Terror Cells

Faced with the prospect of closing a state prison that provides some 350 jobs to area residents, the city council of tiny Standish, Mich., voted to support a resolution that makes the town a possible relocation site for suspected terrorists currently being detained at Guantanamo Bay.

Seems like only a few months ago the nation's fearmongers were denouncing proposals to shutter Gitmo and move the men being held at the prison to various maximum-security prisons around the US. We were told that moving the prisoners stateside would endanger Americans and turn the facilities into terrorist recruitment camps. The noise was so loud and effective, in fact, that President Obama, who pledged as a candidate to close Gitmo, is still struggling with the issue.

Not so commissioners in Arenac County, of which Standish is the county seat. They swiftly endorsed the idea of bringing the Gitmo prisoners to Standish Correctional Facility, which is slated to close to due budget cuts.  And while the Standish city council is decidedly less enthusiastic about the idea, it still unanimously backed the resolution that leaves open the possibility of detainee relocation to Standish. Seems a steadily worsening economy doesn't afford the luxury of waffling to local politicians charged with coping with the  harsh realities on the ground. The fool's gold of a prison-building boom in the 1990s in Michigan has done nothing to better the long-term circumstances of places like Standish, about 120 miles northwest of Detroit. And so a town of 1,200 residents is now struggling to make sure it can pay its bills and employ its citizens.

The sort of false alarms that cast ragtag rebels (and surely many innocents as well)  as super-villains straining at the bars of Arkham Asylum -- made by some of the same types who thought building all those prisons was a good idea -- is falling on deaf ears among many in Arenac County, same as other once-effective scare tactics no long work in other hard-hit municipalities. There, commissioners and councilmembers are making hard decisions and, in this case, offering an compellingly strong position relative to the President's less-than-smooth approach to Gitmo.

It'll be interesting to see if he will follow their lead, and how.