One of the key enablers of the Bush administration, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), toured Ft. Leavenworth yesterday, apparently there to stoke up fear and throw red meat to the salivating, hardcore, dittohead base.
“Don’t send the Gitmo inmates here!” was the message from Roberts and a town-hall gathering of Leavenworth residents.
Never mind that Fort L, even Roberts concedes, is well-equipped to accommodate the detainees. The latest fear-mongering tactic is to claim that the town’s 5,000 residents will become targets for terrorism.
Dire warnings also came this past weekend in the form of an editorial in The Kansas City Star by Leavenworth’s Assistant to the City Manager (we didn’t even hear from the Manager!) and Public Information Officer, Megan Gilliland.
Gilliland’s version of the consequences of bringing the Gitmo detainees to Leavenworth is economic Armageddon. Her reasoning is so fantastical only a quote will suffice:
“If the detainees are put at Fort Leavenworth, there is a very good chance the rail line would close, affecting commerce and transportation throughout the Midwest.”
And don’t forget Ft. L’s Sherman Army Airfield!
“Its closure would terminate both business and aviation opportunities.”
How all that might come about is pretty sketchy.
But Gilliland is good at hyperbole:
Gitmo detainees at Ft. L “would have a profound effect on international military relations,” she claims.
Is that it? Stuff you make up?!
Whatever happened to all that flag-waving, teary-eyed-“God-Bless-America”-singing, yellow-ribbon-magnet-on-your-car displaying bluster of the past eight years? Isn’t this supposed to be a military town?
NIMBY!
[Addendum: Here's one "strategic analyst's" solution to the problem, from where else, our friends at FOX. Click here.]
