I never knew terrorists were better off than actual hard working civilians. Certainly a great reason to shut down Guantanamo, even though there were many reasons to close it anyway.

I'm sure America would be a far better place if it ended it's $700 billion military budget. A lot of domestic areas of spending have been ignored for far too long.

Where do you get that from this?

They aren't better off... it's just expensive as fuck to run an out of the coutnry maxium dentention center for terrorists.

There are ~160 prisoenors there.

For those 160 prisoners they have 2,000 employees from  guards, interegators, cooks, janitors, doctors, pscyiatrists not to mention the higher ups... and since these guys are military you can't just include their military salaries and healthcare but also have to include their various benefits.

Then you throw in the fact that the soldiers eat for free, have paid entertainment, housing costs, utilities.

Basically these guards get paid a full salary, free healthcare, free living arrangements, free food, free entertainment... etc.

Throw in stuff like....

•  $14.1 million for prisoner review boards for the 71 captives at Guantánamo who are currently not cleared for release, convicted of crimes or awaiting trial;

•  $40 million, already appropriated by Congress for a not-yet-built fiber-optic cable linking the base to Florida;

•  $56.9 million for contractors, including intelligence analysts, librarians and linguists;

•  $65.9 million to the Navy base, which functions as a landlord to the detention center zone, and charges for use of its facilities, including prison staff housing;

•  $116 million for the base’s war court complex, including security, translation and computer services as well as charter fights between Washington and Guantánamo.

It adds up fast.

It's nowhere near as much a waste of money as the War on Drugs is.

Pennies.  Chump change.

and in america we have more prisoners than the entire world combine because its a for profit business

words matter. liberties matter. virtues matter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b8ZibqrH3k

if americans don't believe in the judicial system created by terrorists washington, franklin, revere, adams, jefferson, payne, hancock, et al.. then why don't we create a new constitution with no rights for any. That would save a lot of money! We could detain indefinately right here on our own land!

agree. but with the magic of inflation we can afford it all.

We need to go back to our conservative roots and ship them to Australia.

We need to cut senseless spending. But don't take as defense budget. If we cut the useless spending our defense budget wouldn't be problematic.

First off.  Recorded number of prisoners.  I'd guess you'd find a number of countries have us beat by them selves in actuality.  Eaisest example is China who's numbers don't count reducation slave camps, political prisoners, and many other types of people locked up for "administrative" reasons.

The Slave camps alone almost match the US prison population.

Secondly... not sure what that has to do with Gitmo... which is run and maintained by the government... at an obvious loss.