I understand the degree of difficulty that pres. Obama and many members of Congress feel they have in closing Gitmo. A proportion of the people incarcerated there– some for more than seven years now– are people against whom no credible evidence of wrongdoing has yet been found; but a proportion are people who, serious-minded US officials believe, are guilty of serious misdeeds in the past who could be reasonably expected to engage in serious anti-US misdeeds if released in the future.
Many members of Congress have now loudly gone on the record saying they don’t want these “terrorists” shoved into their back yard.
(We can also remember that the way they have been treated since their capture and incarceration may well have increased rather than mitigated their level of anti-Americanism.)
I have a solution, that we could call the Abe Lincoln solution.
The biggest point to remember is that the conundrum Obama faces regarding Guantanamo is not of his making. It is the responsibility of the Bush-Cheney team.
Back during the US civil war, as the war dead from both sides notched up to unprecedented levels, Pres. Lincoln decided to turn the extensive grounds of Robert E. Lee’s mansion in northern Virginia into a war cemetery. Because Lee was responsible for starting the civil war (correction: for prolonging the civil war ~HC), Lincoln felt it was only appropriate to bury a good portion of the war dead on Lee’s front lawn. That was the origin of the Arlington Cemetery.
My solution is therefore to find out where George W. Bush and Dick Cheney plan to spend the rest of their lives and build US Supermax prisons right in their back yards. Expropriate some of their own, no doubt extensive, lawns to do this, if possible. (Better still, build prison facilities that are far more humane than the present breed of Supermaxes.)
This is a policy headache, and a moral dilemma, that Bush and Cheney got our country into. We should never forget that– and never let them forget it, either.
18 thoughts on “Closing Gitmo: The Abe Lincoln solution”
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Helena:
How did you arrive at the belief that R E Lee was
responsible for starting the U S civil war?
Hadn’t realized Lincoln was involved in the Cemetery decision…. (It’s not mentioned in the nps web site for Arlington) Yet Lincoln might well have thought the decision “fitting” — considering that when the rebellion broke out, Lincoln had offered command of all federal forces to Lee — who demurred while awaiting Virginia’s decision. Virginia also rebelled, Lee went “south” and eventually became commander of rebel forces…. Had Lee stayed with the Union, the war likely would have been over much, much quicker.
Of some note, technically, the estate in question was owned by Lee’s wife — a direct descendant of Martha Washington. (Curiously, the USSC later ruled in her family’s favor and paid compensation for the land)
I still like the idea Helena — build a supermax in Crawford Tex…. and hey, put the Bush Library in it too.
Technically, perhaps this could be called the Montgomery Meigs solution:(Lincoln’s trusted quartermaster general — a son of Georgia btw – who recommended the idea)
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/meigs.htm
Lincoln likely approved. 😉
Helena, you say:
“The biggest point to remember is that the conundrum Obama faces regarding Guantanamo is not of his making. It is of the making of the Bush-Cheney team.”
I can agree on one level with that notion, but surely the underlying culprit(s) is the deeply entrenched “ruthless political imperialism” of the US that goes way ways back … (even the civil war itself to my mind was a major ‘imperial war’ with the north imposing its political will militarily on the south)
The idea that President Obama and his team is less of an imperialist, in the good ol’ US tradition, than the Bush/Cheney team is one that doesn’t fly for me. Yes, a different ‘style’ and ‘tone’, but surely just a more outwardly pleasant face (and a more eloquent tongue) on the same underlying ruthless imperial war machine.
I do like listening to the guy, who wouldn’t, he’s a master with words,(a bit like Tony Blair used to be in the UK!), but as such he’s potentially far more dangerous than Bush and Cheney could ever be!!!!!
I recommend a read of Sibel Edmonds new piece at CommonDreams.org, ‘Two Sides Of The Same Coin: Heads-Heads’. It puts my fears into words far more eloquently than I ever could myself.
My own view is something along the lines of the US is a one party state with a sort of two party face – doing a ‘good cop, bad cop’ routine.
It will take something pretty major to happen in the US for the ‘WE THE PEOPLE’ to get their Republic back!
It ain’t that hard, repatriate them back to their countries like we would do with a foreign common criminal. Isn’t that the rule of law?
Why do we need taxpayer money to try and then feed these radicals for life. They haven’t committed a crime on US soil, why should be housed in a US jail. And the innnocent fellas that the Pakistani sold us for the reward money, send them back and get a refund.
I understand the degree of difficulty that pres. Obama and many members of Congress feel they have in closing Gitmo.
Democrat have the majority in congress before and now, it does not make scene we expecting thing change here.
The argument those Congress memebrs that these very dengrouse detaianes about 250 of them (100 Yamans) have adopted a, “not in my backyard” philosophy.
So US already handle an assorted collection of murderers, rapists, arsonists, drug pushers and users, kidnappers, bunko artists, extortionists, pornographers, and child molesters! And nationwide, there’s rarely an escape.
So as for detaianes you iether free them if there are no charges can stick to thier case, or bring them to the court, even though most of them were cought in war zone or other place like Yaman, so should they be POW case for them?
“Several vessels, in consequence of General Maitland’s famous evacuation of Port au Prince, arrived in the Delaware with French Royalists on board..From sinister motives of some persons a fearful representation of their numbers, and the numbers of their armed negroes, had been made to the Governor, and by him to the President.
