It wouldn't bother me to have a gitmo prisoner in a prison near me

[ensho]

why are some americans bent out of shape over this? what do they think will happen?

[knowbody0]

1. we are supposed to be programed to fear

they will chop off our heads

[Echo In Light]

2. I'm sure many such farmers could provide good gardening tips for neighbors

[ensho]

3. meaning?

nt

[Echo In Light]

9. Most Gitmo detainees were innocent farmers

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2008/03/exclusive-inside-gitmo-detainee-061

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/03/19/guantanamo-detainee-innocent.html

[ensho]

11. ok, see what you mean

nt

[sarge43]

4. Considering some of the creatures running around loose in this

neck of the woods, a gitmo prisoner would probably upgrade the place.

[Warpy]

5. Right wing nuts have bought into a false choice

They think either the concentration camp in Cuba will be maintained or the mean old terrorists will be released on their suburban streets to threaten the kiddies.

Prison in the US just doesn't enter into their little pin heads as another alternative.

[WI_DEM]

6. Write the government offering your neighborhood as a possible prison site

:)

[ensho]

12. should I take this to mean you would be afraid to have one in your neighborhood?

nt

[RaleighNCDUer]

18. My neighborhood IS a possible prison site -

Raleigh's Central Prison is less than 2 blocks from my apartment. It is stuffed to the gills with violent criminals. They are on one side of the wall - I'm on the other. Adding some Afghani peasant to their numbers wouldn't change a thing.

[sarge43]

19. As the state pen is o/a 20 miles from this 'hood

and murderers, rapists and Repub politicians are taking their ease there, your point is?

I'm fairly sure the odds of me getting nailed by a bear while I'm gardening or by a SUV while I'm driving to market are probably better than an escaped gitmo prisoner blowing up the local sugar shack.

[Critters2]

7. I don't get this either. Communities beg for prisons with American murderers

and rapists, but they're more afraid of the gitmo prisoners, who haven't been tried or convicted of anything? :crazy:

[Freddie Stubbs]

8. It's not the prisoners that people are concerned about, but the type of people who

may want to break them out of prison.

[ensho]

14. how far fetched is that!

nt

[Freddie Stubbs]

15. How far fetched is someone blowing up a federal building on Oklahoma City?

How far fetched is trying to blow up the World Trade Center by detonating a Ryder truck filled with 1,500 pounds of explosives underneath it?

How far fetched is hijacking airplanes and flying them into the World Trade Center?

[wuushew]

17. In the history of the United States who has ever broken INTO a federal prison?

When you make predictions about possible events it should be based on evidence or historical precedent. The view you describe is people surrendering to irrational fear. As a Democrat it is incumbent on you to educate them.


Omar Abdel-Rahman has been sitting in a medium security federal facility for the better part of thirteen years, if a Islamic prison break is in the works it would have happened already.

[gratuitous]

10. So far . . .

The only folks I've seen bent out of shape about this are the Nervous Nellies of the Fourth Estate who dominate our airwaves, and the Republican Rat-Fuckers who put those prisoners in their holes. The latter should indeed be concerned. The rest of us? Hell, I'd rather have the whole kit and kaboodle installed down the block from me in place of the noisy Harley riders currently infesting my neighborhood.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

13. They're not much different than other criminals

We've had convicted terrorists/plotters in regular prisons before so what's different now? Are people worried that prisons aren't doing a good job keeping criminals locked up and the community safe? :shrug:

Also, I wish more people would remember that, until or unless they are adjudicated as such, we don't really even know for sure whether or not they may, in fact, be innocent, much less "the worst of the worst."

The Clinton administration put away quite a few (would-be) terrorists and didn't need Gitmo, "enhanced interrogation", indefinite detentions, and military tribunals to do it. The only reason that any of these things happened is because Bushco decided- unilaterally- that all of these things were supposedly essential post-9/11 when they really weren't. I think, however, the current attitude seems to be a consequence of the paradigm shift that has been made (accepted?) that treats terrorism (and the prevention thereof) as a covert/military operation instead of a law enforcement issue.

[Puzzler]

16. By the same logic most Californians should be freaked out about Charles Mason being near them.

.

[TahitiNut]

20. I must have missed something. Since when have these people received 'due process' ...

... and convicted of some crime? The last I heard, they've been denied habeas corpus, legal representation, humane treatment, and a fair trial by a "jury of their peers." Nonetheless, they've been imprisoned for up to seven years under circumstances that qualify as "cruel and unusual."

Release them!

[sarge43]

21. That, too. That most of all. n/t