Oh, hey, here's a way the U.S. government could save some money
And maybe [maybe] repair a bit of its damaged global public image in the process...
From the ACLU's review of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013:
There are currently 166 detainees being held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility - at an annual cost of almost $133 million. Holding these same prisoners in domestic federal maximum-security prisons would cost less than $6 million. Of the 166, eighty-six of them, never charged with any crime and cleared for transfer away from Guantanamo, as a result of this legislation will now languish in Gitmo for another year. Moreover, it costs the U.S. taxpayers an additional $69 million annually to keep them cleared for transfer...
"The other 80 detainees," the article goes on, "have either been charged before military commissions, are in perpetual limbo as the government continues to weigh whether it can charge them with any crime, or have been declared to be subject to indefinite detention without charge or trial."
Am I the only one who finds those last two states of ambiguous imprisonment more than a little disturbing? These people are being held in the American equivalent of a gulag while the U.S. government either tries to decide whether it has grounds to charge them with a crime - or because that same government has decided to keep them imprisoned indefinitely without charging them with any crime. (Which, when you think about it, amounts to the same thing.) I know I'm not the first to say it, but that seems just a tad, oh, un-Constitutional.
And - dare I say it? - un-American. Or at least, unlike the America I was taught this nation was supposed to be, back when I was a kid, in a more naive, idealistic time.
From a more modern, pragmatic, bottom-line perspective, this whole thing seems ridiculously expensive, and serves in no way to make this country more secure than would holding these detainees in domestic federal maximum-security facilities.
So, basically, the answer is this: Move these detainees to appropriate domestic federal facilities. Better yet, live up to the intentions of this nation's founders: provide these detainees with due process, and either charge and try 'em, deport 'em, or let 'em go.
From the ACLU's review of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013:
There are currently 166 detainees being held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility - at an annual cost of almost $133 million. Holding these same prisoners in domestic federal maximum-security prisons would cost less than $6 million. Of the 166, eighty-six of them, never charged with any crime and cleared for transfer away from Guantanamo, as a result of this legislation will now languish in Gitmo for another year. Moreover, it costs the U.S. taxpayers an additional $69 million annually to keep them cleared for transfer...
"The other 80 detainees," the article goes on, "have either been charged before military commissions, are in perpetual limbo as the government continues to weigh whether it can charge them with any crime, or have been declared to be subject to indefinite detention without charge or trial."
Am I the only one who finds those last two states of ambiguous imprisonment more than a little disturbing? These people are being held in the American equivalent of a gulag while the U.S. government either tries to decide whether it has grounds to charge them with a crime - or because that same government has decided to keep them imprisoned indefinitely without charging them with any crime. (Which, when you think about it, amounts to the same thing.) I know I'm not the first to say it, but that seems just a tad, oh, un-Constitutional.
And - dare I say it? - un-American. Or at least, unlike the America I was taught this nation was supposed to be, back when I was a kid, in a more naive, idealistic time.
From a more modern, pragmatic, bottom-line perspective, this whole thing seems ridiculously expensive, and serves in no way to make this country more secure than would holding these detainees in domestic federal maximum-security facilities.
So, basically, the answer is this: Move these detainees to appropriate domestic federal facilities. Better yet, live up to the intentions of this nation's founders: provide these detainees with due process, and either charge and try 'em, deport 'em, or let 'em go.