Kansas senators threaten action over moving Guantanamo detainees to Leavenworth

[sabra]

Source: KTKA

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., who has threatened to shut down the Senate if President Obama tries to send Guantanamo Bay detainees to Leavenworth, has placed “holds” on Obama appointees.

In a news release, Roberts said Thursday that he and U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., have put holds on key Obama Administration appointees to the justice and defense departments.

The senators said the holds will remain in place “until they receive answers from the White House regarding recent press reports that decisions have been made to locate Guantanamo Bay detainees in Leavenworth, Kansas, or Standish, Michigan.”

Read more: http://www.ktka.com/news/2009/aug/06/kansas_senators_threaten_action_over_moving_guanta/

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Guess Obama should start making 'recess appointments' next week, uh?

[rurallib]

2. what a couple of fucking lilly livered cowards

Hey Pat, Sam, Leaven worth is a fucking prison. Bars, locks, guards with guns, razor wire. It is very unlikely these people could get out. If they did I am sure they wouldn't get far.
How in the hell did we win WWII?

[Freddie Stubbs]

3. We won WWII by dropping nukes on Japan

[Buzz Clik]

11. The anti-nuke crew would have you believe that the war was in the bag.

The pro-nuke crowd would tell you that we were going to win but at the cost of millions of more lives.

Regardless, I think you're oversimplifying the efforts that went into WWII.

[Piewhacket]

21. We were winning, and we had the bomb...

but Hitler was about to get the bomb, and we were first
in that thanks to OUR german scientists, who were probably
no more skilled than Germany's german scientists, and no
one knew that frightening fact better than our german
scientists, who said so.

So in the end the decision came down to an assessment
that if the war continued Hitler would get the bomb,
and would not hesitate to use it, and millions would die.
We remember also that millions WERE dying in Hitler's Holocaust,
(so obviously, Hitler wasn't really joking or delusional about
Germany's getting "super weapons" to be delivered by
rockets which would then win the war, and we knew that,
and that Hitler was not even slightly conflicted about using
such weapons.)

and even if he didn't get the bomb soon enough, many would
die in conventional fighting.

So cold calculus of logic weighed the war advantage while
the human calculus weighed the human cost, including the terrible
and possibly apocalyptic future foretold by use of atomic/nuclear
weapons in future wars, based on the precedent.

It was an unbelievably horrifying decision for a single man to make.
And to use it on civilian targets??? God have mercy.
For how do you weigh and judge such a thing? By what rules, what principles?
It is the first decision of its kind in human history. The precedent
examined for guidance in future such decisions.

And somehow the decision, and others to follow (JFK, Cuban missile crisis)
managed a precarious balance so that, to date, 60 years of atomic weaponry
development later ** only two bombs have been dropped in anger.

Was use of the Nagasaki bomb controversial? For pity sake, what could be MORE so?
Was it the right decision? Thankfully, it was not mine to make. Thankfully.

----
**"Fat Man" was the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945, 0.02 Megatons, equivalent
to 1 gram of mass conversion E=mc2. Andre Sakarov was a principle project
scientist (later dissident over use of nuclear weapons) on the Russian "Ivan"
bomb (aka Tsar Bomb), which was tested in 1961 and yielded 50 megatons,
the equivalent of 2500 Nagasaki bombs.

[GodlessBiker]

4. Cowards for sure! That prison houses murderers who have eaten the brains of their victims. But,...

somehow, those being held in Gitmo are just too dangerous for the guards in Kansas.

[Politicalboi]

9. I think it's more dangerous

For the detainees.

[earcandle]

22. I think they are afraid they will get out and come after them, they are so guilty.

[GodlessBiker]

23. Agreed. If the regular inmates got their hands on them... (eom)

[SkyDaddy7]

8. EXACTLY!!!!!!!

I thought the Republicans were tough as nails??? They have no problem at all shipping our military around the world to fight wars but they can't add some hard core folks to the thousands of hard core folks they already have at Leavenworth...We have worse American terrorist in there already!

NO ONE HAS EVER ESCAPED OUR SUPERMAX PRISONS!

Republicans are PUSSIES!

sorry.

[JBoy]

5. Sounds like it's time to move Leavenworth to another state.

[DesertFlower]

6. remember john gotti.

he was in prison in marion, ill. spent 23 hours a day in his cell. when his family came to visit their conversations were taped.

we can't do the same with prisoners from guantanamo?

[thereismore]

7. Move Roberts and Brownback to another country. Maybe Guantanamo. nt

[Buzz Clik]

10. Of course they do. Everyone knows that Leavenworth is a joke and prisoners escape routinely.

:sarcasm:

Run for your lives, Kansans!!!

[Karenina]

12. NO ONE HAS EVER ESCAPED from a U.S. maximum security prison.

NO ONE.

I add this, BC just in case anyone here is confused. 2 things the U.S. has down PAT:

+selling weapons
+imprisoning people

[Ian David]

13. Brownback (verb): To smear santorum on one's backside. n/t

[kckc]

14. as someone who lives in the area

I hear this crap constantly. The other argument Roberts is making is that terrorists will be invading this country trying to get to their imprisoned brethren, thus putting us all in graaaaave danger (cue scary music). I know, I know, but that is his argument, and he hasn't had much trouble whipping the locals into a frenzy over the whole issue.

(I couldn't open the link- sorry if this is mentioned in the story).

[AsahinaKimi]

15. They probably didn't get the memo...

As to which party won the election?

[liberal N proud]

16. With 60 Democrats?

:rofl:

Shut down the Senate.:rofl:

[McCamy Taylor]

17. Pat Roberts is a tool in every meaning of the word.

[Crowman1979]

18. Does he think the terrorists have special superpowers that can help them escape?

[damntexdem]

19. They are the real terrorists.

And they oppose what could bring more jobs to their state.

[DURHAM D]

20. I wonder what the Senators response would have been back in the 1940s

when the U.S. Government brought many captured German soldiers to live in Kansas. They were put in camps but went out during the day to work on the farms.

Actually they turned out to be good farm workers and the the farmers really appreciated the cheap labor since their own boys were fighting in the Pacific or in Europe. One of those German soldiers remained after the war and married my great aunt. He loved his "prison" experience in Kansas.

[Winterblues]

24. I guess they are saying Leavenworth is not a secure Prison.

That should make people in Kansas feel real secure. Their federal Prison can not hold prisoners according to their US Senators...

[liberalpragmatist]

25. There are ALREADY terrorists at Leavenworth

That's what so insane about this.

[slackmaster]

26. My grandfather was sent there in 1918 for refusing to participate in World War I

He was pardoned by President Wilson.

[Romulox]

27. I don't want these prisoners in Michigan. Neither does our governor.

Why are only these two states options? Send them to Texas, or New York.