Guantanamo (Gitmo) Bay detainees may soon be headed for a courtroom near you, according to a report on Sunday mornings Fox and Friends. House Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi, have passed a bill that would allow the inmates to be transferred to U.S. soil for prosecution and incarceration.
Lawmakers against the legislation have pointed out that in one fell swoop, House Democrats, by voting for this legislation, have put Americans in danger, have weakened the judicial system and undermined the Constitution.
John Colburson, Congressman from Texas and member of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, explained why bringing the Gitmo detainees here for trial is a bad idea:
Never before in American history have we given foreign soldiers, captured on foreign battlefields, U.S. Constitutional rights. They have now passed a law that, when our American men and women in uniform, capture an enemy soldier on a foreign battlefield, our men and women are going to have to think about the chain of evidence, of reading them their Miranda Rights foreign soldiers will now be able to lawyer-up at U.S. taxpayer expense to be tried in U.S. Courtrooms. Its absurd.
As of now, there are roughly 220 hard-core Islamic terrorist prisoners remaining in the Guantanamo facility, which was opened at the U.S. naval base in Cuba after the Sept. 11 attacks.
President Barack Obama has been a staunch proponent of having the prison closed, announcing on his second day in office that he wanted it closed within a year. The problem is, he hasn't been able to do so because of some major legal and political hurdles. In addition, closing Gitmo entails solving one major problem: no one seems to want the prisoners.
Well, almost no one.
There does seem to be one place where the terrorists will not only be welcome, but the elected officials there are almost begging to get them. Can you guess who it is that wants them that badly? Is it Saudi Arabia, Libya or Yemen?
Nope its Michigan.
Some local officials in and around Standish, Michigan, home to the Standish Maximum Correctional Facility (which is otherwise scheduled to close later this month), think that transferring the worst of the worst from Gitmo will somehow stimulate the local economy and provide jobs in the community.
Former Defense Department terrorism analyst Peter Leitner thinks this is bunk, and he predicts that the security threat posed by importing the terrorists far outweighs any economic benefits:
Michigan will become a magnet for foreign and domestic terror cells, as well as radical organizations of the left and right. If there are homegrown terror cells looking for a good cause, this will be a good cause for them.
Retired Army Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu, a former Army Special Forces officer and author of a book about Gitmo, agrees:
Everyone in Guantanamo is there because he wants to kill Americans. What we’re doing is hanging a target not only on Standish, but also on the whole community, the whole region.
Dont worry, good people of Michigan. Obama, Pelosi and those Democrats who voted for this know what they are doing.
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