Whereupon without a moment’s hesitation, the Upper House of Congress proceeded to pass a law to prevent the landing of these unfortunate people; and if the law had passed and been executed it was not easy to see how they could have avoided perishing…”
Thus did William Cobbett begin his account of the desperate measures whereby public opinion in Philadelphia had been mobilised to prevail upon the House and the President not to expel the refugees from Haiti. (Letter to Wm. Pitt Sept 1804)
He ended his account with the words “Woe unto him who has to sustain the wrath of a coward.”
I forget the exact date it but it was sometime in the late 1790s and the Senate hasn’t changed much since then, has it?
There was nothing to fear from the bedraggled survivors of the Revolution in Haiti, just as there is nothing to fear from the remnnants of the men who have been (courtesy of the Senate) systematically dismantled and tortured in Guantanamo Bay. We still have the “wrath of the cowards” to fear though. And there is a roll call of their names in Washington.
Helena:
I have depended on you for a clear eyed, well informed, educuated, truly “fair and balanced” commentary on world affairs, middle eastern especially.
I think your suggestion about what to do with the Gitmo prisoners is just too cute.
And it seems to rely on misinformed ideas about U S history.
Please get serious.
G S herscher
Not speaking for Helena of course, but how ’bout “ironic.”
I’m among those a lot less charitable at the moment towards Obama’s decision about “preventive detentions” — agree more with Greenwald & esp. Maddow. See this gem:
http://tinyurl.com/qg46lr
Minority report anyone? I was un-nerved by all the democrats on the TV today making excuses for Obama, expressing confidence he’ll figure this out…. (reminds me of all the democrats who apparently went along with torture while allegedly doing “oversight”)
Scott
Thanks for that link. Scary stuff eh!!!!
It’s good to know there are some clear voices sounding out the warnings.
Sibel Edmonds is obviously not the only one!
Under Obama not only “the war against terror” is continued (renamed “the war against Al Qaida”), but the same is true for some of the detention and torture practices of the Bush administration.
Watch for instance this interview with Jeremy Scahill on Democracy Now about the “extrajudicial terror squad” still operating in Guantanamo:
Little Known Military Thug Squad Still Brutalizing Prisoners at Gitmo Under Obama
Obama’s shallow rhetoric
You just wait to see US troop out of Iraq, Peace in ME with Two state, and Guantanamo Close down…
I go to deep sleep see you after 2011 and see what changes then?
Titus
And the innocent fellas that the Pakistani sold us for the reward money, send them back and get a refund.
Those innocent fellas the Neocons bought in Pakistan are owed what cannot be repaid. They have been imprisoned and tortured for no reason other than to provide the wraiths of terrorists to an eager audience in the US.
Salah
So as for detainees you either free them if there are no charges can stick to their case, or bring them to the court…
Free them or try them in a real court. Simple as that. The results would be most of them walking. And talking. And that’s what Obama and the Neocons have decided they cannot allow. No one can be allowed to tell the truth about this bogus war that Obama is now escalating.
bevin
…just as there is nothing to fear from the remnants of the men who have been (courtesy of the Senate) systematically dismantled and tortured in Guantanamo Bay. We still have the “wrath of the cowards” to fear though. And there is a roll call of their names in Washington…
It is not the wrath of cowards we have to fear but the continuing injustice unleashed by those who have knowingly imprisoned and tortured innocent people in order to justify their aggression. Obama is now one of them.
US Double Standards?
Tell your loved Obama who used Abraham Lincoln as the symbolic nature of his presidency that things in nice speeches and talking let see your cats and behaviour to the symbolic nature of Abraham Lincoln who unslave your grand fathers dear president.
Hey John Francis, Musharaf is partially to blame because he rounded up the wrong characters and clearly send them for the money he got in return. Do we agree that they should be sent back to Pakistan? Or do we need to give them a greencard and a lifetime pass for Disneyland? Can we get a partial refund at least?
Can we get a partial refund at least?
Humm, you brought here “refund”
Who should pay for the damages in Iraq in two wars?
Who should pay for Iraq 13 years of sanction that caused 5,000,000 baby died, while many UN and independent agencies voices that the sanction is damaging Iraqis not the regime?
Who pay for the killing of dozen Iraqi scientists by Mossad?
Who pay Iraq for the destruction of nuclear research centre in Baghdad in 1981 “Oration Oprah”
Who pay Iraq for the distraction of nuclear reactor that was shipped from Franc to Iraq and Mossad did plant explosives designated just after the shipment went to the ocean.
Who pay compensation for the Egyptian Scientist Dr. Yahya Al-Mashad in Paris by Mossad cell headed by Tzipi Livin
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article4791158.ece
The list long so do you still waiting for “partial refund”?
Can we get a partial refund at least?
Humm, you brought here “refund”
Who should pay for the damages in Iraq in two wars?
Who should pay for Iraq 13 years of sanction that caused 5,000,000 baby died, while many UN and independent agencies voices that the sanction is damaging Iraqis not the regime?
Who pay for the killing of dozen Iraqi scientists by Mossad?
Who pay Iraq for the destruction of nuclear research centre in Baghdad in 1981 “Oration Oprah”
Who pay Iraq for the distraction of nuclear reactor that was shipped from Franc to Iraq and Mossad did plant explosives designated just after the shipment went to the ocean.
Who pay compensation for the Egyptian Scientist Dr. Yahya Al-Mashad in Paris by Mossad cell headed by Tzipi Livin
The list long so do you still waiting for “partial refund”?
A United Nations resolution condemning “defamation of religion” as a human rights violation.