URL: http://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/dimond/0792520dimond02-07-09.htm
Saturday, February 07, 2009
If Not at Gitmo, Where?
By Diane Dimond
President Barack Obama has fast-tracked closing the multimillion dollar American constructed and controlled detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. OK, so now where do all the bad guys go?
It's a question that's long plagued N.M. National Guard Brig. Gen. Greg Zanetti, who from January 2008 to January 2009 was the deputy commander of Gitmo.
"These are bad men," Zanetti told me after his recent return to his native Albuquerque. "There is an edge to these guys Americans just don't understand."
Zanetti, a West Point graduate with a military résumé a mile long, knows all about the Gitmo gang. He's walked among them, read their background files and knows them by name.
"There have been a total of about 770 enemy combatants arrive at Gitmo," Zanetti told me. Over the years some were found to be low-level threats and released, others were sent back to their home countries for further imprisonment or into the welcoming arms of their old terror buddies who declared them to be "The Heroes of Guantanamo." Recent reports conclude more than 60 ex-Gitmo residents have returned to their terrorist ways.
Today Gitmo holds just 250 enemy combatants. They are the 250 no American prison wants and no foreign country will claim.
They are the worst of the worst, according to Zanetti, who watched as they bit, kicked, elbowed or threw their feces and vomit on his troops who went to Cuba with Zanetti for the one-year tour of duty.
"Most Americans don't understand that the mistreatment at Gitmo is prisoner on guard," he said, not the other way around.
The detainees enjoy what Zanetti called "A Hogan's Heroes-type camp ... like an old-age home for terrorists," he said.
They aren't locked away in cells 24/7. They have communal rooms where they mingle and enjoy their native periodicals. There are ocean views, flat-screen televisions and some prisoners are allowed to grow their own food. Their Qurans and Muslim prayer rugs are brought out five times a day, and a cultural adviser is on hand to guide the menu for the several feast days they mark each month, complete with traditional dishes.
While they mingle they continue to scheme against the United States, according to the general. They've learned, sometimes from their own American-appointed lawyers, that the most effective way to continue the revolution is to turn our system against us.
They engage in a strategic legal and media war designed to paint themselves as victims. We saw it during the disruptive trial of Zacarias Moussaoui and we will surely see it again if there are more civilian trials here. And what would happen if a trial technicality actually set a terrorist free?
But the undeniable and unpleasant fact is that the United States has held these men for years, without charges, without trials and that is, most certainly, not the American way.
"I am bothered by the prolonged detentions," the general said. But, he explained, Gitmo has hosted scores of foreign delegations — from the International Red Cross, Russia, Middle Eastern and several European countries. Only Saudi Arabia took its prisoners back and repatriated them, giving them homes and cars if they behaved themselves. In fact, the general told me, when the delegation from Yemen arrived several of the majority Yemeni prisoners pointed at the representatives and declared, "That's the person who recruited me to fight!" None was taken home.
President Obama seems certain some countries will step forward, but I don't see a line forming at Gitmo's door.
There is still the possibility of holding military trials, but what happens if the defendant is found guilty? He'll have to be jailed somewhere and the community N.I.M.B.Y. (Not In My Back Yard) protests are in full swing at the most-often mentioned U.S. locations: Leavenworth, Colorado's Supermax penitentiary and the Naval Brig in South Carolina.
Gee, maybe Gitmo isn't so bad after all.
www.DianeDimond.net — e-mail to Diane@DianeDimond.net