Gitmo

Thomson aka Gitmo North not a done deal; 12/22 State Assembly hearing and protest in Sterling IL

If you are among the 64% of Americans against closing Gitmo and moving detainees to the U.S., you should sign this petition opposing turning Thomson into Gitmo North.

Bev Perlson of BandOfMothers.com was on Fox & Friends this morning to also ask that you to be outside Sterling High School, 1608 4th Avenue, Sterling, Illinois, at noon Central, on December 22, 2009:

Don’t believe President Obama who is negotiating the deal behind closed doors after repeatedly promising the most transparent administration ever. Forget Senator Dick Durbin’s phony terror-into-plow-shares jobs program. The lion’s share of jobs saved and created would be for al Qaeda’s defense lawyers to stand outside Thomson passing on the propaganda from their clients inside.

‘We will live to regret’ moving al Qaeda to Illinois: Debra Burlingame

BigGovernment.com has posted a leaked memorandum from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to Attorney General Eric Holder that, in part, reads:

“The Secretary of Defense shall relocate detainees currently held at the Guantanamo Detention Facility to the [Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, Illinois] as expeditiously as possible.”

Subsequently, 911 Never Forget Coalition co-founder Debra Burlingame issued the following statement:

Who would have believed after 9/11 that our own president, the commander-in-chief who recently announced that he was sending another 30,000 troops to risk their lives in Afghanistan, would order that the enemy combatants captured on the battlefield must be brought into the United States. We will live to regret this.

Barack Obama continues to cast the closing of Guantanamo and the importation of Al Qaeda terrorists into the American heartland as a moral victory. But this is nothing more than moral vanity and rank political theater aimed at satisfying his liberal soul mates at the ACLU and Human Rights First. In truth, the security nightmare he is about to visit on this country will only be surpassed by the legal morass which will accompany the transfer of foreign terrorists to American soil. The moment the detainees arrive, their lawyers will drop an avalanche of legal challenges on the federal courts seeking to set them free, destroy what is left of the military commissions, and turn the 9/11 trial into a tragic farce. Americans should remember this: it doesn’t have to happen. The Supreme Court said that Gitmo is lawful and that preventative detentions are Constitutional. Barack Obama — and members of Congress who stand by and do nothing to stop him — will own this national security disaster.

Debra Burlingame
Co-founder, 9/11 Never Forget Coalition
Director, Keep America Safe