The Obama Administration has taken the first step towards bringing accused terrorists who have been being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to the United States. Ahmed Ghailani is accused of being an aide to Osama bin Laden, and a bomb-maker connected with the al-Qaida bombings of the two U.S. embassies in Africa which killed 224 people, a dozen of whom were Americans.
The idea behind Guantanamo Bay’s detention camp was to keep such dangerous terrorists off U.S. soil, and away from the American public. If the hundreds of detainees (enemy combatants) now being held at GITMO are dispersed to facilities around the United States, it puts the American people at greater risk in a number of ways.
The greatest risk is that their fellow prisoners may well be exposed to, and some adopt, these terrorists’ radical views of hatred for America and everything it stands for. Violence and death are the bread and butter of these radical terrorists, and we should take no chance that it spreads through U.S. prisons.
Further, whereas the facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is virtually completely isolated (I know, I’ve been there twice) most prisons and jails around the United States are not. Thus, prisons that would house enemy combatants in the United States could be potential terror targets themselves. That is one reason that local leaders in those communities around the nation have been outspoken in their opposition to bringing these suspected terrorists into their own backyards.
The principal responsibility of an Administration and a Congress should be to keep the American people safe. Closing the detention camps at Guantanamo Bay and dispersing dangerous terrorists to facilities around the country is totally at odds with that responsibility.
