Well, it’s finally official. After months of denial, government officials, including Vice President Joe Biden, admitted inspection teams have, or are in the process of, assessing security levels for prisons in several states.
It seems people think America is suffering from a shortage of terrorists and now needs to import some to fill in the gap. But seriously, Governors of the States where these facilities are located are lining up to compete for the desperately needed jobs that will be created by moving Islamic combatants from Guantanamo into the American Prison Systems, regardless of what the American people think of it. What a sad commentary of our state of affairs. Radical Islamic Militants will be given undeserved rights and tried under American law. They will be granted access to classified intelligence information, possibly endangering the lives of those who helped in gathering it. But in my opinion, the worst facet of this fiasco will be to insert these extremist ideologues into a prison population already rife with anti-American sentiment. After all, whom do they blame for being put into prison? Guilt is not the issue. Islam is growing rapidly in American prisons. It promises eternal rewards for those who sacrifice their physical existence for Islam. It gives purpose, although it be a false one, to their empty lives.
To place these extremists in American prisons is not in our best interests. It borders on the criminal. It’s suicidal. To bring these Club Gitmo detainees into the American Prison population would be as smart as Russia’s Tsar inviting Lenin or Trotsky to address his Army on “class warfare” in 1917. Just say “NO”! to closing Club Gitmo.
Patricia Houser lives in St. Paul.
