The Terrorist Next Door

Hey, all you Kansans, guess what the Obamessiah has in store for you?

They're looking at creating a "courtroom-prison complex" at a soon-to-be-closed maximum security prison in Michigan or at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas:

The facility would operate as a hybrid prison system jointly operated by the Justice Department, the military and the Department of Homeland Security.

The administration's plan, according to three government officials, calls for:

_Moving all the Guantanamo detainees to a single U.S. prison. The Justice Department has identified between 60 and 80 who could be prosecuted, either in military or federal criminal courts. The Pentagon would oversee the detainees who would face trial in military tribunals. The Bureau of Prisons, an arm of the Justice Department, would manage defendants in federal courts.

_Building a court facility within the prison site where military or criminal defendants would be tried. Doing so would create a single venue for almost all the criminal defendants, ending the need to transport them elsewhere in the U.S. for trial.

_Providing long-term holding cells for a small but still undetermined number of detainees who will not face trial because intelligence and counterterror officials conclude they are too dangerous to risk being freed.

_Building immigration detention cells for detainees ordered released by courts but still behind bars because countries are unwilling to take them.

Each proposal, according to experts in constitutional and national security law, faces legal and logistics problems.

Still just speculation at this point...but hey, isn't it the greatest speculation you've ever heard?  I'm sure the White House would love to hear your heartfelt gratitude and thanks, as would HHS Secretary Sebelius.  Yeah, I know, she's technically got nothing to do with national security, but you'd think she might have an interest in fighting for Kansans, and she is in Obama's inner circle.  Then again, maybe she doesn't care at all.  Call her and ask.

I heard a radio interview by Chris Stigall with Kansas Rep. Lynn Jenkins this morning, and she brought up two more excellent reasons this is a terrible idea that I haven't heard reported in the media yet.  Apparently, Ft. Leavenworth has no full-fledged medical facility on-site, so these terrorists would have to be transported to the local hospital in order to receive even basic medical care.  So, if you live in Leavenworth and go to the hospital, it is entirely possible that you could have a terrorist literally next door to you.  Second, Jenkins mentioned that simply having a completely secure facility in Leavenworth presents a danger to the citizens living there because that facility becomes an instant magnet for future terrorist attacks.  It's basically like painting a giant bulls-eye on the city.  Even if you're out driving the streets, it is possible that that ambulance right next to you has a terrorist in it and is a target for an escape attempt.  Are they planning to block off all traffic and create a secure perimeter every time a terrorist has a tummy ache?

Something else was also mentioned that is one of those odd...ahem...coincidences that just make you wonder.  It's Kansas.  It's as red as a state can get.  A lifetime of living in Kansas (and, for the past few years, border neighbor Missouri) has underscored for me the truth that elites on the coasts look at the Midwest states as full of a bunch of ignorant backwater hicks who are barely worthy of courtesy, much less consideration; the prevailing attitude seems to be that the sole purpose of the Midwest is to connect the East Coast to the West Coast.  Now consider this - of the elected representatives in the state (two Senators and four Reps), five are Republican.  Now that Sebelius has left and her replacement has signaled no desire to run for Governor next year, it is likely that a Republican will take over in Topeka.  Is it really just coincidence that Washington wants to plop a hotbed of terrorist interest down in the middle of Kansas?  The only elected Dem, Dennis Moore, won his district by a huge margin against what was considered to be a formidable challenger last year, so could the political calculus just be that they've gotten the best deal out of the state that they're going to get, so they don't care what the repercussions are now?  Coincidentally, Moore is the only one of the Kansas delegation that isn't fighting this move by the Obama administration.  The other possible location for these terrorists is in Michigan, which is about as blue as a state can get.  Logically speaking, that might seem to contradict my premise, but I think it actually supports it - after all, if Michiganers will tolerate a Democrat Governor working with a Democrat legislature to implement Democrat policies that created a one-state recession during the height of the roaring economy of the mid-2000s, surely they won't bat an eye at a few terrorists down the street, right?

Hmmm...

There's my two cents.