Vacationers Are Apparently Acceptable, Part I

Nearly every day for the past five weeks, Sen. Mitchell McConnell (R-KY), the Minority Leader since January 2007, has delivered remarks on the floor of Congress regarding President Obama's plans to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay (which, as I have mentioned in previous postings, is an illegal facility) and, in turn, the eventual destination of the detainees still held behind its walls. During one of those speeches, McConnell commented that "Guantanamo currently houses some of the most dangerous men alive...who are proud of the innocent lives they have taken". Not to be outdone by McConnell, Sen. Samuel Brownback (R-KS) declared that "The people in the community are going to feel very threatened -- this is in an urban environment, an urban setting, and for what? Why are we doing this?" Sen. Patrick Roberts (R-KS) and Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) echoed their colleague's theme by stating "Not in our backyard. Not in Kansas. Not on my watch." and "Do you want the terrorists in your hometown?", respectively.

Although I completely understand anyone's concern with the future location of any of the dangerous individuals currently being detained at Guantanamo Bay (although no one really knows how many of them are actually dangerous), I am amazed at how much Brownback, Roberts and Tiahrt speak out against this issue when members of the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police frequently make trips to their state. Four times each year, soldiers from the Afghan National Army and officers from the Afghan National Police are selected from their respective units and are awarded a working vacation to either Fort Riley in northeast Kansas or a United States Army training area in Germany. During one of those trips to Fort Riley, U.S. Army soldiers instructed the Afghans on such things as proper etiquette while traveling on an aircraft, appropriate hygiene standards and the cultural differences between the two countries. Aside from participating in a training exercise, the visitors were provided with shopping trips to Wal-Mart and the post exchange and a tour of a sporting goods warehouse, treated to lunch at a local restaurant and entertained with an outing to a major league baseball game. Considering Brownback's previous comments, these trips to the U.S. are an utter disgrace, given the fact that Fort Riley is just more than an hour away from the Senator's home.

Now before anyone attacks me for being a racist and for trying to link these Afghan soldiers and police officers to the Taliban or al-Qaeda, I am certainly not doing that. (I will leave those baseless accusations up to the Republicans above and other naive members of the right wing.) However, it is amazing that these conservative politicians have no issues with soldiers from the Afghan National Army visiting the U.S., despite the fact that this military was trained and equipped by the Soviet Union for thirty years and then ruled by the Taliban for five years until this regime was "removed" in late 2001. And we shouldn't forget that the all levels of the Afghan National Police have been easily bribed in the past by members of the Taliban, especially considering the fact that those police officers generally earn between $30-100 per month.

Of course, the Republicans don't bother to mention the fact that President Obama has revived the Bush era military tribunals for top terror suspects imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. They only want to focus on the overwhelmingly small percentage of those individuals who are even guilty of any sort of crime.