House Democrats broke up Barak Obama's perfect game this week when, according to the WSJ a war funding bill didn't include funds "to begin closing the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."
According to the Journal Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-Wis) complained that "the administration has not yet developed a clear plan to wind down operations at Guantanamo and relocate the detainees, either abroad or in the U.S."
President Obama was requesting $50 million to begin the process of shutting down Guantanamo which, in the wake of a $92 BILLION Appropriations bill is less than the pixel on the edge of an asterisk.
But it wasn't the amount of money the Administration was asking for. It was the bigger - and unanswered question - of whatcha gonna do with the terrorists who are currently housed there?
One of the many problems with moving all, or any, of the terrorists to U.S. soil is that every square inch of American soil in the Continental United States is represented by a Member of Congress and two Senators. And no Congressman or Senator is going to want to explain to his or her constituents why the guy mowing the lawn outside the county courthouse has 137 soldiers surrounding him with weapons at the ready.
Oh. That's not correct. It seems that there IS a small section of the United States which is NOT represented by a Congressman or any Senators.
The District of Columbia. We could move the terrorists to DC. I kind of like that idea. They could just vanish among the crooks and thieves who already hang out in the House and Senate office buildings.
Remember when we residents of the Commonwealth of Virginia were forbidden to enter the District of Columbia during the inauguration of Barack Obama?
If we put the prisoners in DC, Virginia could return the favor - close the bridges coming INTO the Old Dominion. Gotta protect us from the terrorists just as DC had to protect its residents from us.
Whoa! How about this? Every Embassy of a foreign government is, under international law, the actual soil of that country. We could just drop a few off here and there … a couple on the grounds of the French Embassy - officially delivering them to France; maybe one or two at the German Embassy - just for old time's sake; and a half-dozen or so at the Embassy of Iran - they know a little something about hostages.
What are some other choices? We could build prisons in Puerto Rico, or the Virgin Islands, or Guam, or American Samoa and ship them there. They all have non-voting representatives to the U.S. House just like D.C., but we might just as well leave them at Guantanamo if we're going to do that.
The point here is, Obama made a promise he can't keep: Close Guantanamo. Can't do it without a plan as to what to do with the terrorists who are housed there. As Rep. Obey said, "When they have a plan, they're welcome to come back and talk to us."
It is not just finding a place for the Guantanamo terrorists, it is the Democrats in Congress getting just a little worried about Obama's capacity to maintain America's safety. Afghanistan and Pakistan are going in the wrong direction and Obama's Personality Parade to Europe a month ago did not convince our crack European allies to put any more of their troops in harm's way to help change things.
According to the Associated Press, the military spending bill which David Obey's committee is deliberating is about $9 billion more than Obama requested.
If, God forbid, America or American interests are attacked, Members of Congress want to be able to tell their constituents it wasn't their fault.
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