Gitmo, the economic driver

One of President Barack Obama’s campaign pledges was to close the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He’s since kept that pledge and recently requested $80 million from Congress to do so. The U.S. Senate’s 90-6 vote, in a rare bipartisan effort, refused to provide funding for Gitmo’s closure thus handing him his first major political setback as president.

On one hand the Obama administration’s problem is it can’t find or convince our allies to accept non-convicted Gitmo detainees. And on the other, some detainees can’t be repatriated back to their home countries for fear of retribution or even death.

A few Senate Democratic supporters of Obama acknowledged that his administration failed to provide details of the facility’s closure. Basically, the senators wanted to know where the remaining 240 prisoners would be relocated, especially those convicted as terrorists.

Though the senators’ objections are understandable, their stance seems shortsighted at best and at worst an attempt at self-preservation with the 2010 elections on the horizon. They have to know the U.S. already holds terrorists – foreign and homegrown – in our prisons. If the senators and their constituents are afraid that imprisoned terrorists would either escape or somehow influence their fellow prisoners, there is no basis for that argument.

American Supermax prisons have never had an escape and current foreign and domestic prisoners are held in isolation. According the Washington Post: “Thirty-three international terrorists, many with ties to al-Qaida, reside in a single federal prison in Florence, Colo., with little public notice.”

The same story said, “One economically pressed community in Montana is bucking the trend of ‘not in my back yard.’ Some residents in Hardin are volunteering to open their unused, 464-bed Two Rivers Regional Detention Facility to the detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The City Council recently passed a resolution in support.”

On the domestic front, what about America’s homegrown terrorists in our prisons or those roaming remote areas out west? John Walker Lyndh, the “American Taliban,” is in prison in Indiana. Other domestic terrorists in Supermax prisons include, Terry Nichols, conspirator in the Oklahoma city bombing; Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber; and Eric Robert Rudolph, the abortion clinic and 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bomber.

Known domestic terrorists operate and recruit in several remote areas of U.S. Western states. White supremacist groups maintain training facilities in Oregon and Montana, just to name two. And scattered throughout the U.S., including Virginia, are members of the Ku Klux Klan. In addition, since the U.S. is a democratic and equal-opportunity country, we even have female domestic terrorists. Let’s be real though. Does anyone believe released Guantanamo “enemy combatants” will infiltrate or influence any American, white supremacist or KKK terrorist group?

The bottom line is most elected leaders of most states are opposed to housing Gitmo’s prisoners. But if the U.S. economy remains stagnant, Hardin, Mont., won’t be the only locality willing to accept Guantanamo’s prisoners and the accompaning jobs and dollars.

Nelson Graves, of Augusta County, is a columnist for The News Virginian. E-mail him at .