Have Terrorists Defeated Congress?

It's a tragedy seeing how utterly defeated and demoralized GOP leaders continue to writhe in fear of terrorists. Congressman John Boehner wails in near-trembling fear that closing the Gitmo prison is really a plan to "import terrorists" to the U.S.

The fact is hundreds of terrorists have been dealt with by the U.S. Justice system and have been in U.S. prisons for years. "According to data provided by Traci L. Billingsley, spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, federal facilities on American soil currently house 216 international terrorists and 139 domestic terrorists. Some of these miscreants have been locked up here since the early 1990s. None of them has escaped." (via Slate)

Another historical reality is that Tennessee kept thousands of Nazi POWs during World War 2 - and kept those prisoners according to Geneva Convention standards. The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture says:

"During the Second World War, Tennessee was home to eleven prisoner-of-war camps. Four were large installations. Camp Crossville was built on the site of an abandoned 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps work camp. Camp Forrest and Camp Campbell were existing army installations with extra space wherein prisoners were quartered. The Memphis Armed Service Forces Depot also housed prisoners, initially serving as a branch of a camp in Como, Mississippi.

Though nicknamed the "Jap Camp" by local residents, the Crossville camp actually contained only Italian and German prisoners. The first prisoners sent there included roughly 1,500 Germans, most of whom were veterans of General Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps."

Nationwide, hundreds of thousands of POWs were kept on U.S. soil during that war.

For leaders in our time to quake before terrorist groups shows a shocking lack of belief in our own strengths, our abilities to be problem-solvers. Recent polls have indicated about half of those surveyed likewise feel fear more than strength thanks to these self-defeating "leaders" - both Republicans and Democrats have failed to back the president's plan.

The goal of a terror organization is to create fear within an enemy the terrorists could never actually defeat. Too many in Washington have become defeated and that damages every citizen.