The Ultimate NIMBY

Again, housing bad guys has turned into the ultimate NIMBY - that is Not In My Back Yard - for you non-Carlin fans out there.

As some of you know, I have zero problem with keeping the Gitmo facility open. No one else wants them, after Bush asked, pleaded and begged the allies to take them.

Not too surprising, no one wants these nice terrorist folks to come to US soil either.

But wasn't this supposed to be about how the Bush administration treated the prisoners there?

What about detaining a bad guy indefinitely without any legal recourse - the legal and physical Phantom Zone or Catholic Limbo? I thought that the original argument had been about flimsy or poor evidence against against the prisoner picked up off the battlefield? The problem starts with a national from another country, say, Saudi Arabia, illegally in Iraq or Afghanistan, aiming weapons at US Soldiers and civilians of the host country? Instead of shooting said illegal alien aggressor war monger, we decided that we should take them out... to sunny Cuba.

There's a discussion of ambiguous and gray-possibly-illegal torture methods used on three bad guys, but that discussion has become a smokescreen for both sides of the political-do-nothings in Congress. What did you know, and when did you know it means NOTHING. As much as I tire of Lady Pelosi - it's a boring argument. She's incompetent. We already know that. Can we move on? She should have just said I didn't understand - not accuse the CIA of misleading or lying to her and Congress. We would have believed that she was an idiot. That's called transparency.

Look, Gitmo has morphed into a symbol, more than anything else. A symbol to the world of America's undiagnosed bipolar disorder. On one hand, America is a bastion of democracy and liberty, free markets and possibility of greatness for everyone who wishes to participate. On the other, we'll do anything -anything- to keep our place as the world's ultimate super power. We'll keep all threats against our crazy lifestyle that we'll assassinate and destabilize your country, even invade it, and if you really piss us off, we'll waterboard you... hell if you attack us, we'll nuke you, twice.

And what would happen if you DID bring these nice terrorists to the US prison system? Haven't you ever seen a documentary about how bad American prisons are? Haven't you seen Frontline: The Released? Up The Ridge? What about all those shows on MSNBC Sunday night? HBO's OZ? At least at Gitmo the prisoners have nice Caribbean weather and access to other prisoners, prayer rugs, and - most importantly - media attention.

Now compare the conditions at Gitmo with a SuperMax. In a SuperMax, the bad guys are held uncommunicado in isolation cells, no visitors, no contact with the outside world, and likely worse food. [Maybe even a processed pork product?! Oh no!] Hell, compare conditions at Gitmo with just a regular US prison? Rapes, racism, gang warfare, overcrowding, limited funding, you know, OZ!

I can imagine that Gitmo, while being limbo, has got to be better than a regular US prison? Got an opinion on it? Go on...