Olson Struts and Frets His Hour Upon the Stage

Wow. Pete Olson, my congressman, is certainly turning into a “poor player,” isn’t he?

Today, out comes a story in FortBendNow about how Pete Olson has signed a letter to President Obama, with 19 others of his ilk, the Texas Republican delegation to Congress.

And one US Senator.

It seems that they have an axe to grind with the President.

Their beef?

It seems they are afraid that if Obama closes the illegal prison at Guantanamo and brings the accused terrorists to US soil in general and Texas soil in particular, those prisons will become a terrorist target.

No, really. That’s what they think.

“Any terrorist detention center in the United States will immediately become a target. It is because of these risks that Guantanamo was opened in the first place and that is the way it should stay.”

No wait, it gets better.

“‘Granting such (constitutional) rights to these dangerous enemy combatants could potentially lead to their release into the towns and cities of Texas,’ the congressional members said. ‘We refuse to accept that outcome, which would put innocent Texans in great danger, and we will do everything we can to prevent it from happening’”

And I guess part of “everything we can” is to publish a letter that brings fear and dread to people. Dick Cheney is out of office, so I guess someone has to step in and fill the “fear and dread void” that he left behind. And I guess it takes 20 Republicans to fill that vast void.

But that first one, the thing about making prisons terrorist targets, that’s a little too much to take. The reason I say this is that it is the MO of terrorists to strike at the innocent. To strike at the unarmed.

In prisons, the guards have guns.

Yes they do.

And despite the fact that the guns are usually trained inward, I see no reason why they cannot turn around and shoot outward. I think the terrorists can figure that out, too.

But maybe the real reason that Olson and his compadres are concerned with the possibility of dumping terrorists in Texas prisons is a practical consideration. If Barack Obama does one day close Guantanamo, and he has said he would, do you think he will want to bring the prisoners to a state that helped get him elected or a state that didn’t?

If Obama wants another term, do you think he would deliver these terrorists to the Federal Correction Institution at Terminal Island, California, or to the Federal Correctional Institution at Bastrop, Texas?

Actually, since Texas is about to go purple, and the Obama camp knows this, I think Pete and his fearful friends can probably relax if this is what concerns them. More likely than not, some place like the Federal Correctional Institution at Morgantown, West Virginia would be getting these people.

Or maybe the one in Safford, Arizona.