs would focus on the total costs and those total costs would include savings by not having to supply large facilities on foreign soil. We already provide "free room and board" to them.
I would presume that the "ranking Republican" did not raise such objections when Obama's Republican predessor asked for money to expand gitmo, and transport the detainees there, i.e. "free travel, room and board".
One could also probably guess that the "ranking Republican" did not bat an eyelash at the HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS spent on the Department of Homeland security over the last decade or so. $55Bn in FY2010, by they way.
Lastly, the suggestion that, by doing this, the president is NOT focused on security, ignores the larger security threat that GITMO poses by its continued operation.
This president actually understands the nature of that threat. Whatever else his faults may be, this president truly understands the nature of the "war on terror" and has, through this undertaking, taken up one of our most powerful weapons in that struggle, instead of leaving them ignored for gross partisan reasons as Replicans would have us do.
In the end we will end up far safer for the closing of GITMO than if we had conintued it's operation.
I'm sure all the Black Sites the CIA has operate for free...
I don't see that Republican ing about that...
A ridiculous claim based solely on a silly notion that the act of closing Gitmo will make terrorists stop hating us. Close Gitmo, don't close Gitmo. I really don't care whether we do or not, save for the point of how much it's going to cost. But don't say that it makes us safer because it doesn't. All closing Gitmo accomplishes is allowing a bunch of Bush haters to clear their conscious.
Last edited by coyotes_geek; 02-02-2010 at 10:20 AM.
I have the solution right here and it would be cheap as , a few thousand dollars when you include salary. Give them a military tribunal, closed to the public of course, then hang them tomorrow.
There....case solved, no need to spend billions of dollars for new jails and civil trials. President Obama might take some heat for this for a few days, but I would bet my life that this would do way more to make terrorists fear us than closing GITMO. I would also bet my life that Obama would sweep the next election.
This has nothing to do with terrorists hating us. This has to do with the US as a bastion of liberty that respects it's on laws and Cons ution. The whole moral high ground you're required to have when you pretend to police the world.
So we agree, it's all about our conscious. Closing Gitmo accomplishes nothing more than being a symbolic gesture.
Closing Gitmo ensures that there's one less clandestine jail available, and that's an implicit backing to the US Justice system and the Cons ution. It should have never been used in that way to begin with.
It's a step in the right direction. Abolishing the Patriot Act should be next in line.
Worse yet, relocating indefinitely detained prisoners on US soil underscores just how far we have devolved -- as custodians of liberty for ourselves, our children and indeed the whole world -- in just a few years.
In 2001-2, Gitmo was a solution to the "problem" of the jurisdiction of US courts and the due process that customarily accompanies it; now, the Obama administration sees no problem with denying people due process within US borders, and jailing them here indefinitely without charges. Neither, apparently, do very many Americans.
Agree 100% about getting rid of the Patriot Act. Unfortunately that's another topic on which Obama has chosen to follow Bush's lead.Closing Gitmo ensures that there's one less clandestine jail available, and that's an implicit backing to the US Justice system and the Cons ution. It should have never been used in that way to begin with.
It's a step in the right direction. Abolishing the Patriot Act should be next in line.
Even if charges are brought, it still may not matter. But hey, as long as Obama gets to check off "closed gitmo" on the campaign promise scorecard, that's the important thing.Worse yet, relocating indefinitely detained prisoners on US soil underscores just how far we have devolved -- as custodians of liberty for ourselves, our children and indeed the whole world -- in just a few years.
In 2001-2, Gitmo was a solution to the "problem" of the jurisdiction of US courts and the due process that customarily accompanies it; now, the Obama administration sees no problem with denying people due process within US borders, and jailing them here indefinitely without charges. Neither, apparently, do very many Americans.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124699680303307309.html
I think that military tribunals are perfectly cons utional and I believe those can take place anywhere in the world that cons utes U.S. soil whether owned or leased.
Right now we have an honorable soldier who sits in fort leavenworth and is not going to get a civilian trial all because he shot a terrorist who had killed two of his men. The terrorist looked like he was going for a gun and the soldier shot him. Witnesses confirmed the soldiers story but he did not get the luxury of a civilian trial, I do not see how non-American terrorists who do not fall under the geneva convention should get what our citizens do not.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/gl...ins/index.htmlOver the weekend, Sen. Susan Collins released a five-minute video in which she sounded as though she were possessed by the angriest, most unhinged version of Cheney. Collins recklessly accused the Obama administration of putting us all in serious danger by failing to wage War against the Terrorists. Most of what she said was just standard right-wing boilerplate, but there was one claim in particular that deserves serious attention, as it has become one of the most pervasive myths in our political discourse: namely, that the U.S. Cons ution protects only American citizens, and not any dreaded foreigners. Focusing on the DOJ's decision to charge the alleged attempted Christmas Day bomber with crimes, Mirandize him and provide him with counsel, Collins railed: "Once afforded the protection our Cons ution guarantees American citizens, this foreign terrorist 'lawyered up' and stopped talking" (h/t). This notion that the protections of the Bill of Rights specifically and the Cons ution generally apply only to the Government's treatment of American citizens is blatantly, undeniably false -- for multiple reasons -- yet this myth is growing, as a result of being centrally featured in "War on Terror" propaganda.
