Biden: U.S. Needs to Close Cuba Prison

[cal04]

A leading Senate Democrat said Sunday the United States needs to move toward shutting down the military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.''This has become the greatest propaganda tool that exists for recruiting of terrorists around the world. And it is unnecessary to be in that position,'' said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del.

A Pentagon report released Friday detailed incidents in which U.S. guards at Guantanamo desecrated the Quran. Last month, Amnesty International called the detention center for alleged terrorists ''the gulag of our time,'' a charge Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld dismissed as ''reprehensible.''

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, GOP Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, plans hearings this month on the treatment of foreign terrorism suspects at the prison camp.Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, proposed that an independent commission take a look at Guantanamo and make recommendations.

''But the end result is, I think we should end up shutting it down, moving those prisoners,'' he told ABC's ''This Week.''''Those that we have reason to keep, keep. And those we don't, let go.''He added, ''I think more Americans are in jeopardy as a consequence of the perception that exists worldwide with its existence than if there were no Gitmo.''There are about 540 detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Some have been there more than three years without being charged with a crime. Most were captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002 and were sent to Guantanamo Bay in hope of extracting useful intelligence about the al-Qaida terrorist network.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Guantanamo.html?

[dogday]

1. It's a start

[bullimiami]

2. a very weak start. what I would expect from biden.

the prisoners need to be charged with a crime or set free, and restitution needs to be made to prisoner and family.

this is cruel and illegal what they have done to these people.

[gordianot]

3. I doubt it will be shut down due to Amnesty International call.

I hope they keep it open when and if Neo-Cons are ever prosecuted.

[0007]

5. Good idea......

[ckramer]

4. Well, The reputation of the USA is long damaged since the invasion

of Iraq.

It's like calling your daughter to be a virgin today, after her having had sex since 2001.

Duh!

[Roland99]

6. And do what the hundreds of "suspects"?

Let them go like the rest of them have been?



How many have come to trial after having been held for over 3 years?

[AlCzervik]

7. Geez another Biden idea cribbed from someone else-Looks like

hair plugs and huge caps has been reading Tom Friedman.

[dArKeR]

8. US needs to give that land back to the Cubans! How would you like a

Pakistan base in D.C.?

[anotherdrew]

11. we have one, isn't it the 4th floor of the Hilton or something?

[dArKeR]

12. Okay, Smarty Pants you got me on that one.

[MrPrax]

9. Wow...a principled stand.

Shut it down because it 'looks' bad and 'move those prisoners' so it doesn't receive as much attention...

What a bizarre twisted little world Biden lives in...

[me b zola]

13. He began with a principled stand on Bolton, too

But today it sounds as though they are going to stand down their blocking of his nomination.

Biden strikes me as playing hard-ball long enough to garner whatever favors he seeks, and then submitts when he lines his pockets. I just don't see any other way to read him.

[elias49]

16. Biden reminds me of John McCain

except he wears blue instead of red.
They both have all the priciples of a snake.

[anotherdrew]

10. give the whole damn base back to cuba

[dArKeR]

14. Biden the WHORE here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3791038

[Jack Rabbit]

15. BBC (early Monday): Senator urges Guantanamo closure

From the BBC Online
Dated Monday June 6 01:24 GMT (Sunday 6:24 pm PDT)

Senator urges Guantanamo closure

A leading Senator and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has said that the US should close its detention centre at Guantanamo Bay.

Democrat Senator Joseph Biden said the controversy over the camp put Americans at risk from terrorism rather than protecting them from it.

He said the camp's future needed to be examined.

Hundreds of alleged terrorism suspects have been held at the camp without charge for up to three years.

Read more.