Meet Your New Roommate or Obama's Plan to House the Guantanamo Prisoners
Sometimes, I get confused when people use slang or terms of art. I'm more of a straightforward, un-fancy communicator. I'm ashamed to admit it might be something I have in common with our former president--although I tend not to make up my own words.
Something I am less ashamed to admit is that I don't always follow some of the terms bandied about on the blogs. One of those terms is "strawman." I'm from the Midwest. Out here, strawmen live in fields and they don't generally talk, which makes it difficult for them to participate in arguments.
But, I'm proud to admit that today, for possibly the first time, I feel I have an absolute grasp of what "creating a strawman" means. Thanks, Republicans!
See if you can follow the trail of metaphorical straw. (Side Note: Real strawmen leave a straw trail too, only it's not metaphorical and it makes me sneeze.) From what I'm hearing coming out of conservative mouths this week, here's what I've got so far:
- President Obama is going to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.
- There are bad men who have been living there for many years.
- We will have to find a new place for the bad men.
- During the campaign, then-Senator Obama and his staff saved money by asking supporters to allow out-of-town campaign staff to stay in their spare bedrooms.
- We can save money and solve the detainee housing crisis by asking Obama supporters to house terrorists.
Wheeeeeeee. Because it's not like we have maximum security prisons or anything. Those prisoners are coming to your neighborhood and Republicans want you to be hiding-under-your-bed-wetting-your-pants scared.
Honestly. It's not like we should expect anything remotely honest from the people who want you to believe that dinosaurs weren't extinct until a few thousand years ago, at which point we were calling them dragons. But just how stupid do they think we are?
Don't answer that. I can only handle one strawman per day.
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Cross posted, as usual, at Dagblog.com
NIMBY. Before you know it, there will be converted prison guards in Leavenworth, KS setting up madrassas for the neighborhood kids. Oooh, it's a slippery slope Orlando.
May 7, 2009 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh I have so much straightening up to do. Must de-fur the air matress since that's Smokey's favorite hiding spot. Throw out all the bacon in the fridge (it's turkey bacon, but still I want to be hospitable). Will they be assisting in rent? Just saying, times are hard in NYC.
May 7, 2009 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
dijamo - If the federal gov't assists with the rent, just wanted you to know that in 2001 (the latest number I could find), the average yearly cost per prisoner in the US was $22,650. Or a respectable $1887.50 per month. :-)
Surely, it's gone up since then. Don't take a nickel less!
May 7, 2009 7:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Does anybody know the real details of this?
Are these people going to be tried or just transfered with the same legal status?
Are they going to be locked up max-security for life? Or will they get out at some point and get naturalized as citizens and get Medicare and Social Security?
May 7, 2009 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are no specific details because the detainees are individuals, not a collective that can be treated as a herd. Some may be legitimate terrorists and can be tried as war criminals. Others may be insurgents who fall under POW status and thus the Geneva Conventions. Others may be completely innocent bystanders who need to be returned to their home and exonerated publicly.
Or they could all just be rounded up and shot or stuffed down a hole and forgotten about like Noriega.
May 8, 2009 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I mean, are these real questions, because in my mind the current situation is much worse. These are individuals who are being collectively labeled as enemy combatants without rrial, without evidence, and without other legal protections offered by their native country or the detaining country.
May 8, 2009 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course it is lost on the GOP that we had a couple hundred thousand POW's in prison camps in places like Kansas during WW2. And of course, there was nothing to fear there, as they were only Germans, you know, Nazis, members of the SS, Luftwaffe, Gestapo, etc...nice guys that were not a threat or in any way to be feared.
May 7, 2009 8:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Surely, you are talking about the killing of 250 German POWs in Utah?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salina_Utah_POW_massacre
May 7, 2009 9:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
That link says 9 people were killed and 20 injured. One of the guards fired a 250 round magazine in their tent from the guard tower.
May 8, 2009 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, I should have said "home of 250 POWs" - my mistake. On the other hand, does the fact that it's only 9 changes everything? I also wonder how long these POWs were actually held inside the US.
May 8, 2009 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Apparently being a foreign national in a detainment camp automatically makes you a terrorist.
This is the sublime idiocy of the "global war on terror." No real attempt was made to distinguish terrorists from terrorist sympathizers or enemy combatants. Is a 15 year old boy who kills a U.S. soldier during a firefight in Afghanistan a terrorist?
A Post story suggests the Bush administration made no real effort to assemble cases against these people. The goal seems to have been to keep them penned up until the terrorists surrendered and victory was achieved.
Not sure how you can determine whose backyard these folks belong in. Nobody seems to know who they are.
May 8, 2009 12:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
The GOP is really reduced to being a bunch of frat-boys flaming their own flatulence with their ankles behind their ears. I don't know whether to laugh or puke at the spectacle.
Gawd - I had tuned out of this whole 'debate', didn't realize it had gotten this ridiculous!
May 8, 2009 6:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is only the beginning. Ridiculous hardly covers it!
May 18, 2009 10:34 PM | Reply | Permalink