1. Guantanamo bay is unsettlingly close to south Florida--I don't know anything about this prison's security procedures, but it would seem to me that if an inmate was smart enough to escape, it might not take much more to get ahold of a small boat and get across the straights. I know that those who raise the NIMBY problem are professedly concerned about having terrorists in their backyard, but I would counter that Cuba is our backyard. A nice, remote location in the interior might be better.
2. Alaska is far away from most Americans, sparsely populated and very cold--Even if a prisoner could escape a supermax in Alaska, they would be very far away from our centers of population, and, depending on where it is in Alaska, might have to cover some very punishing terrain.
Yes, the more I think about it, the more attractive a supermax in Alaska becomes forthe housing of Guantanamo inmates. Of course, the Alaskans might not want them in their backyard, but that's fewer people being "inconvenienced" than anywhere else in the country. Also, it's yet another opportunity for them to get federal funding. Admittedly, this would also be a politically expedient solution for Obama, as Alaska has few electoral votes, and the Republicans will probably get them anyway (though I consider this, at most, an incidental dividend).
It seems like a winner all around.
P.S. I'm not, by this post, necessarily advocating that we indefinitley hold people without charging them. That is, of course, a separate issue that I have to give more thought.
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