George,

"The more terrorists we have in U.S. prisons the fewer there will be to do us harm."

Former President George W. Bush, with a giant "Mission Accomplished" sign hoisted behind him, while aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, delivered a speech on May 1, 2003 heralding America's success in Iraq. A day beyond two months on July 2, 2003, in his Declaration of Incitement deriding Iraq attackers, he colloquially taunted: "Bring "em on!" Today the death count of American soldiers are not just less than 1,000 as they were at that time, but 4,301, and continuing to increase with more than 72 deaths since he left office on January 19, 2009.

In this discourse the main focus is on Guantanamo where alleged terrorists are incarcerated. At one time 750 persons were there. All except for about 250 have been released, mainly because of a lack of evidence that they were terrorists. President Barack Obama has said that he would close the facility within a year after becoming President.

My proposal to the president is: House the terrorists that are in Guantanamo in Supermax prisons in the United States and, beyond that, capture as many other terrorists as possible and put them in U.S. prisons. The more terrorists we put behind bars in U.S. prisons the safer we will be because there will be fewer of them free to do us harm.

Fort Leavenworth accomodates the Department of Defense's only maximum security prison. Level 5, the most secured, is equivalent to a Federal Supermax prison. These are some of the Supermax prisons in the United States: Federal Supermax ADX Prison (Florence, Colorado, Pelican Bay Prison (California), Ohio State Prison (Ohio), Wallens Ridge & Red Onion (Virginia) and Wisconsin Secure Facility (Boscobel). Less than a quarter of prisoners are housed in maximum security facility.

Another prison to be considered is Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana. Angola is the largest prison in the United States, with 5,100 inmates and 1,800 staff members. It is located about 59 miles from Baton Rouge, on an 18,000 acre property that was previously the Angola and other plantations owned by Isaac Franklin. He was involved in the slave trade that included the domestic slave trade, after the foreign slave trade was abolished in 1808. When he died in 1846, about twenty years before slavery ended in the United States, he owned 600 slaves.

In many ways, Angola remains a slave plantation with former descendants of slaves performing labor on this prison-slave plantation. In Louisiana blacks make up 32 percent of the state's population where they constitute 72 percent of the state's prison population. The ratio of imprisoned to civilian population of the three leading states are: Louisiana (816 per 100,000), followed by Texas (694 per 100,000), and Mississippi (669 per 1000,000).

Should it become necessary to build a supermax prison to house terrorists in the United States, Angola would be the ideal place. As stated earlier Angola consists of an 18,000 acre property. However, it would appear that we already have enough supermax prisons to house not only the terrorists in Guantanamo but those likely to be captured in the foreseeable future.

There are two things that must be kept in mind if America is to be a respected world leader and embrace a standard of morality: (1) make a distinction between terrorists and freedom fighters, and (2) a person is presumed to be "innocent until proven guilty." Regarding the first point, in the fifties, sixties and beyond, Martin Luther King, Jr., a freedom fighter and earlier Paul Robeson, a human rights activist, were called Communists by some people including, F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover. Regarding the second point, in our judicial system a person is presumed to be "innocent until proven guilty." This standard must work for all people, regardless of the charges brought against them or the labels the accusers put on the accused.

To repeat, President Obama has vowed to close Guantanamo. This is a prison where much abuse of prisoners has been documented, that the world call evil, and has inspired people to become terrorists, both foreign and home-grown.

There is also the question as to whether America has a legitimate reason to occupy Guantanamo? This involves Cuba's ownership and Americaa's lease rights of Guantanamo. During the Spanish-American War the United States in 1889 retreated to Guantanamo. This became the location of the United States Naval Station Guantanamo Bay on the shore of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which covers about 45 square miles. It is sometimes call "Gtmo" or "Gitmo." A perpetual lease was offered February 23, 1903 and in 1934 a treaty reaffirmed that lease. The Cuban government has opposed the presence of the Naval base, claiming that the lease is invalid under international law. The United States claim the lease is valid. Since Fidel Castro led the Cuban Revolution, that govenment has cashed only one of the rent checks from the United States government which amounts to less than $5,000 a year (in 1934 dollars). It should also be noted that in June of 2005, the United States Department of Defense announced that a unit of defense contactor Halliburton would build a $1 billion detention facility and security perimeter around the base.

These are two questions that should be answered by an international court or the United Nations as to who is the owner of Guantanamo Bay and how valid is the United States' lease of Guantanamo?

Terrorists are already housed in American prisons. Among them are Zacaris Moussaoui, said to be the 20th hijacker on 9-11-201, Richard Reid, the shoebomber, Ramsi Yousef and homegrown terrorists Unabomber Theodore J. Kaczynskis and Timothy McVeigh. They, as well as some other alleged terrorists, are housed in the Federal ADX Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. I haven't heard that any of the citizens in the vicinity of that prison expressed any fear for their lives. Some of them living near the prison are employees at the prison.

There is still more than enough room in America's supermax prisons to house the two hundred plus terrorists currently being held in Guantanamo. President Obama has said that some other countries have agreed to accept fifty of the terrorists, or who he is calling "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo. Once these terrorists have had their day in court, it is hard to say how many of them will be released. If they are not guilty they should be released.

'Bring 'em on!'- terrorists to U.S. prisons is a much more responsible statement than the one made by former President George Bush in July of 2003, that may have contributed to the increase in the deaths of American soldiers and Iraqis in Iraq. "Bring'em on!' - terrorists to the U.S. prisons," conceivably, will save lives.

Could this become Americans' rally cry: "Bring 'em on!' - terrorists to U.S. prisons?" Just maybe, this would help reduce the more than 2.3 million people incarcerated in U.S. prisons, where more than 40 percent of them are African-Americans. Until the influx of illegal foreigners, in recent years, Blacks constituted 47 percent of the prison population. While the percentage of black prisoners have decreased the number of blacks in prison have continued to increase.

With America being the Worlds's number one jailer, it is ludicrous for anyone to suggest that Americans fear having prisoners in their states. In some states, especially, some towns, the largest employer is the prison. As noted earlier, Angola prison has a staff of 1,800 and that does not include the other people and providers who benefit "big-time" from that prison. In 2005 more than 4.1 million people were on probation and 784,208 were on parole.

Although my key emphasis is "Bring 'em on!' - terrorists to U.S. prisons!" and that will be better than having them on the loose with a greater probability that they will attack us, hopefully this discourse will help to raise the consciousness of Americans regarding reality and reduce fear and fear-mongering. How do fear-mongers know that we are unsafe and will be less safe in the future when they do not know what happened yesterday?

"Bring 'em on!' - terrorists to U.S. prisons!" and incarcerate them in our supermax prisons.

Uriah J. Fields (Electronic mail, May 23, 2009)