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Closing Spruced-Up Gitmo Would Be a Waste

Task force steams ahead with quality-of-living improvements

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Sep 24, 2009 1:23 AM CDT

(Newser) – Money is being poured into improving the quality of life for Guantanamo detainees just as the government works toward closing the detention center, writes a puzzled Judith Miller after a tour. Recreation facilities and classrooms are being expanded, and inmates have access to satellite TV. Prisoners are given a choice of six halal meals daily—including two weekly "Islamic feasts." The place "embodies the best of what we do as Americans," a Navy doctor told Miller.

Conditions at Guantanamo would be the envy of convicts at many maximum security pens in the US, Miller writes in the Los Angeles Times, but of course these inmates haven't been convicted of a crime, or even charged. For some of them, that legal limbo will continue even under President Obama's policies, she notes, meaning that a place like Gitmo will be needed for a long time to come—and closing the Gitmo we've already got in favor of "Gitmo North" in US jails is pointless.

[Images (3)]

[Quotes (2)]

A Guantanamo detainee holds a soccer ballinside the exercise yard at the Camp 4 detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)

A guard watches over detainees in the exercise yard at the Camp 5 detention facility on Guantanamo Bay. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, Pool)

Inmates pray at the Camp 4 detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. (AP)

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This place is synonymous with military abuse, and it's just not fair. - Rear Adm. Thomas H. Copeman III, commander of the Joint Task Force
that runs Guantanamo

It's time for the Obama administration to acknowledge that Gitmo, or another center like it, will be needed as long as the war on terrorism—no matter what our commander in chief calls it—endures. - Judith Miller

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COMMENTS

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Showing 3 of 6 comments

jimw428

Sep 26, 2009 3:42 AM CDT

Closing Gitmo is one of the dumbest ideas yet. Guantanamo is perhaps the most secure prison facility in the world. Spending taxpayer money to replicate it's purpose elsewhere, to appease the left wing nut cases (who don't know their asses from a hole in the ground when it comes to national security) is just plain STUPID!

Thinker

Sep 24, 2009 11:47 AM CDT

Guantanamo Bay "embodies the best of what we do as Americans" under Bush, which means our best is pretty bad and what we do is pretty evil. The fact that it remains indicates that American can continue to engage in doing its best evil, even if someone else calls the shots. I am ashamed.

jagerhans

Sep 24, 2009 9:45 AM CDT

from waterboarding to business-class service , they are going to think they fell in the hands of a bunch of F* lunatics

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Closing Spruced-Up Gitmo Would Be a Waste