Chill Out

by hilzoy

From the NYT:

"Is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed coming to a prison near you?
One day after President Obama ordered that the military detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, be shuttered, lawmakers in Washington wrestled with the implications of bringing dozens of the 245 remaining inmates onto American soil.

Republican lawmakers, who oppose Mr. Obama’s plan, found a talking point with political appeal. They said closing Guantánamo could allow dangerous terrorists to get off on legal technicalities and be released into quiet neighborhoods across the United States. If the detainees were convicted, the Republicans continued, American prisons housing terrorism suspects could become magnets for attacks.

Meanwhile, none of the Democrats who on Thursday hailed the closing of the detention camp were stepping forward to offer prisons in their districts or states to receive the prisoners."

Jim Geraghty explains why housing terrorists in US prisons would be much worse than housing all the dangerous people who are already there:

"It's hard to picture militia members, the Crips, Bloods, or what have you doing something as extreme as, say, crashing a plane into the prison to faciliate an escape and/or provide martyrdom to their brethren."

As Glenn Greenwald notes, there are already terrorists in US prisons. He helpfully provides a partial list:

Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, convicted, 1996, U.S. District Court (before then-U.S. District Judge Michael Mukasey) -- plotting terrorist attacks on the U.S. (currently: U.S. prison, Butler, North Carolina);
 
Zacarias Moussaoui, convicted, 2006, U.S. Federal Court -- conspiracy to commit the 9/11 attacks  (currently:  U.S. prison, Florence, Colorado);
 
Richard Reid, convicted, 2003, U.S. Federal Court -- attempting to blow up U.S.-bound jetliner over the Atlantic Ocean (currently:  U.S. prison, Florence, Colorado);
 
Jose Padilla, convicted, 2007, U.S. Federal Court -- conspiracy to commit terrorism (currently:  U.S. prison, Florence, Colorado);
 
Iyman Faris a/k/a/ Mohammad Rauf, convicted, 2003, U.S. Federal Court -- providing material support and resources to Al-Qaeda, conspiracy to commit terrorist acts on behalf of Al Qaeda (currently:  U.S. prison, Florence, Colorado);
 
Ali Saleh al-Marri, accused Al Qaeda operative -- not yet tried, held as "unlawful enemy combatant" (currently:  U.S. Naval Brig, Hanahan, South Carolina);
 
Masoud Khan, convicted, 2004, U.S. Federal Court -- conspiracy to commit terrorism as part of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Islamic jihad (currently: U.S. prison, Terre Haute, Indiana);
 
John Walker Lindh, convicted, 2002, U.S. Federal Court -- providing material support to the Taliban (currently: U.S. prison, Florence, Colorado).

Curiously, no jihadists have flown planes into prisons to facilitate the escapes of any of these terrorists. Maybe they're waiting until we have been lulled into a false sense of security. Since the blind Sheikh has been in prison for over a decade, they are showing a lot of patience. Maybe, on the other hand, Jim Geraghty and the Repubicans in Congress just have hyperactive imaginations. 

Moreover, it's not as though terrorists are the only dangerous people with associates who would be prepared to do a lot to spring them. Consider drug kingpins, for instance: they generally have lots of money and large organizations, and while I'm not sure they would fly planes into prisons (??), they could probably think of less lurid ways to spring people. 

And yet the United States, under George W. Bush, actually sought to have these dangerous people extradited to the United States, exposing our citizens to danger! Not only that, we succeeded! For instance, Francisco Javier Arellano Félix, the head of the Tijuana cartel, is now locked up in San Diego. We are seeking the extradition of his brother Eduardo, and have several other high-ranking members of the cartel in custody. OMG!! Americans are at risk!!! What shall we do???

I suggest chilling out. We are talking about maximum security prisons, which are designed to keep very dangerous people locked up. If our government decides that extra resources are needed to keep terrorists safely behind bars, it has very capable people who could be deployed for that purpose. 

This would also be a good time for members of Congress to show some leadership. They need to explain to their constituents that there are already a whole lot of very dangerous people in our prisons, that some of them are terrorists, and that no one has flown planes into prisons to rescue them yet.

Comments

[Elvis Elvisberg]

What a grotesque, Foxesque opening to that article.

Not to go all extremist on you all, or anything, but the New York Times sure is terrible at reporting the news.

[Mike Schilling]

You fail to understand how dangerous these terrorists are. They've all been trained to build nuclear devices out of aluminum foil and sporks. The danger, should one escape from prison and locate a KFC, is apocalyptic.

