For months, Republicans in Congress have fought loudly and strenuously on the public stage against President Obama's plans to close the prison in Guantanamo Bay and bring several of the detainees currently being held there -- many of whom have been now held without trial, or even officially released criminal charges, for several years -- to trial in courts in the United States.
Despite the fact that the United States has successfully tried and conviced both domestic and foreign terrorists in U.S. court for decades, and despite the fact that U.S. prisons on U.S. soil currently hold 355 terrorists, none of whom have escaped, Republicans (and some Democrats) continue to claim that even bringing Guantanamo detainees to U.S. soil for trial would seriously endanger the American public.
In May, RNC Chairman Michael Steele went so far as to say, "Putting these terrorists on American soil is dangerous, naïve and a threat to America's national security." And it seems Republicans have been taking every opportunity to accuse Democrats who support the closure of the prison camp at Guantanamo of irresponsibility, often misrepresenting the facts to smear their political rivals.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter Liz Cheney has been making the talk show rounds for weeks, arguing in support of her father's unconstitutional and unlawful "enhanced interrogation" policies and backing the Republican party line that bringing terrorists to actual justice in our own nation's justice system would somehow endanger the United States. (Liz was caught revising history to bolster her case in a recent debate on the Campbell Brown show by claiming President Bush never planned to bring Guantanamo prisoner's to U.S soil for trial; in fact, Bush did publicly state his plans to try some detainees in U.S. courts in 2006.)
Continuing to capitalize on the Guantanamo issue in an attempt to score political points, just yesterday the Missouri State Republican Party attacked my own Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill for supporting Obama's position on U.S. trials. On Wednesday, Senator McCaskill was quoted by MissouriNet as saying, "We're talking about people who are incredibly violent criminals, and in Missouri we've managed to lock 'em up tight, and we do not have a problem . . ."
In response, the Missouri State Republican Party issued a press release accusing McCaskill of changing her position on Guantanamo detainees, claiming:
Less than a month after defying President Obama’s wishes and voting to prohibit funding for the transfer of terrorists imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay to the United States, Claire McCaskill has changed her position and is now scolding Missourians for their continued opposition to Obama’s plan.
However, Senator McCaskill has actually supported the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention center for some time; over a year ago, in May 2007, she signed on as a cosponsor of a bill introduced by Senator Tom Harkin that would have required then-President George W. Bush to shut down the Guantanamo prison within 120 days. At a stop in Sedalia, Missouri just days after her vote to delay funding for Guantanamo closure until the release of a more detailed plan, McCaskill explained that her vote to delay funding was not about preventing the closure of Guantanamo, but about requesting clarification on closure details:
Well, I think there does need to be a plan. I think first and foremost, everybody needs to take a deep breath and realize the President is not interested in doing anything that would jeopardize the safety of Americans. It is almost silly the way people have begun bandying about this notion that we're gonna let terrorists loose all over America. And, you know, that's not gonna happen.
Given that Senator McCaskill spent much of her previous career as Missouri's State Auditor encouraging the state to demand details before handing over cash, I am fairly certain that, in her case at least, that vote to delay funding had much more to do with the watching federal balance sheet than any secret fear that the U.S. justice system is somehow inadequate to the task of bringing terrorists to trial.
Despite all their bluster about the supposed danger posed to the United States by bringing a small group of accused criminals to trial in a nation with a justice system that has already tried and convicted enough criminals to produce largest prison system in the world, the truth is that Republicans do not have enough votes in Congress to prevent the Congress from authorizing funding for Guantanamo's closure. Loudly attacking Democrats in public over their positions on the closure is about all Republicans can do to try to prevent it.
But for a time, that strategy seemed to be working. Under such intense political pressure from the minority party, many of the more conservative Democrats in Congress have demanded concessions from President Obama on his closure plan. Republican Democratic Independent Senator Joe Lieberman co-sponsored an amendment with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, called Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act, that would have bypassed the Freedom of Information Act to specifically allow the government to prohibit the release of photographs depicting abuse and torture of detainees in U.S. custody.
This amendment was a specific response to an ACLU Freedom of Information Act suit demanding the release of a specific set of photos depicting torture by U.S. authorities, photos that Republicans and some Democrats argue would endanger our troops abroad if publicly released. (See our previous MOMocrats coverage of torture photos here.) But it would grant the executive branch blanket authority to prevent release of any photographic evidence of torture of detainees between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009.
The war funding bill authorizing funding for Obama's planned Guantanamo closure passed the Senate with the Graham-Lieberman amendment attached. But a contingent of liberal House Democrats, including Barney Frank, opposed the addition of the amendment and refused to support any version of the spending bill that would include it.
Late yesterday, a compromise was finally reached when President Obama sent a letter to Congress agreeing to appeal the ACLU case to the Supreme Court to attempt to prevent the release of the torture photos. In exchange, the Congress will authorize funding that will allow the President to bring Guantanamo detainees to trial in the United States for the next four months.
If those who publicly oppose the trial of Guantanamo detainees truly base their opposition on the idea that the very act of bringing those detainees onto U.S. soil for trial will somehow endanger the American public -- if the crux of their argument is that unarmed detainees under constant surveillance will somehow escape the custody of a nation that operates the world's most expensive military complex and the world's largest prison system and then manage to remain fugitive long enough to perpetrate a terrorist attack, then why did the final compromise hinge upon an assurance that the President would direct the executive branch to continue fight the release of photographs depicting torture of those detainees by U.S. authorities while in U.S. custody?
I strongly suspect that when certain U.S. politicians, particularly certain Republican politicians who were heavily involved with authorizing or defending Bush administration detention policies, say that they fear holding trials of Guantanamo detainees inside the U.S. will endanger Americans, what they really mean is that they fear holding these trials will further endanger the American government's reputation, and thereby, American politicians' own reputations, by publicly exposing instances of false imprisonment, abuse and torture.
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