12/15/09

The Obama administration took an important step towards closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay today by announcing that dozens of terrorism suspects currently being held there will be transferred to a prison in Thomson, Illinois.  When retrofitted for greater security, the Thomson Correctional Center will have the same enhanced security attributes as facilities that already house terrorists on American soil.  Local leaders, residents, prison guards - including former Guantanamo Bay prison guards – and their unions fully support the president’s decision and have expressed both their confidence in the prison system’s ability to hold the prisoners and their excitement about the jobs and federal money that will come with the transfer.
 
While the administration is seeking practical solutions to this complex issue, extreme conservatives have simply gone on the attack, politicizing this national security decision.  Extreme conservatives' opposing arguments have attempted to scare Americans in order to perpetuate a narrow political agenda.  Guantanamo Bay and the abuses that it has come to represent have become a rallying cry for Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, and it must be shut down.  It is clear that the extreme conservative attempts to block the closure of Guantanamo Bay will damage our national security by feeding into the terrorist agenda narrative upon which our enemies thrive.  In contrast, this decision is supported by Americans, like those in Thomson, Illinois, who are willing to take on the challenge of repairing America’s image, defeating terrorist propaganda, and protecting our security.    
 
Detainees to be transferred to Thomson, Illinois - local citizens and leaders welcome arrival.  The decision to transfer Guantanamo detainees to the Thomson prison, which will be retrofitted for superior security, has received strong support from local leaders, who have confidence in the American prison system that currently houses terrorists and other dangerous criminals.  CNN reports that, “The governor and other officials have said such a deal could provide up to 2,000 jobs and up to $1 billion in federal money to the area. [Sen. Dick] Durbin, the Senate's second-ranking Democrat, has spoken positively of the plan.”   A recent letter signed by a former congressman and two former U.S. Attorneys from the district that houses the Thomson prison reads, “We write to support the use of federal and state prisons, including the one at Thomson, IL, to house Guantanamo detainees pre-trial and post-conviction... we strongly reject charges that our country’s prisons cannot securely hold terrorism suspects or other dangerous individuals. In fact, these facilities have proven their ability to do just that; they currently hold approximately 195 individuals convicted of terrorism offenses in our federal courts.” Additionally, residents of Thomson do not seem to fear the idea of terrorists housed in their prison, in fact, they welcome the jobs and federal money that come with them.  “Merrie Jo [Paullie], said she was firmly behind turning over the prison... ‘We need the jobs,’ Ms. Pauley, 64, who was village president here for 27 years, said ... The notion that a terrorism suspect could slip away into Thomson without being noticed was unimaginable to Ms. Pauley, who added, ‘If a stranger comes around here, everyone knows within 20 minutes, believe me,’” reports the New York Times.  
 
Another local resident was able to provide a unique perspective.  Chris Sivright a member of the 339th Military Police Company of the Army Reserves, which guarded prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay prison, fully supports the plan, explicitly saying that the Thomson prison is a more secure location than the detention centers at Guantanamo Bay.  “Sivright, a Clinton County Sheriff’s deputy, is not concerned about safety if the detainees are moved to the nearby prison. He sees a lot more positives than negatives in the idea. ‘The State of Illinois is having some money problems. With the economy the way it is, I think it would be good for Thomson,’ said Sivright, who is still a member of the 339th but expects to retire from military service in another year. ‘I don’t know what it’s like at Gitmo now, but from when we were there, I think the prison is in much better shape,’ he said. ‘They’re going to stay inside, for the most part,.. And I think it would be great for Thomson.’” reports the Quad-City Times.  [Washington Post, 12/15/09. CNN, 12/15/09. Abner J. Mikva, Thomas P. Sullivan and Dan K. Webb, Constitution Project Letter, 11/30/09.  NY Times, 11/17/09. Quad-City Times, 12/15/09]
 
