Sending Terrorists to the Land of Gitmo?

As Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were facing certain death at the hands of hundreds of Bolivian Soldiers:  “Next time, I think we should go to Australia……I don’t want to do anymore night work or jungle work…..too many bugs!”  How did they know what it was going to be like at Terrorist HQ in Gitmo?

Dealing with non-state attached violent combatants, dedicated to the death of as many Americans as can be found on the planet, requires an annual appropriation for our US Government Guantanamo, Cuba Facility – to house now just 60 bad guys seems extreme.  When you consider that upwards of $4.8 Billion dollars has been spent since 2002 and today the annual cost is just about $493 million dollars .  How many American soldiers and guards are employed there to guarantee these bad guys don’t get away?  Who are these sub-contractors and why does Conservative Senator Lindsay Graham think we should house a few more folks we find in Yemen, Somaliland or wherever we can find them?  Nearly, half a billion dollars a year just to do the paperwork and keep the computers updated seems a bit extreme.

Our solution is far more affordable and might actually make more sense.  In World War II, we had over 150 German Saboteurs incarcerated in Arizona.  It was a nice camp near Tucson with lots of barbed wire, soldier barracks like they had for the California Japanese internees in the Central Coast of California.  It had lots of Army Guards that were assigned ONE for each prisoner.  Whether it was day or night, rain or shine, each prisoner was looked after in eight hour shifts for a total of 450 personalized guards for the 150 bad guys.  Based on that process, we would only need a staff of 180 Guards to watch over these bad guys.  Each could have their own piece of sand 8 x 8 feet with a barbed wire see through box fence that went up 20 feet on every side.  Each prisoner would get one straw and one floppy plastic spoon to eat with and one blanket.  Each prisoner would get two pots.  One to wash their own clothes and one to take a dump in.  There would be one lean to for shelter  from rain or sun.  No heating or air conditioning.  Sheriff Joe Arpaio could command the facility.

Now before everyone thinks this is a joke, understand this:  We do not need a Pelican Bay Facility to protect the public from very serious bad guys.  Those that have studied the Civil War know that places like Andersonville were totally uncivilized.  Those like John McCain understand what places like the Hanoi Hilton was and whether or not that facility could have been considered civilized.  There are presently many military stockades around the world which offer facilities that could easily assure the safety of the public from very serious bad guys.  If we were only to assign just ONE bad guy to each country, we could easily rid ourselves of Guantanamo overnight.  But, let’s get back to the idea of the Sheriff Joe Arpaio Tent Stockade in Arizona:  How much might a facility of this size and scope cost the American Taxpayer each year?  Let’s just say, we needed a staff of 400 to guard 60.  We would need to pay all these brave soldiers, feed and cloth all of them.  We would have to pay the State of Arizona a lease payment on the land, pay for electricity, gasoline, transportation cost for food and the like.  Would the cost exceed $493 million dollars a year?  We should look at all of that, before we close Gitmo.  We can say that 180 soldiers being paid $40,000 dollars a year only comes to $7.2 million dollars.  The cost of building the Government Facilities: Say: $100 million dollars to be on the safe side.  How about the cost of Administration?  $40 million perhaps?  Would that include toilet paper?  Heck, with the Republican Sequister we might be able to cut those costs in half.

The time has come to end incarceration in Guantanemo.  As we open friendlier relations with Cuba……we need to stop Sending Terrorists to the Land of Gitmo!