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January 30, 2009 10:32 PM UTC

Gazette Debunks GOP Gitmo Freakout

  • 13 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

It’s refreshing to see the conservative Colorado Springs Gazette not catching the local GOP’s collective vapors over the possibility that some detainees from Guantanamo Bay might be relocated to Florence’s ultra-high security federal prison, Supermax.

Republican lawmakers pounced…gathering 35 signatures on a petition asserting that the nearly 250 Guantanamo detainees, many of them accused of membership in terrorist groups, would threaten “the safety and security of the communities in which they will ultimately be housed.”

The petition, which was sent to Ritter this week, also expresses “grave concern about the economic and security risks that the relocation of Guantanamo detainees to Colorado pose for our state and local communities.”

What the petitioners are saying is that Supermax, the most secure prison in America and 40 miles from Colorado Springs, is not secure enough to safely house the most dangerous prisoners.

In its 14 years of operation, no one has ever broken out of Supermax, escaped while being transferred there, or killed a guard. [Pols emphasis]

But the mere presence of Guantanamo detainees makes the petitioners nervous. State Rep. Marsha Looper, R-Calhan, said Thursday that the arrival of Guantanamo detainees would be “an emotional catastrophe,” making Coloradans worry that they could be a terrorist target…

Looper is, uh, loopy here. The Unabomber is housed in Florence – does anyone in Colorado feel threatened in that they might receive a bomb in the mail because he’s housed in the same state?

Speaking of “emotional catastrophe,” without a shred of irony:

State Sen. Ken Kester, a Las Animas Republican whose district includes the prison, was quoted in a Republican news release as saying: “I don’t really think it would be appropriate to mix these terrorists with the current prison population. They’re going to be in our prisons recruiting inmates to kill American servicemen and civilians.”

U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, the Colorado Springs Republican whose district includes Supermax, also weighed in. “I am extremely concerned about security risks to the men and women who would guard suspected or convicted terrorists,” he said in a letter sent Wednesday to Obama. “The risk to the communities that house these facilities would also be unacceptable…I must insist,” Lamborn told the president, “that you not transfer these suspected terrorists into facilities in the State of Colorado.”

But convicted terrorists are already here…

And as the Gazette goes on to explain, inmates at Supermax are kept in solitary confinement with no opportunity to associate with any fellow inmates. And Guantanamo detainees are no worse than the people who are already there.

It’s been noted that some Democrats, notably Rep. John Salazar, have also come out against transferring these inmates to Supermax. But Salazar has never made any of these absurd sensational (not to mention bogus) claims to justify his position. Rep. Salazar thinks the detainees should go to military facilities like Ft. Leavenworth in Kansas–which would do very little to satisfy Lamborn and Kester, who don’t want them anywhere they might be unquestionably subject to U.S. law.

This is, in our view, a very important distinction to make: between objections that are reasonable and those better described as contemptible.

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13 thoughts on “Gazette Debunks GOP Gitmo Freakout”

  2. Republicans lost on this issue when they started throwing a hissy fit. Maybe they should have taken a note from John Salazar and tried to make a legal argument.

    When the Gazette is calling Republicans out, you know they’re wrong.

  3. aka the Daily Whine latest piece, just arriving in my inbox is entitled:

    Bring terrorists to Colorado? ‘Not now, not ever’

    “A few days ago, our governor gave the green light to a proposal to house international terrorists at a federal prison in Colorado,” Kester says in a YouTube video released today by Senate Republicans. “…He would not say, ‘not in my back yard.’ ”

    Kester adds, “Well, Supermax is in my Senate district, as are 16 other state and federal prisons. I have no problem saying, ‘Not in my back yard.’ Not now, not ever.”  

    And they’re even on the Internets:

    2. Besides the aforementioned Unabomber, there’s Mossaoui, Ramzi Yousef, Richard Reid the shoe bomber…all already in Supermax. You gonna kick them out because you’re asceered of having terrorists housed there?

      Great Huffington Post piece showing what a national embarrassment the local GOPers have become on this issue:

      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

  4. and at least he’s making a legal rather than an ‘I’m wetting my pants and so should you’ argument here, but on this issue he’s wrong.

    Closing Gitmo is the right thing to do–SuperMax is one of the (if not the) most secure detention facilities in the U.S.

    Prisoners are one lockdown something like 23 hours a day, and under close video and staff supervision for the 1 hour they are not.  Unlike at Gitmo, records are actually kept.  

    The Senate Whiners Republicans are looking like desperate scardy-cats.  Sure, it might inflame their ever-dwindling base, just like screaming about highway safety ads in… (hide the children/bolt the doors) SPANISH…

    but I really doubt it’s going to help them in their electoral process.  Now if Jesus (the Jewish guy, not the landscaper) comes down and registers as a GOP candidate for Governor (both unlikely prospects IMO) then the Dems might have cause to worry.  Otherwise, I don’t see much in the way of GOP gains in 2010.

    1. not suspects. Since the bush administration has botched the chances of convicting many of the Gitmo detainees — by torturing them or messing up any evidence by keeping such poor records — chances are, very few, if any, will ever make their way to Supermax. But it’s no place for suspects.

  5. if Lamborn wakes up every morning checking his shoes to make sure that “Supermax” prisoner Richard Reid did not tamper with his Mary Jane mules.  Of course, with the facility housing right-wing terrorists like Eric Rudolph and Terry Nichols, maybe EPC R’s don’t want the public to be reminded that there are dangerous Talibanicans housed near by.  Or maybe Lamborn is not as “extremely concerned about security risks to the men and women who would guard” and does not get his skirt in a wad if the prisoners are idologically aligned with him.

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