Description

We are at the 11th hour. If we don’t stop the Gitmo detainees from coming to our shores, from being relocated here to Michigan, we will have turned a corner from which there is no turning back. For years, it seemed our country was fighting the war on terror in some distant theater of operations “over there.” Well now the stage has been moved to a theater right here in our own backyard…and for many in Michigan, our front yards!
We are sounding the alarm because you should be alarmed.
Standish, now cited as the likeliest town to house the Gitmo detainees, is not Guantanamo Bay and Michigan is hardly Cuba. If you’ve ever been to Standish, you know it is not the hardened, isolated fortification within a fortification that Gitmo is, a 45-square-mile base buffered on one side by ocean and on the other by 17 miles of fence, over which on the Cuban side is a minefield. Standish Maximum Security Prison is tucked right into the community, next to farms, homes, businesses, churches and schools. It is one minute off of I-75, gateway to our northern tourist destinations. It is wedged between major population centers, in close proximity to Flint, Midland’s Dow Chemical with some 40 plants and 5000 employees on site, the Detroit metro area, the bridge and tunnel to Canada, and the Mackinac Bridge.
Moving to Michigan the Gitmo detainees, including the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks and the abduction/beheading of Daniel Pearl, poses untold security, economic and legal risks --- threats recognized by communities across the US which have acted to stop the detainees from being located to their states.