Hardin, Montana: A City That Dreams of Being Guantanomo

It’s a brand new prison looking for prisoners. In Hardin, a city of 3,600 in Montana, officials believe they have found a clientele for their desperately empty prison: the current occupants of Guantanamo who await housing following the closure of the camp in January 2010.

The county is one of the poorest in the country. Thanks to its private prison, finished in 2007, the municipality hoped to create a hundred new jobs. But the local “market” did not keep its promises. No detainee has been sent either by the state or the government.

Thus, at the end of April, the municipal council of Hardin passed a resolution offering its services to replace Gitmo. Greg Smith, the man responsible for its development, asked that the security of the prison (which contains 464 beds) be updated to conform to the highest standards. Concerning [potential] escapes, he affirms that it won’t be a problem: there are no tall buildings [nearby] and the detainees will have problems merging themselves with a population that is 62% white and 32% American Indian.

Montana is one of the least densely populated states in America and the outcry was heard instantaneously by officials, comprised of two Democratic senators who are friends of the president. “Whether or not Barack Obama calls them ‘terrorists,’ that’s exactly what they are,” summarized Denny Rehberg, an elected official of the local assembly.

Irrational Reactions

Here in Montana, American politicians were hit with the “Not in My Backyard” syndrome as soon as they heard the name “Guantanamo.” In Virginia, Democrats and Republicans together opposed the arrival of detained Uighurs when they were declared innocent 4 years ago by the Pentagon, and the Muslim Chinese-American community is ready to welcome them. “A trained terrorist is a terrorist,” declared Republican representative Frank Wolf. “I am very critical when it comes to China, but I am not for [such] citizens blowing up the Olympic Games or attacking the Chinese population.”

Last week, President Obama attempted to calm these irrational reactions by reminding everyone that a number of dangerous individuals already find themselves in American prisons, notably the SuperMax ones; in Colorado, Ramzi Youssef, sentenced for the 1993 World Trade Center Attack; Richard Reid, the “Shoe Bomber”; Zacarias Moussaoui, the assumed 20th pilot, etc. Since then, the Democrats have promised to examine his plan when it becomes available.

The citizens of Hardin know the have few chances to win back the market. As he explained to “Time” magazine, George Lammers, the owner of Trading Post, the climate is hard on the plains and the wind terribly searing. For the detainees, now used to tropical temperatures, “would be torture for some of those boys.”