MEMO TO FISCAL CONSERVATIVES

The Pentagon estimates it spends about $150 million each year to operate the prison and military court system at the U.S. Naval Base in Cuba, which was set up 11 years ago to house foreign terrorism suspects. With 166 inmates currently in custody, that amounts to an annual cost of $903,614 per prisoner.

By comparison, super-maximum security prisons in the United States spend about $60,000 to $70,000 at most to house their inmates, analysts say. And the average cost across all federal prisons is about $30,000, they say.

I'd like to hear Republican Senators Mitch McConnell, John McCain, and Lindsey Graham, and Republican Representatives Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, et al. huff and puff and justify the expense of maintaining the prison at Guantanamo in the name of protecting us from terrorism, even as the most vulnerable in our society, who were already suffering before the sequester cuts, suffer more pain.  Oh, I have no doubt they'll find the words, but I am confident that their words will make no sense.

CLOSE QUANTANAMO

There are a hundred and sixty-six prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. Military officials told reporters earlier this week that thirty-one—almost one in five—were engaged in a hunger strike. By Friday, the number was thirty-seven, or closer to one in four. Eighty-six—more than one in two—have been cleared for release, meaning that the government doesn’t think that it has a case against them or even that they pose a threat, but it is keeping them locked up anyway, and has no imminent plans to let them go. Only six of the prisoners—just about one in twenty-eight—are facing trial. That means that there are six times as many prisoners on hunger strikes as there are those who have actual charges lodged against them.

Read the entire piece.  The prisoners on hunger strike are being force-fed through nasal tubes.  That such a prison as Guantánamo exists at all is a shameful blight on the reputation of the United States.  President Obama must do everything in his power to close the prison by executive order or whatever means possible and not continue to depend on Congress.  The prisoners who have been cleared and have no hope for release fall into despair and want to die, and who can blame them?  At the press conference yesterday, Obama said, "It's not sustainable - I mean, the notion that we're going to continue to keep over 100 individuals in a no-man's land in perpetuity,"  Exactly.  So do something, Mr President.