Saturday, May 17, 2008

Prisons are US

By Libby

It seems the Bush administration is hell bent on morphing from the biggest jailers in the world, with well over two million of our own citizens incarcerated, to becoming the jailers of the world.
The Pentagon is moving forward with plans to build a new, 40-acre detention complex on the main American military base in Afghanistan, officials said, in a stark acknowledgment that the United States is likely to continue to hold prisoners overseas for years to come. [...]

“Our existing theater internment facility is deteriorating,” said Sandra L. Hodgkinson, the senior Pentagon official for detention policy, in a telephone interview. “It was renovated to do a temporary mission. There is a sense that this is the right time to build a new facility.”
Unfortunately, with the situation on the ground in Afghanistan rapidly deteriorating, and this I remind you was the 'war' the White House has long told us we had 'won,' they are probably going to need that jail. The problem being it's unlikely we'll be housing many actual dangerous criminals in them if Iraq is any indication.
About 8,000 detainees have been released in Iraq since last September. Fewer than 1 percent of them have been returned to the prison, said Lt. Cmdr. K. C. Marshall, General Stone’s spokesman.
I believe most, if not all, of those released were held for weeks, months and sometimes years without ever having been charged with any crime, which explains the lack of recidivism. The one percent are probably those who were innocent to begin with and got pissed off in jail and decided to get some revenge for their unjust punishments.

And people still wonder why they hate us?

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5 Comments:

Blogger Capt. Fogg said...

And we raise holy hell about the Chinese because they make their prisoners work.

5:20:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I find it interesting that we have to build a new prison facility in Afghanistan after already renovating the one we use, but it takes 45 YEARS to even "discover" that our military barracks facilities are falling apart!

5:28:00 PM  
Blogger Carol Gee said...

Libby, it makes me sad to think that the U.S. is becoming the country that imprisons people, here and abroad.
Thanks for this post.

6:38:00 PM  
Blogger Libby Spencer said...

Fogg, our prisoners work too. I read something recently about prison labor setting up the room for a McCain event.

Brian, it's so infuriating.

Carol, it makes me sad too. And scared for my grandson's future.

7:54:00 PM  
Blogger Capt. Fogg said...

I see gangs of prisoners working on the roads and cleaning up parks all the time. If they were Chinese, we'd call it slave labor but here the good Christians complain that our prisons are country clubs and punishment isn't severe enough.

9:47:00 AM  

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