First, the U.S. Supreme Court, in 2008, issued a highly publicized opinion, in Boumediene v. Bush, which, by itself, makes clear how false is the claim that the Cons ution applies only to Americans. The Boumediene Court held that it was uncons utional for the Military Commissions Act to deny habeas corpus rights to Guantanamo detainees, none of whom was an American citizen (indeed, the detainees were all foreign nationals outside of the U.S.). If the Cons ution applied only to U.S. citizens, that decision would obviously be impossible. What's more, although the decision was 5-4, none of the 9 Justices -- and, indeed, not even the Bush administration -- argued that the Cons ution applies only to American citizens. That is such an inane, false, discredited proposition that no responsible person would ever make that claim.
What divided the Boumediene Court was the question of whether foreigners held by the U.S. military outside of the U.S. (as opposed to inside the U.S.) enjoy Cons utional protections. They debated how Guantanamo should be viewed in that regard (as foreign soil or something else). But not even the 4 dissenting judges believed -- as Susan Collins and other claim -- that Cons utional rights only extend to Americans. To the contrary, Justice Scalia, in his scathing dissent, approvingly quoted Justice Jackson in conceding that foreigners detained inside the U.S. are protected by the Cons ution (emphasis added):
Justice Jackson then elaborated on the historical scope of the writ:That's from Scalia, and all the dissenting judges joined in that opinion. It is indisputable, well-settled Cons utional law that the Cons ution restricts the actions of the Government with respect to both American citizens and foreigners. It's not even within the realm of mainstream legal debate to deny that. Abdulmutallab was detained inside the U.S. Not even the Bush DOJ -- not even Antonin Scalia -- believe that the Cons ution only applies to American citizens. Indeed, the whole reason why Guantanamo was created was that Bush officials wanted to claim that the Cons ution is inapplicable to foreigners held outside the U.S. -- not even the Bush administration would claim that the Cons ution is inapplicable to foreigners generally.
"The alien, to whom the United States has been traditionally hospitable, has been accorded a generous and ascending scale of rights as he increases his iden y with our society . . . .
"But, in extending cons utional protections beyond the citizenry, the Court has been at pains to point out that it was the alien's presence within its territorial jurisdiction that gave the Judiciary power to act." Id., at 770–771.
The principle that the Cons ution applies not only to Americans, but also to foreigners, was hardly invented by the Court in 2008. To the contrary, the Supreme Court -- all the way back in 1886 -- explicitly held this to be the case, when, in Yick Wo v. Hopkins, it overturned the criminal conviction of a Chinese citizen living in California on the ground that the law in question violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process and equal protection. In so doing, the Court explicitly rejected what Susan Collins and many others claim about the Cons ution. Just read what the Court said back then, as it should settle this matter forever (emphasis added):
The rights of the pe ioners, as affected by the proceedings of which they complain, are not less because they are aliens and subjects of the emperor of China. . . . The fourteenth amendment to the cons ution is not confined to the protection of citizens. It says: "Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." These provisions are universal in their application, to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction, without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality; and the equal protection of the laws is a pledge of the protection of equal laws. . . . The questions we have to consider and decide in these cases, therefore, are to be treated as involving the rights of every citizen of the United States equally with those of the strangers and aliens who now invoke the jurisdiction of the court.Could that possibly be any clearer? Over 100 years ago, the Supreme Court explicitly said that the rights of the Cons ution extend to citizens and foreigners alike. The Court has repeatedly applied that principle over and over.
Military tribunals are a concoction to cir vent civilian or military justice systems, including due process in the civilian case. It's no different than the arbitrary classification of people as 'enemy combatants'. What is that?
The Cons ution clearly spells out what the justice system needs to be. If the guy is a military enemy, then he goes to the military justice system. If it's a civilian being tried, then he goes to the civilian justice system.
There were plenty of honorable men in Gitmo that had nothing to do with terror against the US. Eventually, some of them were released after spending countless years there. That you find it harder to sympathize with them than with your fellow soldier doesn't make it any less wrong.
At the end of the day, under any of the two cons utional systems, you're presumed innocent unless proven otherwise. That standard should be there regardless of nationality.
Seems like it would be smarter money wise for Obama to just let Gitmo stay open longer rather than close it. However, Obama is very similar to Bush. They love spending money.
I thought Obama was suppose to be about change. I know that Obama has ed his pants over wanting to close Gitmo but he and Bush are very similar on a lot of things. It's a shame that it's not mentioned or discussed that much.
That is what is known as a "straw man" attack. Deeply flawed logical assertion in which a position is distorted and that distortion ridiculed.
I don't think, nor does the president, that closing GITMO will make the "terrorists stop hating us".
I have said this repeatedly here and elsewhere:
The war on terror will be won on the battleground of ideas.
It isn't the opinion of the small number of psychopathic nutjobs we are seeking to change.
It is the vast number of people they might recruit to their cause, either through active participation or simple tacit approval.
Riddle me this:
How does our unlimited detention of these men without trial, or secret military tribunals discredit the idea that we are evil?
have you discussed this with jack?
How is the idea that we are evil discredited simply by moving the detainees to Illinois?
We're still going to be detaining these people. The Obama administration has even admitted they might detain some people even if they get a trial and are acquitted. So you riddle me this: What difference does it really make if we indefinitely detain people in Illinois instead of indefinitely detaining them in Guantanemo?
The difference is that we allow the show trials and indefinite detentions on US soil.
Perhaps a "conservative" and newly energized Supreme Court will take a dim view of Obama's trivializations of due process and traditional American liberties...
Last edited by Winehole23; 02-03-2010 at 10:06 PM. Reason: show trails
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