Cave-Ins Upon Cave-Ins

by dday

I’m fairly livid at my party right now. First we had the President withholding the release of prisoner abuse photos. Then the Department of Homeland Security responded to conservative whiners and pulled the report on right-wing extremism, which I’m sure will be a great comfort to everyone during the next Ruby Ridge or Pittsburgh cop shooter. And then…

A bill by Senate Democrats would fund the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but it would block the transfer of any of the detainees to the United States.

The move is aimed at sidestepping a political minefield that President Obama has confronted in his promise to close the military prison during his first year in office. Lawmakers of both parties have bristled at the notion of bringing Guantanamo terrorism suspects to detention facilities in the United States […]

The administration has yet to produce a plan for dealing with the approximately 240 Guantanamo detainees, but Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has said that between 50 and 100 would end up in U.S. facilities.

The $96.7-billion measure headed for a House vote today contains no funds to transfer the Guantanamo detainees, though the Pentagon retains the ability to seek informal approval to move funds from other accounts.

So they appropriate money to close Gitmo, but not transfer the prisoners. That floating island of plastic must be looking pretty good right about now.

I think the main reason here is that the White House has not presented a formal plan for transfer. But we all know what this looks like – Democrats caved to the patently ridiculous charge that dangerous terrorists will be let loose in America to shop at Wal-Mart and play in your corporate softball game, instead of leaving the prisoners among the nice tropical breezes of Guantanamo. I thought the era of paying attention to ridiculous wingnut hissy fits had ended, but clearly not in Washington. They’re still acting like the good neutered puppies Grover Norquist always wanted them to be.

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