Gazette: Drunks, not detainees, for Hardin

Thought I'd add Max's letter and Town of Hardin's resolution (0.00 / 0)

Hardin's resolution here

Max's letter to the two river's authority executive director

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by: jhwygirl @ Mon Apr 27, 2009 at 21:30:21 PM UTC

This ... somewhat ... makes sense. (0.00 / 0)

Boy howdy, it's nice to read this stuff ... after the decision has already been made.  I remain frustrated by two things.

1)  The federal rules were elucidated not so much by Baucus until after he saw his decision as the politically safest. You were correct earlier, Jay, when you claimed this to be politically low hanging fruit.  NIMBYism is often that way.

2)  I remain frustrated with many of my fellow progressives.  We all cried loudly for the shut down of Gitmo.  I am sincerely curious how many really considered what that would mean for those who have been caged and tortured there.  Sending them back to their country of origin is not an attractive or safe option.  a) It is admitting that we held these folk for no reason, even if there was one.  b)  We will never have to own up, as a country, to the actions we have taken.  c)  I still believe that if these men weren't terrorists or terrorist sympathizers before, they likely will be now.

Anybody who's read the things I've written over the last several years knows that my commitment is to the universal application of Habeas Corpus.  We accused them, detained them, brought them to our shores, denied them any voice of defense and now appear for all the world as if we haven't the stomach to actually deal with the immoral consequence of those decisions.  Despite the nice comforting justifications, Baucus is still full of shit on this one.  The prison is available. There is nothing holy or blessed about a fancy federal courthouse.  They could be tried right there at the prison with a minimum of expense for making proper venue.

Security considerations would be monumental and would require far more than a regular detention facility could provide.

That spooky sounding malarkey is still just malarkey.  Where are you going to find a more isolated and secure location than Hardin, Montana? Barrow, Alaska maybe?

Those accused but not yet charged of war crimes that are housed in a Montana facility would then fall within the jurisdiction of our Montana Federal District Courts, where judges already have the fifth-busiest trial docket in the nation.

Special prosecutorial staff have been assigned high priority cases before, and the previous administration would have had these prisoners tried by military tribunal.  That is just so much ass-covering.  These prosecutions could easily be accomplished without transport or public exposure of any kind ... if one of the most powerful Senators in Washington had the balls to cowboy up.

The decision has been made, but I sure as hell don't need Max or the press blowing smoke up my derriere to convince me that it was a wrong decision.  We'll see what happens come next January, when every fine state in the union has said 'not in my backyard'.  

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by: Rob Kailey @ Mon Apr 27, 2009 at 21:33:18 PM UTC

I'm with ya' (0.00 / 0)

I still think the assumptions on which the regs or excuses were based are malarkey. I mean...that these detainees after years of brutal and solitary confinement are in any mental shape to escape in a foreign and hostile country and wreak any real harm is laughable. They're probably barely capable of tying their own shoes at this point.

And it seems to me a lot of the security procedures around terrorist suspects created, separating the detainees from the general public was as much used by the Bush administration to try to shield their decisions and policies from the public as it was to protect us. So I think a lot of the requirements are crap, too.

Whatever.

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by: Jay Stevens @ Tue Apr 28, 2009 at 03:36:02 AM UTC

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