You have to love these well meaning Dems whose values are utopian and whose beliefs are surreal. Here is Senator Feinstein's press release announcing the bill and explaining why she thinks Gitmo should be closed:
Senator Feinstein, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is deeply concerned that open-ended detentions and documented reports of detainee abuse at Guantanamo Bay have tarnished America's reputation and complicated our efforts to fight global terrorism.
"Guantanamo Bay has become a lightning rod for international condemnation," Senator Feinstein said. "This has greatly damaged the nation's credibility around the world. Rather than make the United States safer, the image projected by this facility puts us at greater risk. The time has come to close it down."
"I want to be clear. I am absolutely opposed to releasing any terrorists, Taliban fighters or anyone else held at Guantanamo who is committed to harming the United States.
"At the same time, we must recognize the sustained damage this facility is doing to our international standing. We are better served by closing this facility and transferring the detainees elsewhere."
. . . Guantanamo Bay detainees who are found by the Department of Defense to pose no continuing security threat to the United States or its allies, and who have committed no crime, could be released.
"I believe this legislation works in our national interest in several ways," Senator Feinstein said. "First, it helps to remove a symbol that directly harms our reputation as the world's leader in support for the rule of law. Closing this facility will restore our moral authority, and make our nation more effective in the fight against global terror.
"And conducting trials elsewhere, either in the United States or before internationally recognized tribunals, will give these proceedings a credibility that they would likely not have if they were conducted at Guantanamo Bay."
. . . Throughout much of Guantanamo Bay's operation, the Bush Administration contended that detainees were not subject to protections under the Geneva Conventions, a position likely to make American troops captured on the battlefield face abuse from our enemies. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the Administration must honor the Geneva Conventions.
Now let's subject some of those statements to the harsh light of reality:
Open-ended Detentions - Everyone raise your hand if you feel it acceptable to release enemy prisoners while hostilities are ongoing. Even the liberal wing of the U.S. Supreme Court doesn't claim otherwise. The fact that the individuals held in Guantanmo chose the path of radical Islam and terrorism is a bad decision on their part. The liklihood that hostilities are not going to end soon is their bad luck.
Detainee Abuse - Guantanamo has a better record then most prisons for treatment of the honored guests. Abuse at Guantanamo is the same is at any prison in as much as you do not tolerate it and you punish it when it comes to your attention. What you do not do is shut down a prison facility over it. This is another PC argument with no basis in reality.
Moral superiority and America's tarnished reputation - What utter bull. Tarnished our reputation with whom? Are we talking about the French? I'll go with Fred Thompson's take on that one: "The French jail perfectly nice people for politically incorrect comments, but scold us for holding terrorists at Guantanamo." Or how about the Brits? Ask them how they feel now, with the Feinsteinesque concern of their leftist elite for their own moral superiority resulting in their having al Qaeda terrorists walking about free in Britain, unable to jail them and unable to deport them without running afoul of the EU Human Rights Convention. And just what is EU condemnation worth? These are the people who turned their back on the UK during the Iranian UK-hostage crisis rather then give up a euro in trade with Iran. If you want to talk about a total lack of morality and ethics, you need look no farther then the EU.
The image projected by Gitmo puts us at greater risk - Ms. Feinstein is utterly clueless if she thinks that radical Islamists are either signing up for jihad because of Guanatanamo or that somehow the Islamists will stop attacking us if we close down Gitmo. On the list of Islamist justifications for violence, Gitmo does not even rise to the level of red herring. I strongly suggest she listen to the core Islamist arguments rather then projecting her own beliefs upon them. For but one example, Omar Bakri, the radical cleric who led some of the 7/7 bombers to jihad, justified attacks on America for his young charges because of the Crusades. Yep - the same Crusades that occured centuries before the U.S. came into being. See here.
We are better served by closing this facility and transferring the detainees elsewhere - So what, we put these folks in with our hardened criminals in the federal prison system so they can teach them the joys of jihad? Brilliant suggestion, Dianne.
Because we did not officially treat Gitmo detainees as having Geneva Convention rights, that makes it more likely that ours folks will suffer abuse if captured by the enemy - I do believe that, if Senator Feinstein would simply review any of the tapes of our folks captured by Islamists in Iraq, she will hear the jihadis shouting "Allah Ahkbar" as they saw off the heads, not "Close Guantanamo."
Bottom line - Senator Feinstein is clueless. We are in a war with Islamists who seek our destruction. Let Gitmo be.
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