[mss]

Let me get this straight: The right-wingers who told us for years that "evil" and hatred for our "freedoms" motivated terrorists to, oh, hijack planes and crash them into American buildings now argue that terrorists need a new motivation to do so---and that motivation is a hopeless prison break? And we should shape our policies around removing that motivation?

I wonder what policy tips Geraghty might have for us if he applied this mode of thinking to a remotely plausible scenario, rather than a bad rewrite of Con Air. I swear our political opposition can't tell the difference between bad action movies and reality.

[Warren Terra]

Geraghty clearly has seen too many bad movies or has been playing too many video games. What kind of ninny could think that if terrorists somehow managed again to hijack airliners and crash them into American buildings they'd go after federal prisons in some harebrained scheme to free terrorists? After all, even though we had major terrorists in our federal prisons, for some reason on 9/11 the terrorists chose to target symbols of our national identity in our commercial and political capitals, and it seemed to fulfill their goal of dramatically heightening tensions between Americans and the Islamic world. And, of course, crashing a plane into their prison would be far more likely to kills to kill the inmates than to free them, especially as people who've never lived in the US would seem poor candidates to get away even if they somehow managed to escape the prison's walls.

Obviously, the plane idea is impractical. Instead we should fear a commando operation, dozens of heavily armed terrorists who've infiltrated the US or been organized here, and who for some inexplicable reason decide to attack a heavily armed isolated fortified structure. From the terrorists' perspective it's still a crazy idea, but at least it's one that's less likely to kill their imprisoned comrades than crashing a plane into them. Just in case, we should probably round up the members of the United Pastry Jihad.

[Hartmut]

Why should they fly airliners into prisons when the approved method is bouncing bombs dropped from planes*? Have those people watched the wrong type of bad movies?
Other methods: helicopters or balloons (cf. Superman II). Maybe we can get some contractor equipping all prisons with heavy flak and SAMs. That would clearly make the GOP happy.
---
More seriously, Supermax prisons are from what I read not much more humane than Gitmo and some common practices used there (e.g. de facto indefinite solitary confinement) may cross into torture territory.

*only in the fictional movies, the real event (documented on film by the RAF) used more conventional ordnance.

[Anthony]

I'm not unsympathetic to some of the challenges regarding the closing of Guantanamo, but this aspect of the debate is just bizarre.

I'm British and we've got our convicted jihadists in prison on the mainland. If you started shrieking that it was vital to imprison them on an island somewhere, people would think you'd gone funny-peculiar. The French also have lots of imprisoned radical Islamists.

In the real world, this isn't an issue. There are plenty of genuine issues, but this isn't one of them. If you hear any Heartland Real Americans squealing about the prospect of imprisoning terrorists in The Homeland, tell them from me that the Euro-commies think they're a bunch of pussies.

[Elemenope]

You fail to understand how dangerous these terrorists are. They've all been trained to build nuclear devices out of aluminum foil and sporks. The danger, should one escape from prison and locate a KFC, is apocalyptic.

I guess that makes it official, then: MacGyver has gone to the Dark Side.

[liberal japonicus]

Look, you are going to get some brilliant structural engineer robbing a bank who has the prison plans tatooed on his back and then they are out and threatening to take down the government. Better safe than sorry, I say.

[wonkie]

"Bunch of pussies"

yeah I was thinking that the squawks of outrage sounded an awful lot like cowardice to me.

[john miller]

Actually, my personal opinion is that, unless they were placed into solitary confinement, most of the real dangerous ones would be dead within a month at the latest.

[Brett Bellmore]

"I'm British and we've got our convicted jihadists in prison on the mainland. If you started shrieking that it was vital to imprison them on an island somewhere, people would think you'd gone funny-peculiar."

LOL! Well, I should hope so; Your "mainland" IS an island, it would be kind of redundant, wouldn't it? Kind of like us insisting that they be shipped off to a continent someplace.

Yeah, this is a pretty stupid objection, to a fairly sensible move.

[Jesurgislac]

Brett: Your "mainland" IS an island, it would be kind of redundant, wouldn't it?

Actually, the UK is many islands, some of them much smaller than others. Basically we're an archipelago with some slightly complicated historical issues about jurisdiction over parts of it, plus of course the Republic of Ireland.

But we are a lot braver about terrorists than Americans, it seems.

Elemenope: MacGyver has gone to the Dark Side.

"That's what makes you so hard to beat, MacGyver. No one knows what you're going to do next; including you."

