Reid acknowledges Guantanamo detainees will need to be relocated to U.S. prisons.
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on May 28th, 2009 4:32 am by HL
Reid acknowledges Guantanamo detainees will need to be relocated to U.S. prisons.
After previously suggesting that he wouldn’t support Guantanamo detainees being relocated to the U.S., Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) acknowledged in an interview with a local news station that some Gitmo detainees will be put in federal prisons. While conservatives have baselessly claimed that “terrorists” could roam in Americans’ “backyards” if Guantanamo is closed, […]
After previously suggesting that he wouldn’t support Guantanamo detainees being relocated to the U.S., Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) acknowledged in an interview with a local news station that some Gitmo detainees will be put in federal prisons. While conservatives have baselessly claimed that “terrorists” could roam in Americans’ “backyards” if Guantanamo is closed, Reid defended the ability of the U.S. prison system to hold dangerous criminals:
REID: A maximum security prison in the United States, there has never been a single escape.
Q: You think eventually the plan is going to be to put them in maximum security prisons here in this country, correct?
REID: I think some. Keep in mind, Jon, there’s so many different issues. There’s no question that a number of these people who are there are not guilty of anything. The Uighurs, these are a group of Muslim Chinese who are guilty of nothing. They were arrested, put in there. They are there. They are doing nothing. We’re going to have to find someplace to put them. We can’t send them back to China. Should they go into a maximum security prison? Probably not.”
Needless to say, some Guantanamo detainees will need to be relocated to the United States in order to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Reid is now trying to coax his colleagues into supporting Obama’s position, following the president’s speech last week. “The vast majority of the Senate – Democrats, certainly – agree that it should be closed,” Reid said. “And it’s going to be closed.”
Mancow: Hannity Called Me After I Was Waterboarded And Said, ?It?s Still Not Torture?
Last month, Fox News’s Sean Hannity claimed he would agree to be waterboarded “for charity…for the troops’s families.” Since then, multiple pundits have challenged Hannity to undergo the torture tactic, yet he has been unusually silent on the subject of waterboarding since. Last week, right-wing radio host Erich “Mancow” Muller stepped up to the plate and […]
Last month, Fox News’s Sean Hannity claimed he would agree to be waterboarded “for charity…for the troops’s families.” Since then, multiple pundits have challenged Hannity to undergo the torture tactic, yet he has been unusually silent on the subject of waterboarding since.
Last week, right-wing radio host Erich “Mancow” Muller stepped up to the plate and had himself waterboarded to prove that it isn’t torture. Immediately afterwards, Mancow admitted that it was “absolutely torture” and was “way worse” than he expected.
Yesterday, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann interviewed Mancow about his experience under the bucket. “I would have said anything to make it stop,” Mancow said, further confirming that torture does not produce reliable intelligence. “I don’t think drowning is harsh enough. … This is worse. This isn’t gulping for air. This is your brain is shut off.” Mancow said that despite the “horrific” event, Hannity called him afterwards to insist that waterboarding still isn’t torture:
MANCOW: First of all, Sean Hannity called me and said, “It’s still not torture.” I said, “Sean” — he is a friend of mine — “it is torture.” All right. But, look, you are giving 10,000 dollars to the Veterans of Valor.org. So I think you are stand-up guy for doing that.
“I felt the effects for two days. I had chest pains. I told my wife — I have two little kids. We prayed. I said, dear God, help me. I had chest pains. I was so stressed out by this,” Mancow said. Watch it:
Time and again, those who have dared to undergo waterboarding have said it is torture. Mancow, who initially scoffed at the tactic, explained to Olbermann: “Look, I see the video…the sprinkling of the water, big deal. … I was laughing at it. I was willing to prove and ready to prove that this was a joke. And I was wrong.”
Mancow laughed at waterboarding until he tried it himself. Hannity’s fact-free claim that waterboarding is “not torture” might carry more weight if he displayed the courage of Mancow.
