Holding terrorism suspects at the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba may actually be a reward, given the harsh reality of high security supermax prisons across the United States.
The US House voted recently to refuse entry into the United States any and all detainees currently held at the Guantanamo Bay prison, effectively preventing Guantanamo inmates from entering supermax prisons on US soil. Interestingly enough however, some are arguing that conditions at Americas high security prisons are far more draconian that those at Guantanamo. “For up to four hours a day, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, can sit outside in the Caribbean sun and chat through a chain-link fence with the detainee in the neighboring exercise yard at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,” noted Peter Finn in an earlier article n the Washington Post. In addition, inmates have free access to a state-of-the-art gym, a number of movies they can watch in the on-site media room, various newspapers and books, and even video games. Inmates at one of America’s supermax prisons enjoy no such luxury. Inmates in high security are typically left in isolation for long periods of times – no prolonged daylight, no conversations, no tropical breezes. Federal supermax prisons currently hold the 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and Teodore Kaczynski aka the Unabomber and also Terry Nichols, who was convicted of the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. Conditions at US supermax prisons are so horrid, the accused terror suspects in United Kingdom once appealed to the European Court of Human Rights to prevent their extradition to the US on grounds their placement in a supermax would violate human rights. By voting to require Guantanamo inmates remain in a tropical paradise the US House may inadvertently granted accused terrorists a simpler life.