The White House has spread the word they will be asking Congress for authorization to move the Gitmo detainees to Thomson, Illinois. The move is to fulfill a promise made by President Barack Obama during last year's campaign.
The move will be pricey. Built for maximum security but operating as a minimum security prison, the Thomson Correctional Facility will need to have major work done to safely hold high value prisoners. Proponents say this is a necessary expense for national security. This will include retraining guards who have not had the challenges unique to maximum security detention facilities.
An unnamed administration official was quoted by The Chicago Tribune as saying, "Closing the detention center at Guantanamo is essential to protecting our national security and helping our troops by removing a deadly recruiting tool from the hands of Al Qaeda."
On the world stage this is not a solution to recruitment. Gitmo is not the rallying cry for adding legions to terrorist groups. It is the simple fact that their brothers in the cause are being held - period. Regardless of the location of the detainment, holding the prisoners will be used to portrait an arrogance by the United States.
Keeping the detainees in Gitmo is seen as unjust by terrorist leaders. The only difference in the move to Thomson is that recruitment posters will need to be recreated, dropping pictures of the Caribbean prison for one in America's heartland.
The only solution, from a recruitment perspective, is free the detainees. Any trail resulting in a guilty verdict will be used by the terrorists to illustrate prejudice against the Muslim world. An acquittal will be used to show how unfair the United States was in holding them.
Business implication
Business leaders are often faced with apparent no-win situations. These are the times when business leaders need to have a leadership huddle to brainstorm potential solutions. If no solution can be found, a third party consultant can typically break through the decision barriers or spur creativity to come up with a win-win solution.
Why are consultants able to do so? The answer is simple. "Consultants have no a horse in the race," says William Williams of Max Impact, a Detroit area consulting firm. "They are able to look at things with a fresh pair of eyes."
Comments
Just wanted to comment on your statement in regards to this being a minimum security prison.... This is not correct. This prison is a Maximum security prison with a limited amount of minimum security beds in. As of now, there are only minimum security inmates here, but the prison was but as a FULL MAXIMUM prison.
Thank you, Thomson Resident, for the correction. That paragraph was rewritten to more clearly show that the prison has been operated as a minimum security facility. It remains a costly solution as only a small portion of the facility will be used for the fewer than 100 detainees that will be relocated. Also, although the current staff may have been originally trained for maximum security, it is reasonable to require retraining for new polisices and procedures and as a refresher for these high-value prison residents.
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