In my eerily prescient entry of 2008 I raised some questions about the added camp at Guantanamo that would be capable of holding 10,000 refugees (link to 2008 AP report via USA Today below),
“Before he finished his Guantanamo Bay visit and flew to Key West, Fla., Mullen got a look at a site on the eastern shore of Guantanamo Bay -- opposite the terrorist detention center -- where the U.S. military is building a new refugee camp that would be used in the event of a sudden, major influx of refugees in the area. Initially the camp will be designed to hold 10,000 refugees and is scheduled to be finished by June.”
I wondered
“To what "area" does this refer? Guantanamo? The US? The Caribbean? South America?
How are "refugees" assigned to Guantanamo as opposed to facilities on US soil?
Will Iraqi or other Mideast "refugees" be kept there?
Is a "sudden, major influx of refugees" to the defined area actually foreseen in the immediate future?
If a "sudden, major influx of refugees" is expected, on what evidence or plan is this expectation based?
Where are they expected to come from?
What are they expected to be fleeing? Repression? Sudden poverty? Natural or manmade disasters? War?
How was the number of "refugees" – "initially 10,000" -- calculated? “
link to full entry and questions http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2008/1/16/437745/-
link to 2008 AP story http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-01-13-1601498333_x.htm
I hope I was not so eerily prescient as to have foreseen a day when republicans would demand that mid-east refugees fleeing barbarities waged by armies of drug-crazed religious fanatics be sent to this perfectly good ‘refugee camp’ everyone forgot about until they had the magic number of 10,000 to make it a viable business, but as I also wrote:
“ Will this "refugee camp" serve some other purpose or merely stand empty if the "sudden, major influx of refugees" does not materialize and the camp is not eventually used to imprison Americans?
Who profits? What corporation has the no-bid contract for building and managing this "new refugee camp"? What are the tax arrangements on their offshore profits?”
I don’t say I expect the 10,000 refugees who won’t be arriving any time soon to wind up there. I do say I expect at least one Republican leader to suggest it.
After all, this ‘refugee center” has presumably been sitting empty for almost eight years — and the contractors are collecting their maintenance fees.
