Closing Gitmo and coward politicians

The Senate on Wednesday resoundingly rejected an effort to spend $80 million to close the Guantanamo Bay prison and relocate the terrorism suspects, possibly to U.S. prisons: http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_12416311

This is utterly ridiculous. What a bunch of paranoid cowards we have in Congress. There is not ONE logical argument for not housing these guys in the US. All opposition is based on emotion and unjustified fear. What's the big deal? Some alarmists argue that:

They will escape. They will attract like-minded people to that location. They are security risk to communities. Every one of these arguments fails the smell test. These facilities are made specifically to house these kinds of criminals. There are no escapes. Radical people do not flock to these locations (First of all, most of them can’t even get into America in the first place. Second of all, wouldn’t it be stupid for terrorists to congregate? Isn’t their best defense to hide?) These arguments are made out of blind fear and no rational thought.

Our Congressionals need to get some guts and tell their paranoid constituents they're being irrational. Where was all the crazed hysteria when Timothy McVey was brought to Supermax, the high-security prison in Florence, Colorado? What’s the matter, are white terrorists not as dangerous as these brown terrorists? Let’s see, wouldn’t there be even more of chance that an indigenous terrorist would attract like-mined right wing radicals into Florence than Islamic extremists would? Didn't happen.

Supermax already holds some of the most notorious international and domestic terrorists, including would-be airline shoe-bomber Richard Reid, World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. Again, where was the squawking when this happened? Could it be that maybe Obama didn’t put these guys there, so the right had no issue with it? But even the Dems are whining now, so what gives?

Communities in Montana as well as Colorado are asking for the detainees. The residents of Florence, Colorado also say bring it on. They know much more about this issue than politicians and people from other communities. Let’s listen to them instead of coward politicians and unaffected interests.

Obama is proposing some changes to the Bush detention policy. Not enough change in my book, but changes nonetheless. Some changes include restrictions on hearsay evidence that can be used in court against the detainees, a ban on all evidence obtained through cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, giving detainees greater leeway in choosing their own military counsel and protecting detainees who refuse to testify from legal sanctions or other court prejudices. Closing Gitmo and moving these guys is part of that change in direction. It puts the old strategy behind us. It turns a page. It takes away an important symbol of dangerous Bush policy and moves more towards working within existing legal structures.

See, here’s another problem Obama and I have with holding these guys in a foreign country. If people support the Bush strategy of detention, then put your money where your mouth is. You want all the “benefits,” but none of the costs. If you support the Bush detention policies, then you should be willing to take on its consequences. People want to put these guys out of sight-out of mind; wash their hands clean and bear none of the responsibility. Maybe that makes them forget the injustice or deal with their guilt easier. I don’t know, but I do feel that we as a country should bear the effects of our decisions.