Op-Ed: Admistration Ready to close Guantanamo Bay

Guantanamo Bay is where the terrorist suspects are being held, including some who supposedly plotted the 911 attacks. But where will we put them in the United States?

I've known a few people in my lifetime who have been in prison. Most of them will tell you that if a prisoner escapes about the furthest thing from their mind is attacking the first civilian on the street. That is unless they just escaped from a prison for the criminally insane. That's not to say that they won't take advantage of an opportunity if you give it to them. After all, they are opportunists. That's what got them in prison in the first place, especially if they are a burglar or a thief. So if you're sitting there with your car unlocked, they might just seize the opportunity and car jack you. But most of the time they won't go out of their way to break into your house. This is the stuff of movies. The main thing on their mind is to get as far away from the prison as possible in as little time as possible. They know that this gives them the best opportunity to get away. I once lived out in Pacific, Missouri near the medium security prison there. Over the course of the twelve years I lived there, there must have been about 3 or 4 breakouts. Most of the time the inmates were back in prison within a couple of days. I can't remember any of them getting all the way away. Once I was driving home from work in the middle of the afternoon and ran into a road block up ahead. The police stopped my car and with shotguns pointed, searched my vehicle. I was driving a 4x4 Scout at the time and they must have thought one of the two inmates that escaped was hiding in the back because they were very cautious when searching back here. The rest of the time I lived there the prison was an ideal neighbor. The point of all of this is that most of the time you don't have to fear if they decide to build a prison in your back yard. Actually, with all those law enforcement officials around, you'd probably be safer. Some people are all for building places to hold the "undesirables" of our society like the homeless and the criminals as long as they don't do it in our town. According to Reuters, the Obama administration is getting close to deciding where to place the prisoners when Guantanamo Bay closes. The administration has promised to close the political prison that George W. Bush set up for suspected "terrorists." Although the location has yet to be announced, there's already been quite a lot of opposition to closing the prison and moving the detainees to the United States. It's hard to see what all of the fuss is about, except that we Americans are a scared people living in fear of the next terrorist attack. This is due largely to the fear mongering of Bush and his cronies. If the escape rate from a medium or even minimum security prison is rare, think how rare it would be for a maximum security prison like Super Max in Colorado. Since it opened in 1994, not a single prisoner has escaped. I'm sure that's the type of place they would go. The greatest fear would be for the prisoners themselves. If they think they got bad treatment from the soldiers at Guantanamo, wait till they meet the inmates at a maximum security prison.