Okay so Senate Democrats did something seemingly crazy this week. After years of railing against the illegal U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay Cuba -- they voted to withhold the funding necessary to close Guantanamo (aka Gitmo).
But on closer examination, I'm not sure it's all that crazy. I think their (subconscious) calculus goes something like this:
1. Many of the prisoners at Gitmo are actually innocent -- swept up in the panicked raids after 9/11.
2. Innocent prisoners if given a fair trial, will likely go free for lack of evidence.
3. In many cases they can't go back to their home countries -- because they would be tortured or killed there.
4. So it's conceivable that a U.S. court might be willing to grant asylum in the U.S. to innocent Gitmo prisoners.
5. But because we tortured the hell out of them at Gitmo -- once free they actually could become terrorists now (for the first time) in retaliation for what we did to them. After being illegally imprisoned and tortured for 7 or 8 years, what would you do?
Hence the seemly crazy statement, "we don't want terrorists released in the U.S." actually does have a certain perverse logic to it.
I think what Senate Democrats are actually saying between the lines is, "we can't give these people a fair trial now because of the possibility they might rightly retaliate for the illegal and immoral acts we already committed against them." What a complete fucking mess.
2 comments:
thanks for stating exactly what i've been thinking.
Well that's a relief. I'm glad to have company in seeing it this way -- cuz usually here in Crazytown it's "party of 1." You know what they say about great minds...
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