INKS | Git-mo prisons
With all of the media attention on the recent economic stimulus package, I feel many Americans have forgotten about an important unsolved issue: the detainees at Guantánamo Bay.
One of President Barack Obama's first actions was to issue an executive order on the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base Detention Camp.
In that order, he outlined a plan to immediately review all of the Guantánamo detentions; those reviews will be carried out by several cabinet members, with the attorney general coordinating the process. After the review board makes its ruling, detainees will either be released or prosecuted and transferred to another prison. This process is to be completed by January 22, 2010.
In addition to that executive order, Obama also created task forces made up of the same cabinet members. One will explore the "lawful options ... with respect to the apprehension, detention, trial, transfer, [or] release" of those who have been detained as a result of counterterrorism operations. The other will review interrogation policies in order to ensure that we are using "safe, lawful, and humane" methods of interrogation.
Now, I have absolutely no problem with the last two executive orders; however, I do have a problem with closing Guantánamo Bay. If Obama's goal is to change our detention policies to reflect his view of the Constitution (which I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing with in this column), then he has already done this with the last two executive orders. Closing Guantánamo Bay does absolutely nothing to stop human rights violations; it simply changes the location where the detainees are held, and that creates a problem.
We already have a problem of overcrowding in our prison system, and adding another 300 detainees to that prison system only creates more problems. Where does Obama want to put these detainees?
We cannot put them in the general population of a prison. Prison violence is already far too high, and the last thing we want to do is stick alleged terrorists where they probably will not last more than a couple days around other inmates.
If we decide to segregate them in a normal facility, we must ensure that there are no chances of a terrorist crossing into the general population or vice versa. The results of that would be disastrous not only for the inmates, but for our nation's public image. America will not look better if Obama moves the Guantánamo detainees to a normal prison only to have some neo-Nazi gang serve vigilante justice.
So this leaves us in a position of building a new prison. If CMU could not build a new education building in a year, I doubt the federal government is going to be able to build a secure prison. Even if it could be built within that time frame, where would we put it? Americans have a "not in my backyard" attitude toward windmills. How do you think they will react to a prison for terrorists?
Obama got caught up in "undoing the wrongs" of the Bush presidency, and now he has issued an order that is both unfeasible and unnecessary. Change the detention and interrogation policies, but keep Guantánamo open; otherwise, it's time to start construction.
Unfortunately, I think Obama will choose the latter.
Nathan Inks is chairman of the College Republicans. He can be reached at n.d.inks@gmail.com.