[mythago]

Funny how when Geraghty wants to talk about dangerous non-terrorist prisoners, the first thing that pops into his mind are black street gangs. It apparently doesn't occur to his rather limited imagination to worry about what members of the Aryan Nations gang, or Russian organized-crime rings, might be willing to do in order to break out of prison - and their compadres are already in the US.

[cleek]

this whole argument is fake. it's just a way for wingnuts to keep screaming about Obama.

[Elemenope]

But we are a lot braver about terrorists than Americans, it seems.

Not fair: you have more experience.

[Jay C]

I swear our political opposition can't tell the difference between bad action movies and reality.

Posted by: mss | January 25, 2009 at 04:04 AM

"Can't" or "won't"???

[Mike Schilling]

I guess that makes it official, then: MacGyver has gone to the Dark Side.

Yeah, they turned him while he was on the run from Patty and Selma...

[DarcyPennell]

nitpick: Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman is in prison in Butner NC, not Butler.

[muldoon]

To carry this ridiculous scenerio even farther, let's suppose they break out of prison. What then? Wearing their orange jumpsuits, armed with...erm... something... they make their getaway in... well, something. And neither the cops nor the military will be able to stop them, because...well, for some reason...

Methinks the fear-mongerers need to do a little more work on this one.

[Gary Farber]

"Other methods: helicopters or balloons (cf. Superman II)."

Superman III, a movie that was never made.

[Ugh]

Jim Geraghty and the Repubicans in Congress just have hyperactive imaginations.

Geraght and the Republicans in Congress are either a bunch of bedwetting cowards or think Americans are (probably both, actually).

[Gary Farber]

Florence Supermax.

Who wouldn't want to stay a weekend?

[Jingo Killah]

Another curious thing: terrorism's operational MO can pretty much be boiled down to suicide. Therefore, what makes an operative worth his salt is his willingness to take one for the team. Otherwise, there's not much value added for any one individual terrorist. How, then, is an imprisoned terrorist half a world away worth more than an unincarcerated one, present and ready for duty? Are the imprisoned ones somehow higher quality? Presumably, if they were really good terrorists, they would have already been dead by now.

This is presented somewhat in jest, but the question is pertinent: what actual value would these guys have to the movement if they're locked down in a maximum security prison? Is it actually more than none?

[Gary Farber]

Bouncing bombs are real; they were indeed used against dams.

[Jingo Killah]

What happened to my post? Here a moment ago.

[Elemenope]

This is presented somewhat in jest, but the question is pertinent: what actual value would these guys have to the movement if they're locked down in a maximum security prison? Is it actually more than none?

There is some PR/Martyrdom recruitment value, but no more than there would be if they were housed in GTMO.

[efgoldman]

Geraghty clearly has seen too many bad movies or has been playing too many video games.
Hardly new to the wingnuts. Surely you remember when St. Ronny "remembered" something-or-other about WW2 that had actually been a scene he acted in a movie.

[Gary Farber]

A Wing And A Prayer:

[...] In the 1980 presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan repeatedly told a heartbreaking story of a World War II bomber pilot who ordered his crew to bail out after his plane had been seriously damaged by an enemy hit. His young belly gunner was wounded so seriously that he was unable to evacuate the bomber. Reagan could barely hold back his tears as he uttered the pilot's heroic response: "Never mind. We'll ride it down together." ...this story was an almost exact duplicate of a scene in the 1944 film "A Wing and a Prayer." Reagan had apparently retained the facts but forgotten their source (Schacter 1996, 287).

[knowdoubt]

Chill out, indeed! I'm with you hilzoy, what's important to recognize in this debate is, that we ARE a very elite country with a prison industrial complex, second to none, or at least very damn few. We have the best and biggest prisons of anywhere, with the biggest and toughest guards (China and N.Korea ( tough, but mostly small), and we have a lot of love to share - as in tough love. We also have alot of people who may need aplace to stay as we continue to empty houses of the not so deserving ( they should have known better than try to attain something they couldn't afford).

Stimulating the prison economy offers a double bang for the buck, more employment and profits for the corporations that now depend on this income and a remarkably secure place to house people We also enjoy the highest per captia incarceration rate of any country in the world and we could help distance ourselves from those green with envy States like Egypt, China, Pakistan who covet our top spot in this competitive and not just symbolic arena of running a well behaved country. People seen to overlook that we have a faltering economy that could use a stimulus and our prison industrial complex has performed admirably, and could by expanding its constituency, provide lots of jobs in construction and of course guarding dangerous criminals like marijuana users, pornographers (not good ones like Clarence Thomas) and would also be in keeping with our welcome engraved on the Statue of Liberty, ""Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."

