for years i was hoping that congress would get some courage and cut off funding for the war in iraq. but it's only now that harry reid suddenly discovers the power of the purse.
it also annoys me that reid just assumes everyone in guantanamo are terrorists. that's not even what the pentagon claims anymore, and yet politicians continue to use that term whenever they posture. besides, until they have a fair trial, at best they're just suspected terrorists. harry's in for a tough election next year. that's probably what is behind his end of this nonsense.
i find this whole not-in-my-backyard fear-mongering surrounding the gitmo issue to be pretty strange. presumably anyone convicted of terrorism would be held in a maximum security federal facility. as atrios once said, the fear mongerers seem to think that terrorists are not ordinary human beings, but rather possess special super powers so that a regular supermax facility just can't hold them. these people were tortured and broken for years down in gitmo. if anything, they are probably less of an escape threat than the average domestic convict.
maybe i don't see this as particular scary because members of my family already have had terrorists imprisoned almost literally in their backyard. mrs. noz's mother happens to live just up the hill from a maximum security federal penitentiary. i'm not sure if they are still there, but for a while the terrorists behind the 1993 world trade center bombers were held in that facility. there has never been any incident and i've never been afraid of terrorists when i visit. honestly, i don't think about the prison much at all when i'm there, even though it's hard to miss if you sit on the deck. i doubt if i'd worry at all if some people from gitmo ended up there eventually.
