Month: September 2009

One Percent

by Patrick Appel

Mark Kleinman wants government money spent to identify innocent men:

If only 1% of our prison inmates are factually innocent – which seems to me like a ludicrously optimistic estimate, given how many convicts have been exonerated by DNA testing – we have 17,000 people behind bars at any one time for crimes they didn't commit. As far as I know, no jurisdiction in the United States maintains a team of investigators dedicated to developing new evidence to overturn guilty verdicts (and pleas). That's a crime. And it's also a crime that Gov. Rick Perry's role in allowing the execution of an innocent man seems very unlikely to damage his political future in Texas.

Good For David And Goliath

by Chris Bodenner

Jeff Jarvis looks at speculation over Howard Stern starting his own broadcasting company online:

Technology makes it possible: We could listen to him – and watch him – on the internet, on our iPods, and even now on our web-enabled phones. There’s no longer a need for a distribution network. […] Marketing? Stern doesn’t need it because his audience is his agency. And Stern doesn’t need to share any of that with Sirius XM. His only cost is his staff and bandwidth. Ah, but you say, he made a reported $500 million for his five-year Sirius contract. But I believe some of that came in equity and as a shareholder, I can tell you that isn’t doing so well. The point is, who’s going to sniff at tens of millions of dollars a year? If it doesn’t work, the risk is minimal. So why not? […T]he internet enables Stern to have complete freedom, control, and ownership, which is ideal for a control freak like Stern.

The web is not only ideal for enabling unknown amateurs to burst on the scene without money or industry backing. At the other end of the spectrum, for household brands like Stern, the internet can render all those industry middlemen obsolete. The industry only seems useful for the large swath of middling talents clamoring to out-position one another with artificial marketing and politics. Also, on the web, big-name talents have means to get back to their edgy, innovative roots.

Obama Talks To The Children, Ctd

by Patrick Appel

A reader writes:

You say you are ignoring the furor over Obama's school talk "because it is a fake story."

It is all too real and scary.

I teach in a midwestern, upper-middle class suburban school.  Before I was even aware that Obama had announced this speech my principal sent the entire staff an e-mail that in essence said if you plan on airing the speech you are to contact him first and also contact the parents. Since when do I have to contact parents for airing a presidential address?

By the time I got home that night, my own children's district (which is in an adjoining county) had posted to their website how teachers were planning on using the speech and that it would not be mandatory.  Unbelievable.

Today there were two more e-mails about the speech from my principal.  The first re-affirmed that only two teachers were planning on taping the speech to possibly show later, and if anyone was to do this they were to contact him, contact the parents and be sure it matches standards and not to make it mandatory.   Another e-mail was sent to say that the district would be sending a letter home to parents about this. 

But the letter was pre-empted by a phone call from our district's automated phone system where a district official notified parents that no teacher would show it live, that only Social Studies teachers might consider showing the video but only if it correlated with state standards and that it would not be mandatory and parents could opt them out of it.

This is our first week of school, and there is the typical nuttiness that goes on in schools during a first week.  This was a priority the last 24 hours for administration?  Three staff e-mails and an automated phone call home about a presidential speech that is slated to encourage students to stay in school and do well.

Two years ago we had a student bring what looked like an improvised explosive device into school, toss it in a trash can and flee the building.  Luckily it was not explosive, but the school went into a lockdown for two hours while the building was secured and the student apprehended.  There was one staff e-mail and one automated phone call to the parents.

Two decades as a teacher and I'm absolutely incredulous watching a school cater to a minority of loud, fearful and irrational voices.  Sadly, our district has a higher rate of minority students (by far) than the other suburban districts in the region. 

This is happening at schools all over the map.  There is a furor and it is not a fake story locally at your neighborhood school.

From Fear To Fearfulness

X-men1

by Chris Bodenner

This reader nails it:

Can someone remind me what it is the NIMBY crowd thinks these detainees are going to do once transferred to the U.S.?  They act like these guys are half-MacGyver, half-Houdini, and half-Lecter.  Do they think they're Transformers or X-Men or something, and that as soon as these mostly low-level terrorists touch U.S. soil they're going to shoot lasers from their eyes and throw cars at people?