Extreme conservatives erupt over moves to hold terrorists in U.S., politicizing national security and besmirching our criminal justice system.  Extreme conservatives have responded furiously to the news that the Obama administration was considering transferring detainees to Thomson, Illinois in order to bring about the closing of the facility at Guantanamo Bay.  As reported in the New York Times, Rep. Mark Kirk, a Republican contender for the U.S. Senate, initially joined with Rep. Don Manzullo (R-IL) to declare: “[a]s home to America’s tallest building, we should not invite Al Qaeda to make Illinois its No. 1 target.”  Since then, Kirk has shifted and seemingly switched positions, only to reverse himself multiple times.  According to the Chicago Tribune, he scaled back his opposition, wanting more information before making a decision.  But his campaign’s petition to President Obama reads, “If your Administration brings Al Qaeda terrorists to Illinois, our state and the Chicago Metropolitan Area will become ground zero for Jihadist terrorist plots, recruitment and radicalization,” noticed Ben Smith at Politico. Other Illinois conservatives have continued to beat the drum.  “Manzullo said he was concerned that Thomson would house the largest collection of terrorists within the U.S.,” reported the Chicago Breaking News.   In a forum in Springfield Illinois, State Sen. Kirk Dillard stated, “I think Al-Qaeda needs to stay in Cuba,” while former Attorney General Jim Ryan said, “No one can tell me there isn’t some risk to bringing such a high-profile terrorist to Illinois that we can’t attract some sleeper cells.”
 
In fact, extreme conservative outcry over the decision is utterly baseless.  The U.S. has a stellar record of safely keeping hardened terrorists behind bars, a reality which exposes extreme conservative positioning on this issue as craven politicization.

Union for Federal Prison Officers: We welcome transfer of Guantanamo detainees to Thomson. When it was first hinted that the government would detain terrorist suspects in Thomson, the American Federation of Government Employees’ (AFGE) Council of Prison Locals (CPL) released a statement saying: “We fully support housing Guantanamo Bay detainees at the Thomson Correctional Center… Furthermore, we do not see a safety risk to the surrounding community. Our correctional officers are the best-trained, most-qualified candidates in the world for this job. We have no doubt BOP correctional officers are up to the task.” [AFGE Statement, via Human Rights First, 11/18/09]

2007 60 Minutes Report: Terrorists “spend up to 23 hours a day in their cells.” In 2007, 60 Minutes reported on the Supermax federal prison in Florence, Colorado, which holds dozens of terrorists who were convicted in civilian court, including: Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged "20th hijacker" in the September 11, 2001 attacks; Ramzi Yusef and Omar Abdel-Rahman, convicted for masterminding the first World Trade Center attack; and Richard Reid, the so-called shoe bomber. According to the former warden there, “Most prisoners spend up to 23 hours a day in their cells, every minute, every meal.” [60 Minutes, 8/14/07]

Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL): GOP “absolutely politicizing the situation.”  The Washington Post reported: “Representative Jan Schakowsky, Democrat of Illinois, who along with the state’s senior Democratic leadership supports the prison deal, dismisses GOP opposition as ‘politics at its worst.’ ‘We can defeat Republican efforts to stop this,’ said Schakowsky, who contends the GOP is ‘absolutely politicizing the situation. They’re looking for any angle that would make the president somehow look soft on terrorists. Fear, in the past, has been their friend.’” [Washington Post, 12/07/09]

Top Illinois legal professionals: End “fear-mongering” over steps to close Guantanamo.  Abner J. Mikva, former Illinois member of Congress and former federal judge, Thomas P. Sullivan, former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Dan K. Webb, also a former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois joined a Constitution Project letter, urging “the elected officials of Illinois to reject the irresponsible fear-mongering and partisan politics that have bogged down the inevitable, and necessary, closing of Guantanamo.” [The Constitution Project, 11/30/09]

[NY Times, 11/16/09. Chicago Tribune, 11/24/09. Politico, 12/15/09. Chicago Breaking News, 12/02/09. The State Journal-Register, 12/14/09]
 
Closing Guantanamo is vital for U.S. national security. A senior administration official explained to ABC News the national security implications of closing Guantanamo: “Closing the detention center at Guantanamo is essential to protecting our national security and helping our troops by removing a deadly recruiting tool from the hands of al Qaeda…Tomorrow’s announcement is an important step forward as we work to achieve our national security objectives.”
 
