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May 28, 2009
CA: Valley is the best place for Gitmo prison
Valley is the best place for Gitmo prison
Wednesday, May. 27, 2009
By Bill McEwen / The Fresno Bee
President Barack Obama has a problem, and I've got a solution.
He wants to close the Guantánamo Bay detention center, but most American politicians don't want anything to do with housing suspected terrorists in their backyards.
I say bring them on -- the detainees, not the politicians.
If any region deserves a brand new supermax prison and the opportunity to keep some of the world's most dangerous figures under lock and key, it's the San Joaquin Valley.
Let's face it: the Obama administration -- married as it is to environmental interests -- isn't going to send enough water this way to sustain agriculture, our lifeblood.
But the president can show us some love and inject an estimated $1 billion a year into one of America's poorest economies by letting us help him shutter Gitmo.
If executives at the Regional Jobs Initiative aren't working on this plan -- code name: Operation Gitmo Money for Us -- they should be fired.
Already, we've got competition.
The townsfolk of Hardin, Mont. -- population 3,384 -- have a new $27 million prison sitting empty. The prison was built in belief that the state would send them inmates, but things didn't pan out.
Residents there are clamoring for detainees, but not everyone is keen on the idea.
"We're not going to bring al-Qaida to Big Sky country. No way. Not on my watch," Sen. Max Baucus of Montana told Time magazine.
There's also talk of building a supermax in Michigan for Guantánamo detainees as a way of alleviating the economic crisis triggered by the woes of Detroit's automakers.
But nobody does prisons like us. Minimum security. Medium security. Maximum security. Private. State. Federal.
We've got 'em all.
Plus double-digit unemployment spiking to 40% on the Valley's west side.
It's not like hard-working, God-fearing, gun-toting Valley residents would lose sleep over 240 more hard cases in their ZIP code.
One-third of California's state prisons are in the Valley. One of them -- Corcoran -- is home to both Charles Manson and Juan Corona.
Besides, nobody has escaped a supermax facility, and 347 convicted terrorists already are imprisoned on U.S. soil.
So, how do we turn Operation Gitmo Money for Us into reality?
Our local congressional delegation -- Democrats and Republicans -- must unite and tell Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer that the Central Valley is ready to go into the detainee business.
The senators then relay to the president that they have a win-win proposition. If Obama says that he doesn't think the state will accept the detainees, they can trot out this old maxim: "The Valley isn't part of California; it's another planet altogether."
Who knows? This might be the start of something bigger -- maybe even a temporary suspension of the Endangered Species Act.
How? If he sees the chance to end an international scandal over Guantánamo by putting a new prison in the Valley, there's no way that Obama will let any critter -- be it smelt or kangaroo rat -- stand in the way.
http://www.fresnobee.com/columnists/mcewen/story/1431497.html
Posted by lois at May 28, 2009 09:17 AM