Guantanamo On The Moon
Wolfram Donat
November 01, 2005
(Washington) – The Bush administration today announced a bold new relocation plan for the inmates currently being held at the Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba. “Basically,” said White House spokesman Scott McClellan, “we’re going to send them to the moon.”
Elaborating further, he outlined plans currently being formed to create a sort of penal colony on the moon, a safe place to hold terrorism suspects.
All this is made possible by NASA’s recent discovery, using the Hubble orbiting telescope, that there are vast deposits of oxygen-bearing minerals on the moon’s surface, making it logistically much simpler to sustain a long-term colony there. Although the technology and funding might still be years away, that doesn’t faze the current administration. “We have no plans to ever release any of the prisoners in their natural lifetimes, so we can afford to wait for NASA to iron out the details,” said McClellan, speaking at a press conference held yesterday on Capitol Hill.
Critics immediately voiced their opposition to the program, citing, among other things, inmates’ inability to obtain legal representation when they are 230,000 miles away. McClellan was unfazed, however. “We’re not giving them access to lawyers now, so what’s the difference? Heck, we’re not even charging them with anything.”
The Guantanamo Bay facility currently houses about 500 detainees, many of whom have never been charged with a crime or given the opportunity to seek legal counsel. Many critics maintain that the reason the prison is kept on foreign soil is that it takes the occupants out of the Constitution’s jurisdiction, thus allowing them to be held captive indefinitely.
The plan to send the prisoners to the moon is reminiscent of Australia’s early days, when England formed a penal colony there, thus making convicts the first non-aboriginal inhabitants of that continent. Some scientists are expressing discomfort at the thought of sending untrained “enemy combatants” to a lunar base, but the president’s scientific advisors maintain that the plan is entirely safe and workable. During the press conference, McClellan repeated several times that every step would be taken to keep the inhabitants safe. When pressed, however, he did admit that some risk remained but that it was acceptable.
Let’s face it,” he said. “These people are all unsavory characters or they wouldn’t be in our custody. If anything should happen to them, who’s going to miss them?”
Elaborating further, he outlined plans currently being formed to create a sort of penal colony on the moon, a safe place to hold terrorism suspects.
All this is made possible by NASA’s recent discovery, using the Hubble orbiting telescope, that there are vast deposits of oxygen-bearing minerals on the moon’s surface, making it logistically much simpler to sustain a long-term colony there. Although the technology and funding might still be years away, that doesn’t faze the current administration. “We have no plans to ever release any of the prisoners in their natural lifetimes, so we can afford to wait for NASA to iron out the details,” said McClellan, speaking at a press conference held yesterday on Capitol Hill.
Critics immediately voiced their opposition to the program, citing, among other things, inmates’ inability to obtain legal representation when they are 230,000 miles away. McClellan was unfazed, however. “We’re not giving them access to lawyers now, so what’s the difference? Heck, we’re not even charging them with anything.”
The Guantanamo Bay facility currently houses about 500 detainees, many of whom have never been charged with a crime or given the opportunity to seek legal counsel. Many critics maintain that the reason the prison is kept on foreign soil is that it takes the occupants out of the Constitution’s jurisdiction, thus allowing them to be held captive indefinitely.
The plan to send the prisoners to the moon is reminiscent of Australia’s early days, when England formed a penal colony there, thus making convicts the first non-aboriginal inhabitants of that continent. Some scientists are expressing discomfort at the thought of sending untrained “enemy combatants” to a lunar base, but the president’s scientific advisors maintain that the plan is entirely safe and workable. During the press conference, McClellan repeated several times that every step would be taken to keep the inhabitants safe. When pressed, however, he did admit that some risk remained but that it was acceptable.
Let’s face it,” he said. “These people are all unsavory characters or they wouldn’t be in our custody. If anything should happen to them, who’s going to miss them?”
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