If this proves anything, it's that the Bush-era scare tactics worked better than we thought.  The Republican Party has gone from the party of fear to the party of being afraid.  If the left ever acted like pansies about something the way the right has about this, they'd be taken to task and labeled "weak" or "soft".

He's right; fear is weakness.

The Miramar Canard

by Chris Bodenner

Regarding my last post, I want to circle back to this confused paragraph by Ms. Cooper:

Congressman Brian Bilbray (R-CA) pointed out to NewMajority that a similar facility to Pendleton in Mirimar [sic], CA, held illegal detainees which turned into an absolute disaster. A riot broke out and the facility had to be locked down.

In my brief googling I could not find an article with that description. However, an invaluable Dish reader did: an LA Times piece from 1996. Here's the relevant chunk:

Even as firefighters were dousing hot spots and soot-covered inmates were gasping for air, the political sniping had begun over the torching and melee at the privately run jail for illegal immigrants at Miramar Naval Air Station. U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-San Diego) was on radio talk shows blasting Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and U.S. Atty. Alan Bersin, calling the incident a riot, which he said he had predicted when the Clinton administration persuaded the Navy to house illegal immigrants at Miramar. […] Brian P. Bilbray, Ron Packard and Duncan Hunter–also issued similar partisan blasts within hours of the Friday melee.

One detail in particular pops out at me: the riot occurred at a "privately run jail" – not the brig itself. So, if I'm reading that right, Bilbray conflates 1) a small riot of illegal immigrants – in which no guards were attacked, no one tried to escape, and only three inmates were seriously injured – at a privately run jail, and 2) the incarceration of terrorist detainees at a military run prison, which would be fortified with Supermax-style security.

This is a perfect example of the skittish, disingenuous arguments permeating this whole transfer debate. And reporters like Ms. Cooper don't seem to question them.

By the way, Miramar is one of two consolidated brigs run by the Navy, the other located in Charleston, SC. And who's been kept at the Charleston Brig? Jose Padilla, the alleged "dirty bomber," as well as Yasser Hamdi and Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, two other "enemy combatants" (Al-Marri is still there). But, to my knowledge, there has never been a security incident at Charleston. Nor has there been any at the Florence federal facility – a virtual cornucopia of terrorism. And in many ways, the Florence Supermax is much more dangerous than Gitmo, since the former actually contains convicted terrorists, rather than an uncertain mix of terrorists, bad motherfuckers, and outright innocents.

Fisking NewMajority

by Chris Bodenner

Specifically, Elise Cooper, who just blogged a dreadful post called “No Terrorists In My Backyard.” I normally wouldn’t fisk an opinion piece on the Gitmo transfer, but Cooper purports to have real reporting: “NewMajority has interviewed 9/11 families, security experts and members of Congress. All agree: Not here.” However, of the six sources she quotes, six are Republicans. And they include prominent figures such as Cantor and Chertoff, so casual readers might get the impression that the piece is relevant journalism. In reality, it reads like a cobbled-together press release.

Congressman Brian Bilbray (R-CA) pointed out to NewMajority that a similar facility to Pendleton in Mirimar [sic], CA, held illegal detainees which turned into an absolute disaster.  A riot broke out and the facility had to be locked down.

A prison on lockdown?!  Oh nos!

I just spent the last 15 minutes trying to find details about the cataclysmic riot she’s referring to, but I came up empty. And what exactly are “illegal detainees”? Were they detained illegally?  Is Cooper implying that the military broke the law? (Or simply that Marines at Pendleton can’t handle a bunch of shackled, shell-shocked prisoners from a Navy base called Gitmo?)

Bob and Shirley Hemenway who live in Kansas and lost their son at the Pentagon on 9/11 were concerned that Americans do not understand the ramifications of bringing the terrorists to American territory.  They pointed out that Leavenworth is not a maximum security prison and logistically it is unsafe because it is surrounded by an airport, military housing, and a lake.

Maybe something has changed since I visited Fort Leavenworth two weeks ago, but that “lake” looks a lot like the Missouri River.  And I take “military housing” to mean a “US Army base housing the 705th MP Battalion, an elite detention unit that trained guards at Gitmo.” Also, the prison has about a mile of forest separating it from military housing. In fact, the fort’s old prison – which housed serial killers and rapists as recently as 2002 – was literally in the backyard of my brother’s middle-school girlfriend’s house, 50 feet from her back door. But, to the most painful part of Cooper’s paragraph: the USDB does have a maximum-security unit – it’s famous for being the only prison in the US military to have one.