Former Secretaries of State, military leaders, and national security experts all agree that closing Guantanamo is essential for restoring our country's moral credibility and protecting the safety of Americans:

Former Secretaries of State Kissinger, Albright, Powell, Baker, and Christopher all agreed that closing Guantanamo Bay is vital for repairing the damage it has caused to America’s image. As James Baker, Secretary of State for George H.W. Bush, said forcefully: “Close Guantanamo. We were on a panel together several months ago, and we all agreed, one of the best things that could happen would be to close Guantanamo, which is a very serious blot upon our reputation.” [CNN, 9/20/08]

General David Petraeus has also said, “With respect to Guantanamo, I think that the closure in a responsible manner, obviously one that is certainly being worked out now by the Department of Justice -- I talked to the attorney general the other day [and] they have a very intensive effort ongoing to determine, indeed, what to do with the detainees who are left, how to deal with them in a legal way, and if continued incarceration is necessary -- again, how to take that forward. But doing that in a responsible manner, I think, sends an important message to the world, as does the commitment of the United States to observe the Geneva Convention when it comes to the treatment of detainees.” [General David Petraeus, via Radio Free Europe, 5/24/09]

Matthew Alexander – the pseudonym of the retired Air Force major and interrogator who located the notorious terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi by using conventional interrogation methods –has said that Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo were the main reasons fighters came to Iraq to attack Americans:  “I listened time and time again to foreign fighters, and Sunni Iraqis, state that the number one reason they had decided to pick up arms and join Al Qaeda was the abuses at Abu Ghraib and the authorized torture and abuse at Guantanamo Bay...  Consequently it is clear that at least hundreds but more likely thousands of American lives (not to count Iraqi civilian deaths) are linked directly to the policy decision to introduce the torture and abuse of prisoners as accepted tactics.” [Matthew Alexander, via Harper’s Magazine, 12/18/08]

Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora testified before Congress that the stain on America’s image caused by Guantanamo Bay led directly to American deaths: “Serving U.S. flag-rank officers... 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.” [Alberto Mora, 6/17/08]

What We’re Reading

The logistical challenge of moving personnel and equipment into Afghanistan is growing, especially for fuel deliveries. A suicide bombing at a hotel popular with foreigners killed 8 and injured 40 in Kabul.

Demands by the United States for Pakistan to crack down on a leading Taliban fighter, Siraj Haqqani, have been rebuffed by the Pakistani military.

Iran has learned how to make virtually every bolt and switch for a nuclear weapon, according to assessments by U.N. nuclear officials in internal documents. Iran has also announced that the three Americans who were accused of espionage after entering Iran illegally during a hiking trip will be put on trial.

China and the United States are at a stalemate at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference over how compliance with any treaty could be monitored and verified.

In a major speech at Georgetown University, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that human rights and democracy promotion are central to U.S. foreign policy.

The State Department’s budget has grown, but this growth is mostly reflected in diplomatic security rather than expansion of diplomatic operations.

According to government auditors, the United Kingdom will need billions of dollars more than they have to spend on military modernization, which means that some cuts to operations may happen in the future.

 In the wake of Syria and Turkey lifting their visa restrictions in September, a new closeness with Turkey may represent a move away from Syria’s controversial alliance with Iran.

A new, nationalist political movement sweeping India portends a growing secessionist movement for states to break up into smaller units.

Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi's government is touting its success in persuading the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group to renounce Osama bin Laden's tactics of terrorism.

Commentary of the Day

Stewart Brand explains the various memes which are being used to frame debate at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference.

Doyle McManus explains how an Obama Doctrine is now better defined following his Nobel acceptance speech in Oslo.

The Boston Globe is reassured by the detainment of five Muslim Americans in Pakistani because the plot was uncovered by cooperation from anxious relatives, a valuable example of having Muslim community leaders take the lead in guarding against terrorism.