'Terrorists' in US prisons

For this post, I decided to try something different. Instead of a standard prose essay, I offer for the perusal of any adventurous types who manage to find their way to this far corner of the Internet a Socratic dialogue. If it's good enough for Plato, it's good enough for me.

"Hey, did you read this? That socialist president of ours wants to move all these terrorists from Guantanamo to the US!"

"Hmmm. I see what you mean. It's not clear whether all of them will go to court any time soon, and so we still might end up detaining some people indefinitely without trial. That would seem to violate the spirit of Obama's pledge to end the violations of human rights that Guantanamo represents. But at least we aren't torturing people any more."

"What are you talking about? We never tortured anybody. We just interrogated them for vital information necessary to protect America."

"Oh? That waterboarding stuff sounds a lot like torture to me. And didn't I read that some poor guy got sodomized with a broom handle?"

"I don't know anything about that. Anyway, these are all terrorist scum we're talking about. I'm not going to cry for them. We need to do what it takes to beat the evil they are part of."

"But why do you say they're evil?"

"Because they blow people up and want to impose their radical ideology on everyone!"

"So they are evil for blowing people up but we aren't evil if we torture them?"

"We're just trying to protect ourselves from them! They're the ones who started coming here and killing our people!"

"Hmm. I thought the US was involved in the Middle East long before Al-Qaeda attacked us. But anyway, what you are saying is that since they attacked us, they are the bad guys, and since we are defending ourselves against them, whatever we do is okay?"

"That's about right, yeah."

"So if they grab one of our soldiers or civilians and chop his head off, they are evil, but if we waterboard some guy we think is one of them, that's not evil?"

"Something like that. But I wasn't talking about that. Some whiny bleeding heart fools may want to treat these scum like babies, but my point is that they want to bring them here to the US. I mean, can you believe that Obama's insane enough to actually bring terrorists to American soil?"

"Well, if he closes down Guantanamo and doesn't want to let them go, he's got to put them somewhere, right?"

"But he can't put them here! These people are dangerous! You see from the article that at least the Republican from Michigan is sensible enough to see it's a bad idea. I also read that the Republican congressman representing that district in Kansas is against it, and he said 95% of his constituents don't want them there."

"Yes, I see. But I also see that they already have prisons in those places, and they're maximum security. Surely those prisons already have some murderers and rapists in them?"

"Yeah, but these are terrorists! They're a danger to the whole nation! Look what they did in New York!"

"Well, I don't know that all of them are terrorists; maybe some just got caught by accident. But anyway, are you saying that just by being near us they are somehow deadly? Like terrorists give off some infectious disease or something?"

"Yeah, well, maybe not, but think, man! What if they got out?"

"But these people in Kansas or wherever already live next to a prison full of violent criminals. Why don't they worry about them getting out?"

"I'm sure they don't want that to happen, but anyway those are just ordinary criminals. These are foreign terrorists."

"But look, that's the point. Aren't the criminals they've already got in these prisons Americans?"

"Yeah, so while I'm sure these people don't like living near criminals, it could be worse. Obama could stick them with these foreign scum."

"Okay, but these criminals they've got now, they speak English and know their way around, so if they got out, they'd be able to hide out and maybe start committing new crimes. But these guys from Guantanamo, they're all like, what, Saudis and Yemenis and Pakistanis and whatever. I'll bet half of them barely speak English. What would they do if they did get out?"

"Are you kidding? They'd probably go straight to the nearest big city and blow something up! These guys are all crazy suicide bombers. Don't you watch the news?"

"How would they get the bombs? I doubt they'd even be able to find their way to any targets if they got out. Like I said, half of them probably don't even speak decent English. If they are fugitives who just got out of prison in a strange country, how are they going to even get around, let alone get the ingredients for a bomb?"

"Okay, some of them might have a little trouble, but some of them speak English, and some of them have been to the US before. And even the others would probably manage."

"So you think some English-speaking Pakistani guy is going to manage to break out of prison in Kansas and walk into stores and start buying bomb ingredients when everyone's out looking for him? I mean, I don't think much of racial profiling, but how many Pakistanis are there in Kansas? And everyone would be looking out for him, right?"

"He wouldn't have to stay in Kansas. He could go to New York or somewhere like that. There's all kinds of weird foreign types there."

"'Weird foreign types', right. So you think he could get all the way across the country -- a country he's not likely to be that familiar with, unless he's one of the few who has lived here -- with everybody looking for him, build a bomb, and blow a bunch of people up?"

"Yeah, sure. I mean, these guys are terrorists! They'd find a way. Look what they did to the World Trade Center!"

"But they spent months planning that, and they weren't all on the run when they did it. Not to mention there were a bunch of them."

"Okay, they might not be able to do something that big, but you can bet they'd do something. They're definitely too dangerous to be let into the country."

"I see. So your point is that people shouldn't worry too much about living next to a prison overflowing with murderers, rapists and other violent criminals, who if they escaped could go straight back to doing what got them put away in the first place, but we should worry about having some foreign people with lousy English who'd probably get lost on the way to the Greyhound station in our prisons, because they are 'terrorists'?"

"Right, that's what I'm saying."

"Okay, I get it. These guys are scary, 'cause they're foreign and they are called terrorists, as in 'terror'. Got you."

"Glad we got that straight. Now let's go get a beer. All this talking has made me thirsty."