Finally, my heart sincerely goes out to the Hemenways over their unimaginable loss, and they have a lot to say about the fears of local residents – a serious consideration for any transfer. But why does Cooper think they are experts on prison logistics?

The prison in Standish, Michigan is also being considered.  In August, Congressman Pete Hoekstra held a town hall meeting to discuss this issue.  He stated that the crowd there was “overwhelmingly in favor of keeping them (the terrorists) in Gitmo. […] The people don’t support it.”

The mayor, city manager, state representative, congressman, and most of the residents of Standish actually support the transfer. But yes, Cooper is right; a Republican congressman representing a district on the other side of Michigan – who just happens to be running for governor – is against the idea. Also, I was at that Hoekstra gathering last month. It wasn’t a “town hall,” it was an “Anti-Gitmo” rally – even the directional sign outside said so. Turnout was actually much lower than expected (around 200 of the anticipated 600 showed up), and the city manager even told NewsHour that many of the attendees had arrived from the other side of the state.

There is also the danger of mixing the terrorist population and the general criminal element.

No, there isn’t. The Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibits that.

Senator James Inhofe feels that “the prisons holding them will become magnets for extremists.”

This is the same reliable source who said yesterday: “I don’t know why President Obama is obsessed with turning terrorists loose in America.”

LAPD Chief Bratton concurs and stated to NewMajority that “a significant number of prisoners have been recruited to become radical jihadists.  It has become a frequent source of problems.”

Huh? Where? When? Within LA prisons? How is that relevant to Kansas or Michigan? And shouldn’t we be alerting the FBI that the California prison system is a breeding ground for radical jihadists?

Former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff who recently wrote a book about the future challenges to homeland security commented to NewMajority that a real fear is the ability of terrorists in American prisons communicating to the outside world.

Shorter Chertoff: “I don’t think military guards can handle it. Buy my book!”

All those interviewed agree that without a game plan in place the terrorists should not be moved to American soil.

Riveting insight. Someone should alert the president about this whole “plan” concept.

Congressman Tom Rooney (R-FL) commented to NewMajority that the detainees should not be brought to America because “we are in the shadow world of terrorists who are not conventional combatants.”

???

By moving detainees to the United States a considerable cost will be incurred to restructure the existing detention facilities.

When did Republicans become fiscally conservative on military spending?

As Congressman Bilbray noted “Gitmo is surrounded on three sides by bodies of water and the terrorists should not be moved to densely urban areas which could threaten the surrounding population.”

Leavenworth County: 159 /sq mi.
Arenac County, MI: 47 /sq mi.
New York County: 71,201 /sq mi.

Former Secretary Chertoff’s bottom line is that the Obama administration should not close Guantanamo Bay without a well thought out plan.

Again with this “plan” talk!  So demanding!  And what does “plan” even mean?

He explained that “there needs to be a lot of careful planning and consideration about what the options are if someone is going to close it”

Ah, that clears it up.

***Memo to Obama***  Make a plan. You can start by creating a task force. Then maybe send some officials to tour the prisons. Then you can delay the confirmation of your new Army Secretary – oh, sorry, Brownback and Roberts took care of that.

In all seriousness, it is a tad unsettling that Obama – less than five months away from his Gitmo deadline – hasn’t even announced which prisons will be used. But, for obvious reasons of national security (something Republicans are usually sensitive to), the administration isn’t going to disclose specific steps for a transfer beforehand.

Personally, I trust the Department of Defense to ensure the safety of any transfer, and for Obama to make the issue a top priority. People will probably scoff and say that I have blind faith in the president. I don’t; I have blind faith in his political self-interest. Bringing terrorist suspects to the US will be the most combustible national security issue of 2010 – perhaps of his entire presidency. His political survival is at stake to get it right (and especially right, since the GOP is already poised to exploit any perceived hiccup).

For me, this is the bottom line: There is a decent case to be made that closing Gitmo and transferring detainees to the US is not worth the risk. But misinformed, misleading, and fear-based NIMBY arguments do a great disservice to the people of Leavenworth, Standish, and the US military charged with protecting them.