A majority of Americans want to keep Gitmo open
A majority of Americans do not want to see the detainee prison facility at Guantanamo Bay closed and will be "upset" with the Obama administration if it continues to move forward with plans to shutdown the facility, according to a poll released this morning by Gallup.
By an even greater margin of three-to-one, respondents said they oppose the administration's plans to move some of the detainees to prison facilities within the United States.
Lastly, the poll shows that Vice President Cheney clearly won the national security "showdown" on Guantanamo Bay with President Obama last month. Forty percent (40%) of those surveyed agreed with Cheney's belief that the prison at Guantanamo Bay had helped make America safer. Only 18% agreed with President Obama's assertion that the housing of detainees at Gitmo had made America less safe.
I thought this part was interesting:
In the survey, Americans were inclined to accept the argument by Cheney and former president George W. Bush that the detention center had made the United States safer. By 40%-18%, they said the prison had strengthened national security rather than weakened it.
Those who want the prison to remain open feel more strongly on the subject that those who want to close it. A 54% majority of those polled say the prison shouldn't be closed, and that they'll be upset if the administration moves forward to close it.
This is encouraging to me because I think that there's a chance that President Obama will see this as a line not to cross. It would be nice if the administration put to rest the lies of the left about Gitmo, e.g., that torture occurs there regularly, etc. I realize that's probably too much to ask for. But I'm hoping that he contents himself with talking about closing it without really doing anything which is a technique at which he excels.
That is because the other side has no solution. People like Mark Shea bemoan the cruelty of Gitmo and "The Rubber Hose Right" yet what do they offer? NIMBY! It means Not in My Back Yard. I do not see the logic in put some Prisoners caught in the battlefields of Afghanistan or Iraq in say Joliet or Huntsville. Having that mixed in with usual prison assortment of Neo-Nazi's, Black Militants or Latin Gangs is a recipe for disaster. Yes, President Bush should have asked Congress for a Declaration of War as spelled out in the Constitution. He would not have these problems because those people would be labeled POWS. He did not. No one asked him to. The result is this Ad-Hoc solutions to long term problems. This leaves Gitmo as one of the only results. It is not perfect, it is what is.
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