Obama Makes Life for Gitmo Inmates Worse

As we all know, President Obama says Gitmo is a disgrace and shows the worst side of America so he’s closing it and moving the inmates to Illinois.  This interesting article from the Weekly Standard shows how the Gitmo inmates actually have a pretty good life but, when they move to Illinois, it will get much, much worse.  Call it the unintended consequences of living under Liberal life (excerpts below):

This past week, the administration confirmed that it had selected an underutilized correctional center in the town of Thomson, in northwest Illinois, as the new home for up to 100 Gitmo detainees. A letter to Illinois governor Pat Quinn announced the administration’s plan for the federal government to buy the prison in Thomson and rebuild one section of it to make the facility even more secure than America’s “supermax” prison in Colorado–where several convicted terrorists are currently housed. This assurance is intended to assuage any concerns over the government’s ability to safely detain the Gitmo detainees on U.S. soil.

Ironically, however, most of the roughly 210 detainees still held at Guantánamo are not in supermax-type facilities at all. At least 70 percent live in communal settings like Camp 4. They can play soccer, basketball, or foosball; exercise on elliptical equipment; and consort with their fellow detainees for up to 20 hours per day in the outdoor recreation area. They can take art classes or learn English. And while tensions flare every now and again, life in Camp 4 is generally calm. Camp officials prefer that the detainees live in this type of setting. It’s easier on the guards and everyone else involved. As the commander of Camp 4 explains, the detainees have to “do something really bad” to get locked up in one of the more secure facilities.

The detainees have access to several satellite television channels and, as one DoD handout notes, a library consisting of “more than 14,000 books, magazines, and DVDs in 18 languages.”

Oddly, the detainees are interested in many aspects of Western culture. Harry Potter is very popular, and with each new movie that comes out the detainees request more of J.K. Rowling’s books.

“Everything you know about out there, they know about in here,” the librarian says. That includes news events. In addition to satellite television, most of the detainees have access to three newspapers–two from the Muslim world and USA Today. The papers are censored, but only to remove any material that the detainees may find lewd, such as advertisements showing a man and woman kissing.

Mohammed al-Qahtani, who was slated to be the 20th hijacker on September 11, 2001, reportedly lives here. There is little chance that the Obama administration will release al-Qahtani, despite all of the controversy surrounding the methods used during his interrogations. (Al-Qahtani was unquestionably subjected to humiliating and degrading treatment during the early days of Guantánamo.) The public outrage would simply be too great. So, it is likely that al-Qahtani will be transferred to the new facility in Illinois–or some other similarly secure facility in the United States–and such terrorists will undoubtedly pine for their days in Cuba once they are locked away in one of America’s more severe correctional facilities.

What’s more: The facilities that are required already exist here in Cuba. Camps 5 and 6–the maximum and medium security facilities that house detainees who refuse to be compliant–were modeled after existing correctional facilities in the Midwest. Both camps (like the rest of Guantánamo) are maintained in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. These camps have more than enough capacity to continue to hold the detainees the Obama administration now wants to transfer to the United States. And even Attorney General Eric Holder conceded after visiting the camps earlier this year that Guantánamo is “well-run” with no sign of detainee mistreatment.

Once inmates are transferred to Illinois they will be housed in greater-than SuperMax prisons.  No more soccer, no more milling about with other terrorists for most of the day, no more tropical sunshine.  According to Wikipedia, SuperMax inmates can look forward to being out of their cell one hour per day with exercise being conducted alone in a small outdoor enclosure.  Their cells are often without windows, and they are heavily soundproofed so they cannot communicate with their fellow inmates.

Compare this with life at Gitmo and it looks to me as though the Obama administration’s decision to move the inmates may actually be considered cruel and unusual punishment if you consider what they enjoy now.

Liberal ideology sounds great on the cover of the New York Times but, as usual, those who have to live under it probably would disagree!

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