LET US SAVE SOME BIG-BUCKS...CLOSE GITMO NOW!!!

The money the government spends on the terrorists at Guantanamo Bay demonstrates that money can be made available when it is a priority.

Guantanamo Bay is a travesty. With the national debt out of control, the US government can somehow cough up $81,000 for new televisions at Guantanamo Bay, while the civilian workers at the Pentagon were furloughed for 11 days without pay. Furthermore, the government is hiring instructors to teach the terrorists at Gitmo watercolor painting, Adobe Photoshop and Arabic calligraphy. The Pentagon has even asked the government for $450 million dollars to maintain and upgrade the facility.

These terrorist prisoners also enjoy the right to celebrate their “faith” in style. This year’s Eid dinner to mark the end of Ramadan at Guantanamo included lamb, bread, dates and honey, for people “truly deserving”, that is, terrorists who are enemies of the United States. But what’s a meal after all?

More disturbing are the revelations fromPaul Sperry’s New York Post article which quotes a Gitmo official stating that these terrorists are, “some of the most pampered prisoners on the planet.” This after President Obama expressed deep concern for the “poor” terrorists on hunger strike. Yet according to the article, even the detainees on a supposed hunger strike had gained weight from the excess food given to them. So the government ordered fitness equipment for them to work off some of that weight. Once the terrorists saw that the equipment was made in the US by “infidels” they protested, and the government ordered new equipment made in the Muslim world to appease those who want us dead.

They are given Qur’ans, prayer beads and rugs and have access to thousands of Islamic books which are only allowed to be touched by the Muslim librarian. Any guard who touches them could be fired. And the American flag is not allowed to be flown within sight of the prisoners. We went from waterboarding to a Muslim day spa.

(Reuters) - It's been dubbed the most expensive prison on Earth and President Barack Obama cited the cost this week as one of many reasons to shut down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, which burns through some $900,000 per prisoner annually.  The Pentagon estimates it spends about $150 million each year to operate the prison and military court system at the U.S. Naval Base in Cuba, which was set up 11 years ago to house foreign terrorism suspects. With 166 inmates currently in custody, that amounts to an annual cost of $903,614 per prisoner.  By comparison, super-maximum security prisons in the United States spend about $60,000 to $70,000 at most to house their inmates, analysts say. And the average cost across all federal prisons is about $30,000, they say.The huge cost of running the prison and judicial complex stem from its offshore location at a 45-square-mile U.S. Naval Base on the southeastern coast of Cuba. Because ties between the two countries are almost nonexistent, almost everything for the facilities has to be ferried in from outside.

When the military tribunals are in session, everyone from judges and lawyers to observers and media have to fly into Guantanamo on military aircraft. Food, construction materials and other goods are shipped in from outside, experts say.  Obama needs to produce a plan for what to do with the detainees at Guantanamo "who are too dangerous to release," Representative Buck McKeon, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in an opinion piece in USA Today this week. "Until a better solution is offered, at Guantanamo they must stay," he wrote Among current inmates, nine have been charged with crimes or convicted, 24 are considered eligible for possible prosecution, 86 have been cleared for transfer or release and 47 are considered too dangerous for release but are not facing prosecution.

But until now, worries about security have prevented the idea of transferring some or all of the inmates to the United States from getting much traction.  Obama pledged to close the prison within a year after first taking office in January 2009 but his efforts ran aground, partly because of congressional opposition, from both Republicans and some in his own Democratic Party, to transferring prisoners to the United States.  Inmates started a hunger strike in February that has swelled to some 100 prisoners and has led to force-feeding of 23 of the prisoners. With the camp back under a critical spotlight, Obama told a news conference on Tuesday he would renew efforts to shut it down. He has an array of options, some of which would be more achievable than others. Gude said it was difficult to figure out how much the United States has spent overall on Guantanamo detention facilities since it began housing prisoners there in 2002 because administrations only recently have been noting the expense in a budget line item.

"I don't know if I've ever seen an estimate but it is certainly more than $1 billion by a comfortable margin, I would say, probably more than $2 billion," Gude said.