We all know that for the message (or the Statue) to have any meaning at all that rights like due process, Habeass Corpus, rules of evidence can not be just shared with anyone, why would anyone even want to come here if they could enjoy what we fought for and earned with the blood of our forefathers. We recognize that these rights are a privilege not to be shared willy nilly with the rest of the world cnn captured it better than even Sarah Palin could have expressed it right HERE. I join you in applauding our prison system but caution we shouldn't lose sight of what else could be at stake here like letting our ideals and values be commandered by people who don't deserve them. We should also give the Bush Administration credit for letting Americans know that they can't just take this stuff for granted, that certain misbehaviors can result in their lose, individually speaking of course. Respectfully submitted in a penitent, redemptive spirit, Knowdoubt

[Jesurgislac]

efgoldman: Surely you remember when St. Ronny "remembered" something-or-other about WW2 that had actually been a scene he acted in a movie.

Yes, but Ronald Reagan had Alzheimers. That he "remembered as fact" a scene from a movie he had acted in, is not really surprising and not politically blameworthy: he just shouldn't have been allowed to become President.

[hairshirthedonist]

It seems to me that, if these suspected terrorists are so dangerous and the likelihood so high that they, should they somehow gain their freedom, will successfully kill Americans, those who think there is no option, short of keeping these suspected terrorits indefinitely in Guantanamo, sufficient to ensure the safety of the Homeland, they should further advocate the immediate execution of these suspected terrorists. That would be the surest way to prevent these suspected terrorits from committing more acts of terror. Or is there something preventing people from advocating such a position? And might that something be same thing that tells us we must close Guantanamo?

[The Crafty Trilobite]

Almost nothing we as a country do about our prisons is rational, why should this be any different? (I could leave out "about our prisons," but that's another story). Forex, why do property values fall when a prison is built nearby? A homeowner is probably in less danger from escaped cons than from lighting strikes, and the bail bondsmen, storefront lawyers, and other such 'unsavory' business associated with prisoners are more likely to set up shop near the courthouse (and they cause little if any trouble anyhow). Work release programs are seldom right nearby, and even if they are, so what?

There's an ick factor here that has nothing to do with actual risk. Maybe it's a media thing -- we spend so much time watching eeevul people threatening or assaulting others onscreen that the risk seems more real than an equal or larger risk we have not visualized (like lightning). So Mr. Homeowner would rather risk lightning than being Attacked By A Bad Guy (TM). And just as it was 'obviously' worse for a white woman in the Jim Crow South to be sexually assaulted by a black man than by a nice white frat boy, it's obviously worse to have a terrorist (Arab) icking up your neighborhood than an ordinary depraved murderer. Apparently it's so bad that the ick spreads from the neighborhood to the whole country.

"I'll never understand people. Even being one doesn't seem to help." - Spider Robinson.

[Hartmut]

Gary, I know that the bouncing bombs were real and effective but they were not used in the RAF attack on a prison in France. The movie very loosely based on that event (Mosquito Squadron*) used them on dry land!!!.
Lex Luthor was freed in Superman II (produced back to back with the first part) by balloon and escaped (without intermediate landing?) to the North Pole. Never seen any later Superman movies (and I watched the first two only for their cultural influence not for any quality they may or not possess**).

*which was a ripoff of 633 Squadron, which in turn was a ripoff of The Dambusters (all three were later ripped off by George Lucas for the first Star Wars)
**I have seen more infantile movies (even non-Disney ones) but that doesn't say much since I suffer from trashophilia cinematica.

[Gary Farber]

"...but they were not used in the RAF attack on a prison in France."

Sorry, I didn't catch that you were referring to such a thing; I was referring to the real story of The Dambusters.

"Never seen any later Superman movies"

They don't exist. Superman Returns pretty well sucks, too, though for different reasons.

[Jesurgislac]

Never seen any later Superman movies

After Christopher Reeve had his terrible accident, I think that there must have been a certain amount of feeling against the idea of casting a new actor to play Superman. At least, irrational though I know it would have been, I'd have felt iffy about going to see a film where someone else had taken the cloak, while Reeve was still alive...

http://cagle.com/caglecards/main.asp?image=/news/ChristopherReeve/images/streeter.jpg>