House of Eratosthenes

Q: If Guantanamo Bay prison is closed, where will the detainees go?

A: The Bush administration negotiated for many months with countries whose nationals are still at Guantanamo, trying to get them to take in detainees.

Some governments have denied the Guantanamo prisoners are in fact their citizens, while others have been reluctant to agree to U.S. requests to imprison or monitor returnees.

Some of those being held include Chinese Muslim Uighurs who Washington says would face persecution if they returned home, together with Libyans, Uzbeks and Algerians who are also at risk.

Some could be granted asylum by other nations if their own countries refuse to take them.

Last month, Portugal’s foreign minister urged other European countries to take in Guantanamo prisoners, saying such a move could make it easier for Obama to close the prison. Switzerland has said it is open to taking in detainees.

Q: What other problems does Obama face in closing the prison?

A: There are a host of legal and practical problems, particularly concerning those who are deemed “too dangerous” to free. More than a third of the prisoners left are from Yemen and the State Department has still not been able to reach a deal with that country on either security assurances or guarantees that prisoners would be treated humanely.

The Bush administration wanted to try about 80 Guantanamo prisoners on terrorism charges and held a few dozen others it did not intend to try but believed should be kept locked up. Those facing charges include five accused Sept. 11 plotters.

Biggest problem of all, is political:

The consensus among those who have most feverishly backed The Chosen One to become our next President, is that war, along with all strains of human conflict, should have been banished to the ash heap of history. Kumbaya, peace-and-love, let’s-all-get-along.

These are tie-dyed hippies who think, when two sides are in conflict, one side or the other can unilaterally decide hostilities shall cease and the other side will follow suit. Jean-Luc Picard diplomacy. No such thing in this big loving happy universe as a genuine badass. The question that must arise, is what happens when their vision of human affairs is put to the test?

I doubt the terrorists are of the proper mindset to learn much from the peace-and-love murmurings of othes, even as their jail cells are opened. That isn’t just my opinion, the Dalai Lama has said as much:

“It is difficult to deal with terrorism through non-violence,” the Tibetan spiritual leader said delivering the Madhavrao Scindia Memorial Lecture here.

He termed terrorism as the worst kind of violence which is not carried by a few mad people but by those who are very brilliant and educated.

“They (terrorists) are very brilliant and educated…but a strong ill feeling is bred in them. Their minds are closed,” the Dalai Lama said.

Maybe this would be a good debate to have right now. What does a belligerent person, dedicated to the destruction of others, do when he encounters other people who treat him with mercy? I know what the fairy tales teach me about that. What does reality say?

And how many of us are truly ready to heed reality’s counsel?

As for me… bring it on.

My step-son has looked these people in the eye. Their God says to kill us.

What are ya gonna do in the face of that? They don’t know the words to “Kumbaya”, and if they did, they’d only sing it to distract us while they wired us up with explosives.
- philmon | 01/22/2009 @ 17:26
I’m having trouble understanding why we in America (or even in America’s government) should care about what happens to some detainee once he is returned to his home country. He’s their citizen, right? Wouldn’t a liberal like Obama say that we here in the West really have no right to judge how other nations treat their citizens?

And in a way, a liberal asking that question would be right. Not for the reason he thinks, but seriously…why would our leaders bear any culpability at all for how the leaders of foreign countries treat the citizens returned to them? If they’re tortured or killed? We can lodge a diplomatic protest, either directly or through the UN, but really, if say Qadaffi throws a Libyan terrorist in jail and has the guards beat the tobacco juice out of him every Friday, isn’t the blood on his hands?

Help me out here people…I’m having trouble understanding things.

Course, the whole thing would be a lot simpler if the Gitmo guards were simply dragging these guys outside and putting a bullet through their brains following interrogation. You know, sort of like terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq do to our servicemen?

Oh wait…al Queda et al doesn’t do that. they cut their frackin heads off, they don’t do anything clean and humane like a summary execution. My bad.
- cylarz | 01/22/2009 @ 18:32
Star Trek: The Next Generation (the tv series, not movie series) begins and ends with this mysterious “godlike entity” known as Q somehow taking the time and trouble to “judge humanity for its crimes.” This seems to me to be liberalism defined, in a way: Certain components of nature, such as…man (when compared to non-human things) and America (when compared to other countries) are up for judgment by unknown, unnamed, undefined things. Other things, like spiders that kill flies in non-humane ways, killer whales killing seals in non-humane ways, Al Qaeda operatives cutting our soldiers’ heads off…wives lying to their husbands about who the kid’s father is…illegal aliens hopping across our borders…snot-nosed kids that don’t know their butts from a hole in the ground, getting each other pregnant…are not to be judged. They’re all “gonna do it anyway.”

That’s the downfall of secular liberalism. You have got to have a deity. Some intelligence, more whimsical and illogical than Jehovah ever was, who thinks there’s something terrible about being the CEO of a successful corporation, but it’s quite alright to kidnap and butcher a little girl as long as you’ve had an abused childhood that will justify it.
- mkfreeberg | 01/22/2009 @ 22:00
Now that you mention it, I do find it a little amusing that Q wasn’t interested in judging the Klingons, the Romulans, the Vulcans, or the Borg. No, he singled out human beings for some reason. This came up in the very first STTNG episode of the very first season. The series premier. I believe it was called “Encounter at Farpoint” or something. The very first “strange new world” encountered by the intrepid Enterprise crew…is a deity-like being who presumes to judge all of humanity, using Capt Picard and his crew as the proxy prisoner.

What amazed me even more about that episode (wasn’t it a 2 parter?) is that the crew and its captain actually pass Q’s test. Later in the series, they run into him a few more times, and at least once he says that “the trial never ended.” But even so, evidently Picard and Co impressed him enough that he and the Continium were willing to let them go, apparently no longer guilty of being “a savage, child race.”

I remember watching that and thinking, “Riiiiiight. Sadly, I don’t think the Federation ideals will ever be realized on this world, much less will we achieve the first requirement for membership – a century of global peace.” Not happening. The terrorists would say that it is against their religion for people to stop killing each other.

Nonethless your point is well taken. Just thought I’d add that.
- cylarz | 01/22/2009 @ 23:18

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On Closing GuantanamoThursday, January 22nd, 2009

On Closing Guantanamo
Thursday, January 22nd, 2009